Colin from Accounts (BBC Two) | iPlayer
In Vogue: The 90s (Disney+)
Trump: Should We Be Scared? (Channel 4) | channel4.com
Trump vs Harris: The US Presidential Debate (Channel 4) | channel4.com
Grand Designs: 25 Years & Counting (Channel 4) | channel4.com
So here’s the recipe for modern TV comedy success: a disabled dog on wheels called Colin; a guy who makes unpalatable artisan beer; a younger trainee doctor who meets him by cheekily flashing her boob in the street, then proceeds to block the loo… Does anyone want to try to focus group that?
All the above (and of course, spoiler alert, the couple falling in love with each other, and the dog) went into the first series of the universally acclaimed Australian comedy Colin from Accounts (BBC Two), written by and starring real-life husband and wife Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer, and mainly based in Sydney.
Now back for a second eight-part series, Brammall and Dyer, as Gordon and Ash, make a great (loving, bickering) central couple. This time they’ve gone from will they/won’t they? to ongoing gooiness, albeit laced with end-of-the-honeymoon-period qualms (there’s panic, early on, at losing the relationship glue of Colin – soon resolved). Elsewhere, much of the magic lies in the ensemble playing, from the gallery of benign losers working at Gordon’s bar to Ash’s eccentric mother (Helen Thomson), who this series strides forth evangelically with her protest group, Women Against Women Against Men.
More characters swirl into the Colin vortex, such as Gordon’s appalling, Kath and Kim-adjacent family, featuring brother Heavy (Justin Rosniak), who hears that Chiara (Genevieve Hegney) is a lesbian (“So just completely gone off solids?”). The episode about visiting Gordon’s family is a comedy masterclass, but then so is the terrible dinner with Ash’s friend Megan (Emma Harvie)’s new pretentious hipster girlfriend (Virginia Gay). Other great moments include a (hyper-fleeting) cameo from Kevin Bacon, and scenes that address everything from boozy lunches to masturbation etiquette to wisdom teeth removal, even touching on death and grief. The result is tight, sharp, witty, naughty and strange. The second season of Colin from Accounts is that rare follow-up that isn’t just as good as the first – it’s better.
Minutes into Disney+’s new six-part series on Vogue magazine, In Vogue: The 90s, its famously austere global editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, who joined US Vogue 36 years ago, refuses to remove her sunglasses for filming (“No, I’m going to wear them”). There she sits as per, resembling a power-bobbed praying mantis in a series of long frocks that give off “Park Avenue Amish”.
Ooh, I think, this could be spicy. Sadly, it isn’t. The programme evolves into a bland advertorial for Vogue, with the 90s tossed in (supermodels, grunge, “heroin chic”, Madonna, Princess Diana). There’s a stellar roster of interviewees: Vogue editors and insiders; models (Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista); designers (Donna Karan, Stella McCartney); celebrities (Gwyneth Paltrow, Missy Elliott, Nicole Kidman, Sarah Jessica Parker, Victoria Beckham). I love to imagine some of them despairing at getting the Wintour summons to appear (“How can I get out of this?”). It must feel like haute couture jury service.
Still, this is a docuseries that delivers on unintentional hilarity. Designer Tom Ford sports stubble that looks felt-tipped on. Marc Jacobs wears a parka so huge it appears to be ingesting him. Kim Kardashian is styled like a bedraggled emo kid who’s just been crying in the nightclub loos about her boyfriend. There’s loads about how everyone feels so blessed and grateful to have their very existences acknowledged by Wintour and Vogue. In fact, there’s so much mwah-mwah-ing and sucking up, it verges on unhygienic.
Towards the end, there’s an interesting detour into hip-hop’s influence on global style and how former British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful ushered in black culture (no mention of the magazine’s long history of shunning black models for covers – although, in fairness, it was far from alone in that). There’s also a tribute to Alexander McQueen, who died in 2010. In a rare outbreak of insubordination, a clip reveals the British designer cackling about Wintour not being able to get into one of his shows. In the main, though, In Vogue: The 90s is flat, glossy and ChatGPT-level dull.
In Trump: Should We Be Scared? (Channel 4), Matt Frei travels to the US to demonstrate why we probably should. Opening with footage of Trump fist-pumping after the assassination attempt in July, it’s the familiar barrage: anti-immigration, anti-abortion rights, anti-Nato, pro-Putin and the rest. As former White House adviser Fiona Hill says to Frei: “Trump is a very canny politician. He can tap into people’s sense of grievance.”
The documentary is interesting, albeit inevitably overshadowed by Trump’s subsequent performance in Trump vs Harris: The US Presidential Debate (broadcast later, live in the early hours of Wednesday morning, on the same channel). Never mind that the ex-president is starting to look seriously ropey (what’s the fake tan shade he’s using now – Stewed Teabag?), his claims have become ever more deranged (US immigrants eat cats and dogs?). He was also firmly owned by Harris about his inability to accept the presidential election defeat in 2020 (“Trump was fired by 81 million people… And, clearly, he’s having a very difficult time processing that”). Dare we start to dream?
Staying with Channel 4, Grand Designs: 25 Years & Counting marks an impressive anniversary for the show about the UK’s most audacious home self-builders. Who are these people? Why do they do it? I freak out when I buy a new bin for the kitchen.
Yet here they are, doggedly poring over architectural plans, trudging towards chaos and disaster in hard hats (at least one marriage collapsed under the strain). Presenter Kevin McCloud (“You need to be born without fear!”) reminds us of some of the biggest, fastest and weirdest projects over the years, including sites in caves, airfields and graveyards. And the family whose bath pulls out from under a bed.
Oddly, the more salubrious the construction, the more likely it is to leave you a little cold. It’s more interesting to see the 10 families from the first series, in 1999, who formed the Hedgehog co-op to build their own street in Bevendean, East Sussex. Or the home that resembles an architectural button mushroom. That’s the structural secret of Grand Designs: British eccentricity writ large in trowelfuls of cement.
Star ratings (out of five)
Colin from Accounts ★★★★★
In Vogue: The 90s ★★
Trump: Should We Be Scared? ★★★
Grand Designs: 25 Years & Counting ★★★
What else I’m watching
In My Own Words: Alison Lapper
(BBC One)
Artist and disability activist Alison Lapper was immortalised while pregnant as a statue in Trafalgar Square in 2005. In this moving documentary, she talks candidly about life, art and the death of her 19-year-old son.
Mr Bates vs the Post Office: The Impact
(ITVX)
A hard-hitting documentary updating the real-life story behind the hit Post Office drama that aired at the beginning of the year.
The Grand Tour: One for the Road
(Amazon Prime Video)
It’s the final drive for the petrolhead trio (Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond), formerly of Top Gear. Embarking on one last trip to Zimbabwe, they say an emotional goodbye.
