Feud: Truman Capote vs the Swans (Disney+)
Danny Dyer: How to Be a Man (Channel 4)
Blue Lights (BBC One)
Dinosaur (BBC Three/BBC One)
Who’s up for watching an author fall out with spoiled New York high society women for eight hours straight? American Crime Story showrunner Ryan Murphy’s first Feud series (2017) drew on the enmity between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. This time, Feud: Truman Capote vs the Swans (Disney+), based on Capote’s Women by Laurence Leamer, focuses on how a 1975 magazine extract of Capote’s unfinished novel, Answered Prayers, exposed the squalid secrets of his well-heeled gal pals (the “swans”). The upshot depicted here: they ice him out of their inner circle, as if sloughing off an unsightly wart. Condemned to social death, Capote slides into alcoholic decline.
Written by Jon Robin Baitz, Feud is mainly directed by Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting; Milk). Tom Hollander is first rate as Capote: catty, whinnying, droll, tottering around, paunch first, like a shade-throwing Winnie-the-Pooh. While Capote is the swans’ confidante (a key theme is how he shatters the solidarity between gay men and straight women), he’s aware of their othering and homophobia (“We’re like pomeranians to them”). He’s also pointedly sexual, picking up his abusive lover (Russell Tovey) in a bathhouse and offering a handyman oral sex.
The swans huddle in plumed glory at their fine dining HQ, La Côte Basque (the title of the offending book extract). Naomi Watts, never better, plays Capote’s favourite, the glacial, beleaguered Wasp goddess Babe Paley. Chloë Sevigny is the good-hearted socialite CZ Guest; Diane Lane and Calista Flockhart play Slim Keith and Lee Radziwill (Jackie Kennedy’s sister), the Manhattan mean girls who withhold forgiveness (“We stand united and we destroy him”). With additional star power (Demi Moore, Jessica Lange, Molly Ringwald) twinkling in the mix, what more could anyone ask for?
Well, some structure would be nice. The explosive extract (published in Esquire magazine) is dealt with in the opener, which, looking ahead, leaves seven meandering, woozy episodes of set pieces, time-hopping, failed rapprochements, a somewhat overplayed motif (cue a mystical swan gliding around in a bathtub). There are also longwinded diversions, some entirely dreamed up for the series, including James Baldwin (Chris Chalk) giving Capote a marathon pep talk. In reality, the writers weren’t pally; wouldn’t it have been more fitting to feature Capote’s real-life estranged friend, Harper Lee, or even his arch enemy, Gore Vidal?
This relentless circling threatens to derail the drama’s central themes: ageing, envy, shame, addiction, bigotry, writerly ruthlessness and fear of irrelevance (“It’s finally happened… I’ve gone out of style”). On so many levels, Feud is delicious: a high-camp dessert trolley of malice, melodrama and pathos. I just worry it may try your patience.
On Channel 4, the two-part docuseries Danny Dyer: How to Be a Man explores 21st-century masculinity. While not abandoning his blokeish persona (“Channel 4 bunged me a few quid to travel the country talking to geezers”), the actor and presenter embarks on a hectic, jumbled tour taking in toxic masculinity (as exemplified by Andrew Tate), male victims of domestic violence, male suicide statistics, the Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus, men’s retreats and more.
While far from stupid, Dyer has the analytical depth of a cat-litter tray, and keeps getting into anguished conceptual tangles (Men have had a “good run… with pay and shit”; “feminism is an important fucking cause… but it’s suppressing men”, and so on). His occasional paranoia about angering women’s groups (big feminism objecting to his investigations, or something) seems misplaced when the documentary’s real problem is its shallow approach to complexity.
There’s gold along the way (a sincere conversation between Dyer and his brother about their different ways of coping with their macho east London upbringing; a boxing gym’s role in boosting mental health) but it’s all too brief. Dyer is blessed with the kind of charm that makes people open up, but it’s wasted here.
Blue Lights, Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson’s Belfast-set drama about police trainees, was one of the BBC’s breakthrough hits of 2023. Well observed, authentically performed, with the Troubles still swirling in the mists, it ended on a juddering note of tragedy.
Series two is set a year on. Jen (Hannah McClean) is retraining as a solicitor (and exploring a certain historical bombing case). There’s an ambitious (potentially slippery?) new officer (Frank Blake). And of course there are our regular “peelers”, played by, among others, Siân Brooke, Martin McCann, Nathan Braniff and Katherine Devlin.
As before, they switch on the lights and the sirens, bicker about snacks and shrug on protective clothing. It’s business as usual (robberies, disturbances, turf battles), until it isn’t (spoiler alert), with segues into assisted death, and a charismatic former army man (Seamus O’Hara) leading a loyalist criminal gang with messianic zeal.
Blue Lights thrives at the delicate junction between harsher-than-harsh reality and soft humanity, but with the overriding credo that life comes at you fast: one moment there’s love, attraction, friendly advice (“You need a ride”); the next, it’s all blood, fire, chauvinism (“You need to put a muzzle on that”) and bullets through the patrol car back window. While inevitably this second outing doesn’t feel quite so unexpected, Blue Lights continues to be big, brutal and vivid.
It’s off to Glasgow for Matilda Curtis and Ashley Storrie’s new six-part comedy Dinosaur. Storrie plays Nina, a thirtysomething palaeontologist whose tight bond with her sister Evie (Kat Ronney) is threatened after Evie becomes engaged to Ranesh (Danny Ashok) after only six weeks. Nina’s unbridled scorn (“You’ve had thrush that’s lasted longer than six weeks”) also comes from anxieties caused by her autism (Storrie is herself autistic).
Dinosaur covers the wedding run-up (chaotic dress fittings; messy hen soirees). However, it’s really about Nina adjusting to change (“If he comes between me, you and Taylor Swift being friends…”). While neurodiverse themes are explored, they’re just presented as part of Nina’s wider world, which includes a sweet, clumsy connection with a coffee-stand barista (Lorn Macdonald).
The show sometimes skips too lightly through potentially deeper moments that could have lent it more grit and substance. Still, it has a cracking ensemble (including David Carlyle, Ben Rufus Green and Sabrina Sandhu), a script stuffed with irreverence and mischief, and an acid-witted, stereotype-busting gem in Nina.
Star ratings (out of five)
Feud: Truman Capote Versus the Swans ★★★
Danny Dyer: How to Be a Man ★★
Blue Lights ★★★★
Dinosaur ★★★
What else I’m watching
Big Zuu Goes to Mecca
(BBC Two)
The engaging Zuhair “Big Zuu” Hassan (of the Bafta-winning food show Big Zuu’s Big Eats) embarks on a fascinating Ramadan (Umrah) pilgrimage to Mecca to explore his Muslim faith.
Fallout
(Amazon Prime Video)
Another startling dystopian video game adaptation (a la The Last of Us). Two centuries after nuclear annihilation, a young woman from a sheltered underground community is forced above ground. Starring Ella Purnell and Kyle MacLachlan.
60 Songs: BBC Two at 60
(BBC Two)
Happy 60th birthday to BBC Two. To make the occasion, a stirring 60-song, four-hour music odyssey will feature performances from the archives.
