DOMINEERING father, warring children, family empire in the balance and billions at stake. Anyone watching The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty (BBC2, Tuesday, above) could be forgiven for thinking they have stumbled upon the original source material for Sky Atlantic’s searing drama Succession, led by Brian Cox. I couldn’t possibly comment. Or at least not without a team of lawyers present.
This three part look at the closest thing the media has to a royal family opens on Hayman Island in Australia. It is July 1995. Murdoch executives are gathering from all corners of his media empire, newspapers, film, and television, for one of the company’s special retreats at which the future of the business is discussed. It’s a big deal.
Also present is one Tony Blair, new, youthful leader of the Labour Party. Murdoch’s papers have traditionally made life hell for Labour leaders, yet here’s Tony rocking up to the feast. A Bambi to the slaughter, no less.
But Tony knows what he is doing, or thinks he does. He needs to get Murdoch on side if he is to stand a chance of becoming Prime Minister, and if that means flying halfway across the world and playing nice, then he’ll do it.
As his lieutenant Alastair Campbell explains, it’s rather like having a wild dog in the room. Better to keep the hound in one corner where you can see it than have it roaming around.
Campbell is one of many talking heads turning up to have their say. There are the usual suspects, including Piers Morgan, and some not so usual ones, such as Les Hinton, who worked for Murdoch for 52 years and surely knows a thing or two besides what has already gone into his memoirs. Whether he will divulge it is another matter.
The same goes for this glossy series, which is not the first and won’t be the last attempt to look behind the curtain at the Murdoch empire. So far, “Rupe” has resisted giving much away.
Right, tarot cards on the table time. I’m not going abroad this year and neither, probably, are you. No Hayman Island and its luxurious resort for us. You can still get that five star-plus hotel fix, though, in Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby (BBC2, Tuesday).
Giles Coren, restaurant reviewer and columnist, and co-presenter Monica Galetti, a chef, head to the MGM Cotai Hotel in the Chinese city of Macau. This, not Las Vegas, is the gambling capital of the world, and the only place in China that it is legal to gamble.
It’s the usual drill: the duo interview the staff, management and architects, and try their hands at various jobs, with Galetti at home in the kitchen and Coren not so at home with flower arranging. While the hotels in this show always live up to their billing in the title, often the most fascinating part is seeing behind the scenes. Such is the size of the MGM, staff have access to what is more or less a small town underground, complete with a McDonald’s.
But then everything about this place is vast, from a lobby that is the size of a football pitch to the penthouse suites (£340 a night, a relative bargain) set over two floors. See for yourself whether you would feel at home there. I’m still dreaming of Arran.
Paul O’Grady is at once the best and worst host of any show involving dogs. In almost every episode of Paul O’Grady: For the Love of Dogs (STV, Wednesday), he swings like a trapeze artist between high and low, crying and laughing in equal measure. Many viewers do the same, though I have also been known to come out with some shocking language if a tale of cruelty and abandonment is told.
Subtitled “back in business” this hour-long episode revisits Battersea Dogs & Cats Home when it was all hands and paws on deck. Coronavirus has struck, the lockdown is coming, and homes have to be found pronto. Will O’Grady selflessly put his icy disdain for dogs aside and take a little someone home himself? If you have watched him being caught with canine contraband every week you will know that’s a joke. Who will be the lucky dog, though?
The Other One (BBC1, Friday, 9pm) comes to the end of its first run. A comedy about about the two families of one man, neither of whom knew about the other till the day he died, has been one of the sleeper hits of a strange summer – funny, surprising, and really rather moving, as the best comedy should be.
The premise may not have been all that original, but the writing by Holly Walsh and Pippa Brown has been top drawer, and the performances from the mainly female cast have been more than a match. Early in the year as it is, let’s ask Santa for a second series.
The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty (BBC2, Tuesday, 9pm); Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby (BBC2, Tuesday, 8pm); Paul O’Grady: For the Love of Dogs (STV, Wednesday, 8pm); The Other One (BBC1, Friday, 9pm)
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