What a week. First, the news that former Tory health secretary Matt Hancock is to appear on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!. Psst, viewing public: we’ve got this [waves smartphone] – just don’t “do a Nadine” (Dorries was first to exit in 2012) and vote him off to return to that luxurious hotel too early (if you get my drift).
Speaking of luxury, it was also the return of Sky Atlantic’s The White Lotus, series two arriving under the looming shadow of the first: an Emmy-garlanded tour de force, set in a plush Hawaiian resort that, along with that scene involving human excrement, conjured wicked, sparkling social satire in an extravagant five-star setting.
The new seven-parter, also written and directed by Mike White, is set in Sicily. As before, the scenic splendour is soon disrupted, this time by several dead bodies bobbing in the water. As manager Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore) springs into damage-limitation mode (“It’s fine: the ocean is not hotel property”), we cut to a week earlier, as series one’s bottomless pit of moneyed need, Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), arrives, purring in her signature stupefied daze: “Whenever I stay in a White Lotus, I always have a memorable time.”
And it’s off: venom, entitlement, elitist masks slipping; a new emphasis on unruly lust and erotic fatigue. Among the guests there are three generations of Italian-American men with clashing styles in sexual mores, the grandfather (F Murray Abraham), a borderline pest, defending his “junk”: “It’s not like it was so beautiful to look at anyway. It’s a penis, not a sunset.” Elsewhere, two tech-bros (Will Sharpe, Theo James) holiday together with their partners (Aubrey Plaza, Meghann Fahy), an ill-starred quartet of bad chemistry and waxwork social smiles.
Looking a few episodes ahead, the pace is slower, I’m not sure yet about the Pretty Woman/Happy Hooker vibe of two chaotic sex workers (played well by Simona Tabasco and Beatrice Grannò), and Valentina seems sidelined in a way that Murray Bartlett’s veritable Barnum of a resort manager wasn’t. Still, we’re a galaxy away from difficult second series syndrome. Wait for the arrival of Tom Hollander’s droll gay character: “You’re too fabulous to be sad.” Relish dialogue that’s often the equal of Succession: “Is this what happens when you’re rich for too long – your brain just atrophies?” Revel in Tanya rubbing her husband’s foot on her breast to signal her horniness. In short, pour yourself a generous Aperol spritz and prepare for another vicious, witty ride.
BBC One’s SAS: Rogue Heroes, the new six-part drama from Steven Knight (creator of Peaky Blinders), based on the book by Ben Macintyre, is a “mostly true” take on the origin story of the Special Air Service (SAS), as they formed to take radical maverick action against the north African fascist advance during the second world war. So, a war story about military nonconformists, with a young talented cast, and Knight’s trademark contemporary flourishes? It sounded intriguing.
Alas, the opener is an overheated mess. Set around Cairo, as Lt David Stirling (Connor Swindells from Sex Education) gathers the renegade likes of Lt Paddy Mayne (Jack O’Connell) and Lieutenant “Jock” Lewes (Alfie Allen) for the mission (Dominic West appears later as a slimy intelligence officer), their shared mindset – rule-breaking, machismo, salty “Fuck!”-spraying – is overplayed to tiresome, cartoonish effect. Cultural reveries feel forced, screen-freezes look dated, expositional screen text feels lazy. And while I’m fine with anachronistic soundtracks, this much AC/DC would give anyone a nosebleed.
By the close of the first dusty dune-strewn hour, a decent idea looks doomed. However, after that (all episodes are on iPlayer), SAS: Rogue Heroes calms down (well, a bit) and things improve drastically. I’ve just finished a rousing third episode involving a parachute jump in a sandstorm, Tarantino-esque megaviolence at a Nazi stronghold, and different (punkier) music, with existential echoes of Catch 22/M*A*S*H and the cruelty and lunacy of war percolating through. If you find the opener irritating, consider pressing on.
Hollywood actor Jimmy Akingbola (Bel-Air) grew up in the UK with a white foster family, and he tells the complex, moving story of his “scattered beginnings” in ITV’s Jimmy Akingbola: Handle With Care.
After his now-deceased Nigerian parents moved to Britain, Akingbola’s father mistook his wife’s undiagnosed schizophrenia for infidelity, refused to accept Jimmy as one of his children, and he and his mother had to leave. Abandoned, aged two, at a social services office, Akingbola ended up with the Crowe family, but outside their loving home, he was called “blackcurrant” and threatened with knives.
Akingbola meets with other black British success stories who have care backgrounds (actor and screenwriter Lennie James; Olympic athlete Kriss Akabusi), ponders the intricacies of his fostering experience (there is a shortage of black and minority ethnic foster parents) and despairs that half a million children are still in care. He also meets with his foster and biological families. With recent losses of family members, raw grief hangs in the air, but also contemplation, as he and biological siblings wonder: who had it worse?
Directed by Andy Mundy-Castle, this is a deep, tender watch, where a reflective Akingbola shares fish and chips, and top billing, with his uncommonly lovely foster mother, Gloria. “I didn’t do anything special,” she insists. “I just looked after a little boy.”
BBC Two showed another kind of documentary: First Contact: An Alien Encounter. Nic Stacey’s feature-length imagining of Earth dealing with an extraterrestrial event over 12 days, featured dramatised scenes and repurposed archival footage, but also used genuine expert interviews and historical accounts.
The extraterrestrial element is kept realistic, which unfortunately means it’s hard to get excited about the alien “artefact”: a large, blurry cigar-shaped object whizzing past. Where is it from? What is it made of? Is it a relic from an ancient astral civilisation?
All such questions left at least one viewer feeling somewhat lacking in the astrophysics department. Regarding the public reaction, the documentary has fun as a geek disaster movie, evolving into a plausibly tacky War of the Worlds, complete with loo-roll panic-buying and social media snark. Whatever aliens are up to, human beings are all too predictable.
Star ratings (out of five):
The White Lotus ★★★★★
SAS Rogue Heroes ★★★
Jimmy Akingbola: Handle With Care ★★★
First Contact: Alien Encounter ★★★
What else I’m watching
The Haçienda – The Club That Shook Britain
(BBC Two)
A documentary analysing Manchester’s era-defining gateway to popular culture, and Factory Records’ fabled money pit. It features commentary from the likes of Peter Hook, Noel Gallagher, and Shaun Ryder.
How To Survive a Dictator With Munya Chawawa
(Channel 4)
Denied access to film in Zimbabwe, comedian Munya Chawawa travels to South Africa to make a documentary about the origins of Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, meeting his friends, family, and victims.
The Handmaid’s Tale
(Channel 4)
With the fifth series under way, things are revving up. Though, for now, June (Elisabeth Moss) remains safe in Canada, others return to evocative, menacing Gilead for a VIP funeral full of grief, rage and eerie, flowing capes.
