CARDS on the table time. My exposure to Match of the Day is catching the last two minutes of the Sunday morning repeat while waiting for Marr to start at 9am (it’s a rock-and-roll lifestyle, to be sure).
Even so, I’ve seen enough to know that Ian Wright is the best thing on it. Warm, funny, informed and informative, “Wrighty”, like Lineker, was a footballer who turned out to be a TV natural.
It is a very different man on show in Ian Wright: Home Truths (BBC1, Thursday, 9pm). “You might know me best as a footballer,” says the presenter by way of an introduction. Over the course of the next hour, Wright relates what it was like to grow up in a violent home and how the experience continues to affect his life.
He talks to others who suffered physical and emotional abuse, as well as looking at pioneering new schemes to help families in crisis.
It is not the first time Wright has spoken about his past. Indeed, it was an appearance last year on Desert Island Discs that prompted the making of this documentary, and he has written an autobiography, My Life in Football.
That was radio (though intensely emotional radio) and print, though. This time, before the cameras, is a more up close and personal affair.
Wright grew up in London with a violent stepfather, a mother who was a victim of violence and who in turn was abusive to Ian, and two brothers. The whole family lived in one room, so there was no escaping what was going on.
One of the most harrowing segments of the film follows Wright as he returns to that room, now part of a smartly turned out family home.
Although a tough watch at times, Home Truths is ultimately a positive film showing how far society has come in dealing with domestic abuse. It is no longer ignored or accepted as somehow the norm, as was the way when Wright was growing up in the 1970s.
But he also shows how far there is still to go. In the past year, 1.6 million women in the UK experienced domestic abuse, and in 90% of cases there was a child present.
There is an extraordinary, and true, tale to be told in Killing Escobar (BBC Scotland, Tuesday, 10pm). First shown at the Glasgow Film Festival earlier this year, this account of a Scottish mercenary’s plan to kill Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar is a thrilling blend of dramatic reconstruction, footage from the time and the contributions of talking heads ranging from fellow soldiers to ex-members of Escobar’s security team. At the centre of it all is Glasgow-born Peter McAleese, the man with the plan.
In many ways his is the depressingly familiar story of man handing down misery to man, in his case a violent father.
McAleese, brought up near Barlinnie (where his dad served time) went from a troubled home into the Army where he found another family.
After a long career including time with the SAS, he was out on Civvy Street again. Unable to settle into civilian life he became a mercenary, fighting in Rhodesia, Angola and South Africa. The life eventually led him to the Escobar job.
At first it is hard to get a handle on both McAleese and the film in general. The swaggering, bragging tone is uncomfortably off at times, as though being a mercenary was a grand old job if you were tough enough. I doubt the people they encountered in battle had any admiration for them.
The longer the piece goes on, however, more layers of the story are peeled back and a more complex and nuanced film emerges.
Even then we are looking at just part of the picture. Only McAleese and his sister feature, and she speaks in his defence. It would have been fascinating to hear from others in his family, but that perhaps is another film for another day.
Okay, people, gather round for a briefing. We are nearly there, and in a few days it will all be over bar the shouting and punditry. It has been a funny old election, has it not? Much of the usual cut and thrust has been missing in what has turned out to be a socially distanced election for the pandemic times.
With so many intending to vote by post, and the count itself not taking place till the day after, election day and night will feel differently too, with results and analysis having to wait till the Friday (Election 2021 Scotland, BBC1, noon and 6.30pm; STV News Election Special, 4pm and 8pm).
There is one more TV stop before the big day itself, Election Scotland 2021: Leaders’ Debate (BBC Scotland, Tuesday, 7.50pm). This is the final get-together and the second BBC debate. See you on the other side of it all.
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