Succession (Sky Atlantic/Now)
The Gallows Pole (BBC Two) | iPlayer
Changing Ends (ITVX)
University Challenge (BBC Two) | iPlayer
The good news is that Succession didn’t choke. The feature-length finale of Jesse Armstrong’s award-garlanded, 39-episode, four-series opus didn’t succumb to last episode performance anxiety. It didn’t trail off or descend into weirdness. Still, it’s over, kaput (be warned, spoilergeddon ahead). The Murdochs (the inspo-Roys) must be relieved, but what about the rest of us?
Bereft though devotees are, pity the younger Roy “kids” – Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook), Roman (Kieran Culkin) – who, at the final reckoning, watched perma-manoeuvring “pain sponge” Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) soak up the bin juice that passed for Lukas Matsson’s soul and emerge the CEO victor.
Here was a finale that felt akin to boardroom Shakespeare (swirling secrets; seized lapels). Also, the sense of a double clap back: to Trumpian, quasi-fascist, post-truth political/media mores, but also to elite privilege. Mired in inadequacy, the Roys’ succession birthright was exposed as the fakest news of all. You saw it in Roman’s ashen face (“We are bullshit”); in Kendall’s zombie pacing by the water; in Shiv’s hand as it sagged into Tom’s palm in the car. Their entire lives had been a “daddy issue” sugar rush and here, finally, was the comedown.
Killed off audaciously early in season four, Logan (Brian Cox) was relegated to a singsong on a video, but in essence he was everywhere, from the grim dual chokehold of extreme wealth and dynasty, to the chimera of global corporate integrity – not forgetting the Saks Fifth Avenue barbarity of his children as they savaged and negged each other. Logan, the Medea of TV patriarchs, would have been proud not to be proud.
There were niggles (would Shiv truly have shanked K-dog?). And my heart shattered more during the previous episode, at Logan’s funeral, watching a broken, stammering Roman fail to “dad it”. Culkin is a shoo-in for an Emmy, but it’s all been brilliant. For those who found Succession’s constant machine gunning of one-liners “unrealistic”, it wasn’t aiming to be a documentary. The show has long joined the ranks of era-defining TV (The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad et al), and aside from all the plaudits and cultural hoo-hah, I’m quite simply going to miss it.
Over on BBC Two, new three-part Shane Meadows drama The Gallows Pole is a sharp yank back to the cost of living crisis, 18th-century style. Inspired by Benjamin Myers’s 2017 novel, it’s about the real-life Yorkshire Cragg Vale Coiners: textile workers starved by industrialisation, who, led by “King” David Hartley (Michael Socha), almost destabilised the economy with coin counterfeiting.
Few modern dramatists stick their necks out like Meadows (This Is England) when it comes to giving working-class people not only a voice (he is his generation’s Alan Bleasdale), but a shot. Here, new faces appear among Meadows regulars including Socha and Thomas Turgoose. There’s also Sophie McShera (Downton Abbey’s Daisy) as Hartley’s pugnacious wife, who is unimpressed as he staggers back, wounded, after years of absence.
The Gallows Pole is replete with the director’s signature themes (class, poverty, ingenuity), but over the course of the three hours there are issues. While the actors appear in period costume, the naturalistic modern dialogue seems baggier than in Meadows’s contemporary dramas; improvised banter drags on for what feels like the entire 18th century. Filler scenes (collecting money; coin trimming) also grind on, destroying impetus. Bizarrely, the series ends as the first serious batch of gold appears (and where Myers’s book is supposed to begin), giving the impression of a truncated prequel.
Still, I like Socha’s swaggering performance – all bearded, hot-eyed, “bad bastard” damnation. The characters are gobby and grubby (no Insta-friendly Bridgerton styling here), and the wild pastoral meets acid house meets psychedelic soundtrack refuses to behave itself. Humour runs throughout like a dark, bubbling river, particularly in those scenes when Hartley banters with mystical figures the Stag Men (his subconscious or his conscience?): “Which way am I heading, boys, up or down?” In some ways I finished The Gallows Pole as confused as when I started, but if you’re after a genuinely non-formulaic period drama, here it is.
On ITVX, Changing Ends is the new six-part comedy from comic/presenter Alan Carr and writer Simon Carlyle (Two Doors Down). Based on Carr’s 1980s upbringing in Northampton as the son of fourth division football manager, Graham (Shaun Dooley), and supportive mum, Christine (Nancy Sullivan), it stars Oliver Savell (Belfast) as young Alan, who’s already camp or, as a nasty neighbour observes, “half rice, half chips”.
With Carr himself lurking, Ladhood-style, Changing Ends emerges as a comedy of colliding worlds that’s also a love letter to his parents. Young Alan is a “social pariah” at school (“For every pube I gained, I lost a friend”). He joins a football match he likens to Rio carnival “put through a boil wash”. When his father says not unkindly: “I don’t think you know what normal is”, Carr’s voiceover cuts in: “Hey, snowflakes, this was therapy, 80s-style.”
Changing Ends clearly wants to avoid being angst-ridden, but there’s a dark thread here involving historical homophobia towards a spirited, vulnerable boy that keeps wriggling through. Elsewhere, it slips too mechanically, and too often, into Carr’s distinctive standup persona, but Savell is glorious as young Alan and there are proper giggles.
A column that started with a goodbye closes with a farewell to Jeremy Paxman, who ended a 29-year stint in the questioner’s chair on University Challenge (BBC Two) last week. Known for his theatrically exasperated ribbing of bright (and unbright) young things, this was a softer, sweeter outing. After Durham emerged victorious over Bristol, Paxman alluded to the next series (with new presenter Amol Rajan) by saying: “I look forward to watching it with you.”
Was that enough? It wasn’t only goodbye to UC Paxman, but also to Newsnight Paxman, all the past Paxmans! Still, judging by last year’s ITV documentary Paxman: Putting Up With Parkinson’s (he was diagnosed in 2021), the big TV beast would have been witheringly horrified by any more fuss. Best of luck, Paxo.
Star ratings (out of five)
Succession ★★★★★
The Gallows Pole ★★★
Changing Ends ★★★
University Challenge ★★★★★
What else I’m watching
White House Plumbers
(Sky Atlantic)
Directed by David Mandel (Veep), this Watergate satire stars Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux as inept Nixon-era political operatives. It’s a slow opener, but the impressive cast includes Lena Headey and Domhnall Gleeson.
The Days
(Netflix)
Here’s one for admirers of the groundbreaking 2019 series Chernobyl. Starring Koji Yakusho, this eight-part Japanese drama tells the story of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
Gender Wars
(Channel 4)
A documentary that probes the polarising issue of sex and gender. Interviewees include Katy Jon Went (a trans woman who campaigns for moderation on both sides) and gender-critical academic Kathleen Stock, of last week’s controversial Oxford Union debate. Calm, even-handed and thought-provoking.
