What’s Hot on the Box: TV Previews

Senior Screen Reporter, Mia Nashe, presents the first in her new regular feature previewing the latest televisual treats…

Image Credit: BBC

Fancy a night in with the telly or iPlayer? Want to know what you’re watching before you get halfway through and realise it’s so crap a four year-old could have written it? If the answer to either of those questions is yes, read on…

New series to catch:

My pick of the week: Keenly anticipated by critics and Poliakoff fans alike, the five-part drama, Dancing on the Edge kicked off on Monday (yes, that’s this Monday), airing on BBC2, 9-10.30pm and continued on Tuesday, 9-10pm. For those who haven’t spied the adverts liberally dashed all over the BBC schedule for the past couple of weeks, here’s the gist: it’s a period human drama about a successful black jazz band performing in 1930s London. Written and directed by TV auteur Stephen Poliakoff, it also has several pleasantly familiar faces to recommend it, among them Merlin’s Angel Coulby. And if the adverts are anything to go by, it looks like a wonderfully glamorous thing to sink into at the end of a hard day’s studying.

Causing a very different kind of stir is the documentary series The Year of Making Love, which also starts on Monday, on BBC3, 9-10pm. I’m not usually one for documentaries, but I have to say, the intriguing experiment that this one plays out looks like a good bit of voyeuristic fun. Basically, some scientists want to find out if the compatibility criteria used by gazillions of matchmaking services actually work. So they figured the best way to do this would be to conduct an experiment, and have matched up a load of victi- I mean, singletons and followed them about with a camera for a year. Sounds like indulgently voyeuristic fun to me.

To get your hit of entertaining bitchy melodrama for the week, check out US musical drama series Nashville, which starts with a pilot episode on Thursday, on More4, at 10-10.55pm. The story focusses on the enmity of two female country music singers, forced to combine their experience and youth to succeed. It stars Hayden Panettiere (better known as Claire Bennett, for any fans of Heroes) and has been nominated for Golden Globes, so perhaps there’s more than meets the eye to this one.

Series 4 of critically acclaimed French crime drama series Spiral starts on Saturday, on BBC4, 9-10.45pm. Often compared to the hit series’ The Wire and The Killing, it is dark, chilling and set in a not so romantically portrayed Paris. Too late to jump on the bandwagon if you haven’t seen it before? Perhaps, but with the ecstatic reviews it’s been getting, it’s worth a shot.

The British Academy Film Awards – Kinda self-explanatory. But to save you the trouble of remembering to look up the exact time, etc. here are the details: Sunday, on BBC1, at 9-11pm.

Ongoing gems:

Blandings – a P.G. Wodehouse comedy of typically ridiculous genius, brought to life by its stellar cast, makes a delightful bitesize break from studying. Aired on BBC1, on Sundays, 6.30-7pm.

For a bit of light relief, Top Gear.  Aired on BBC2, on Sundays, 8-9pm

Call the Midwife – a gentle period drama set in the 1950s, in London’s East End, about a group of midwives going about their work in the community. The wonderful cast, admirable attention to period detail and well-crafted script make it a comfortably compelling watch. Aired on Sundays, on BBC1, 8-9pm.

Mr Selfridge – a vibrant, fast-paced period drama based on the founder of Britain’s first department store, Selfridges. Often compared to The Paradise. Well worth catching up on if you’ve missed it so far. Aired on Sundays, on ITV1, 9-10pm.

Ripper Street – one of the BBC’s ‘Original Drama’ offerings, this period crime drama puts me in mind of the modern Sherlock Holmes films serialised, with its (quite literally) punchy fast pace, action-packed plots, and gorgeously gritty aesthetic. Matthew Macfadyen makes a good careworn, but determined detective on the streets of Victorian London, and overall, it’s fairly gripping stuff. Aired on Sundays, on BBC1, 9-10pm.

 

Mia Nashe, Senior Screen Reporter

Uncle Fred in the Springtime – P G Wodehouse

Now that his work has been made into a primetime BBC television series “Blandings”, we asked reviewer Francesca Platt to take a look at Wodehouse’s 20th Century novel “Uncle Fred in the Springtime” which inspired the series. Platt tells us why this eccentric British comedy is the perfect book to curl up with this month…

If the cold weather (and lack of snow) in Exeter is bringing you down, this is the perfect book to curl up with and temporarily escape the chilliness of your student house. Expect to become immersed in the utterly ridiculous world of Blandings Castle, the setting for a number of Wodehouse’s novels. Uncle Fred in the Springtime is the fifth in the ‘Blandings’ series of novels, which has recently been adapted into a BBC television series. However, there is no need to read Wodehouse novels in order, as the characters from all different series wander in and out of novels as they please; Uncle Fred, the main character, is also featured in many of Wodehouse’s short stories.

Uncle Fred in the Springtime follows a confusing and entertaining comedy plot of love, mistaken identities and the uncertain fate Lord Emsworth’s pig, the Empress of Blandings.

In London, Pongo Twistleton is having money troubles, and his friend Horace has upset his lover, Pongo’s sister Valerie, for hiring Claude “Mustard” Pott to follow her. Horace accidentally creates a tense situation between Mustard’s daughter Polly and her fiancée, and Pongo calls on Uncle Fred to help the situation and reunite the estranged couple.

The Duke of Dunstable, Horace’s uncle, has decided whilst staying at Blandings that the Empress needs some fitness training. Meanwhile, Lord Emsworth has decided that the Duke is going insane, and calls in a doctor. This proves the perfect excuse for Uncle Fred to enter the Castle, assuming the identity of the doctor, Sir Glossop. He brings Polly with him, hoping that she will win over her fiancee’s uncle, the Duke.

Uncle Fred embarks upon a scheme to reunite the lovers, and scupper the Duke of his plans to steal Emsworth’s adored pig. Full of springtime energy, as he himself comments, ‘there are no limits, literally none, to what I can accomplish in the springtime’.

As with all Wodehouse stories, the various ridiculous side-plots and rising conflicts between characters are all comically resolved at the end. Although the plot could be a confusing one to dip in and out of, the mounting problems in Fred’s plan creates a light-hearted, quintessentially British comedy. So if you’re feeling particularly British in this January weather, take some time this week to sink into the crazy springtime world of one of our very best comedy writers.

By Francesca Platt
Ed. by Georgina Holland – Exeposé Online Books Editor

To see what the Exeposé Online Screen Team made of “Blandings” visit: http://xmedia.ex.ac.uk/wp/wordpress/?p=5000