Industry

Thank goodness for this boxset.  I don’t know when the BBC and HBO got together for this co-funder, nor when they filmed it as there are plenty of scenes involving people coming within fewer than two metres of each other, and I don’t even really know when it was on or who told me about it (a manager said I might like it and, as if unregistered at the time, I suddenly obeyed this recommendation at an unconnected juncture a few weeks later).  There’s no way of knowing any of these things, least of all me checking for myself, but it doesn’t matter.  The important thing is that I came across a new show that gripped me and wouldn’t let me go until I had consumed every last drop.  And now I’m telling yous lot about it: Industry.  This is a big deal: I’m putting it up there with Succession and Watchmen, even though a number of friends I’ve insisted watch it aren’t quite convinced.

Firstly, it’s set in the world of work.  And not just any old job.  We’re talking finance.  This means we get to look inside offices that are full of people.  As we end a year spent mostly working alone in underpants, seeing desks and business attire and strained professional relationships has taken on an almost pornographic quality.  We’ll come back to the porn side later, as there’s plenty of stimulation in the swish City of London office of Pierpoint already.  Some of these people have six screens (including a Bloomberg one, known affectionately as a Bloomie) and I couldn’t even count the phones: there are headsets and then funny retro ones on coils hanging directly from the desk with little switches on the back.  It’s all a feast for the eyes and this is before we even get onto the drama.

Pierpoint is a swanky fictional (sure) investment bank, long the preserve of privileged white men and a hotbed of questionable financial ethics and even more questionable employee behaviour.  Our intro into this world is a new intake of grads, hungry to earn those big money dollars straight out the gates of university.  But first, they must survive the upcoming reduction in force (RIF) day to secure permanent contracts – pow, we have tension right from the start.  Our grads’ chances are subject to numerous unfair factors, from the desk they end up on, to their line manager’s temperament, their clients’ intentions, their own backgrounds and whether they fit in with the vision of itself Pierpoint is trying to create.  It’s not life or death (well…) but nobody is safe.

You might find yourself struggling with the lack of likeability all the characters display.  Our main focus, Harper Stern, has proven challenging for many.  She’s unpredictable, makes seemingly bad choices that result in self-sabotage and can be unnecessarily unpleasant to those around her.  But she’s blazing a trail, has ambition and won’t let her past overcome her.  There’s doubt about her college credentials from the off (as stuttered by a creepy HR man) and she’s a woman of colour in a world not known for embracing diversity beyond tokenism.  In fact, fellow grad Gus Sackey (not that she is fond of him) seems endlessly amused by how little Pierpoint knows what to do with him.  More than once, his eyebrow is askance at the drones around him.

Back to Harper, though, as we invariably always must go, and her story arc sees her caught in office tension between her desk lead, Eric Tao, and her line manager, Daria.  Should she align herself with the rogue trader who is a law unto himself or the conscientious rising star, carefully plotting an ascendance that will coincide with a redressing of Pierpoint’s gender balance and subsequent treatment of women?  Over on the FX desk, meanwhile, we’ve got Yasmin, whose approach to ingratiating herself with the menfolk is to go on constant coffee/salad/smoothie runs at the expense of proving her investment chops.  From an inordinately wealthy background herself, she instead flexes female strength via humiliating and escalating power play with Robert.  Despite his cocksure manner, he too suffers from the other Pierpointers’ snobbery when it comes to his more working-class background.  His dark suit is ridiculed, but he soon finds a way in with the oldest-school Clement Cowan.

In time, the dysfunctionality of the grads only serves to emphasise the more deeply ingrained dysfunctionality of their superiors, eventually sucking everyone into a vortex of sexy skulduggery.  Claims that the drama is far-fetched don’t wash with me – if it’s someone’s real job to spend their days trading money that’s so derivative it doesn’t exist via impenetrable jargon and their nights indulging in excessive alcohol and drug consumption to entertain evil clients, then surely it’s easy enough to buy the storylines of Industry.  Having spent my first working year in financial headhunting, it confirms the whole banking sector as a glorious near miss for me.

Now, we wanted to circle back to porn, didn’t we?  Hold tight, everyone, because Industry is incredibly graphic.  If sexual misconduct is going down, then we really do see it all.  We see more or less all of our young leads too.  This adds that Game Of Thrones jeopardy of being surprised by a boob or willy at any point, lending grittiness to a London that is already smeared with dirt as it is.  Sure, we often end up seeing about twelve more thrusts that we needed to in order to establish what’s afoot, and, if like me, you get distracted whenever a line is snorted by wondering if it’s CGI or if the actor really did woof some talcum powder, but it’s all part of the fun.  Who said work had to be boring?  You just have to work in the right industry.

W1A

This week, nobody has been asking me the following question: what other hidden gems in the world of comedy have you uncovered since you wrote so passionately about Crashing?  Nevertheless, I do need to tell you that I have gone and done it again.  I’ve come across a show whose existence I was completely oblivious to and now I’m going to harp on about it like I invented it myself.  It was probably huge at the time and is therefore already beloved by millions, but this is my blog and I can do whatever I like.  Something else people never ask me is how I decide which shows to feature in my self-indulging prose.  Well, there is no method to this madness.  I do have a longlist of shows I ought to get around to and this week’s programme was in fact on there – something I didn’t even realise until I had finished the third and (hopefully not) final season.  Anyway, preamble aside, we’re doing W1A this week.

Now, regular readers will be aware of my increasing despair when it comes to how awful we British our proving ourselves to be.  The dangerous yearning to return to a post-war peak from 75 years ago threatens everyone’s present-day opportunities.  Nevertheless, alongside the sinister jingoistic gymnastics, there are British traits that, conversely, feel as comforting and familiar as saying sorry to a stranger who’s bumped into you.  One of these is always suspecting we will make a mess of things.  Our trains can’t run in the snow, our trains can’t run in the heat, our breweries have hosted poorly organised piss-ups.  Back when we won the 2012 Olympics, everyone rolled their eyes in anticipation of ensuing shambles (when it was actually a recent national peak, inequality riots aside, and I’m not just talking about me dancing in the closing ceremony…).  So little faith did London’s wonderful liberal elite have in the organising committee than an irreverent sitcom was conceived: Twenty Twelve played on our suspicions surrounding how petty office bureaucrats would arrange and execute so much sport.  Sadly, I never saw this show and can’t find it anywhere, but W1A is its successor, following on with the adventures of Ian Fletcher (that lovely Hugh Bonneville off that lovely Downton Abbey) as he takes up a new post at the BBC.

Aha, you say, another institution we can deride for being a bunch of silly sausages.  How dare they make pensioners pay for their licenses when they of course deserve everything for free?  How dare there allow two women to dance together on Strictly?  How dare they pay female staff less than men?  (Guess which of these three is my actual opinion).  But, this is a BBC production, brilliantly sending up itself and our perceptions of the pencil-pushers who make it tick.  Fletcher serves as our guide in this institutionalised institution, stumbling through Old and New Broadcasting House trying to make sense of how things are done as the new Head of Values while slowly coming to accept that everyone is either incompetent at what they do, or they don’t do anything at all.  It’s at this point I must stress that the whole thing is laugh-out-loud funny.  I giggled my socks off in every single episode, so let’s count down which comedy creations scored the most LOLs on my chuckle-o-meter:

One: David Wilkes, played by Rufus Jones

As a development exec responsible for evolving potential show formats into ratings winners, Wilkes channels a new level of incompetency.  In any meeting, he expertly absolves himself of blame for every action and inaction of his.  He’s there, behind the fridge door, ready to steal your idea and take all the credit.  He interrupts discussions to tell everyone he can’t believe it and prefixes the name of anyone they are talking about with the adjective lovely: “Lovely Izzy, lovely Lucy.”  He’s frequently told to shut up and this generates in me the purest of joy.

Two: Siobhan Sharp, played by Jessica Hynes (seen in The Royle Family)

Another overspill from Twenty Twelve, Sharp is the PR guru who is incapable of listening to anyone but herself.  She is soundbites, mixed metaphors and statement jewellery, the very definition of having nothing original or useful to say.  Her response to every crisis is to blow things up on Twitter.  Her voice is supremely smug and she’ll announce that she’s “good with that” despite nobody requiring her approval.  I get the sense that whoever created her had some axe to grind after spending one too many meetings with members of the PR industry.  I can’t think why.

Three: Will Humphries, played by Hugh Skinner (seen in Fleabag)

“Yeah, no, hi, ok cool.”  Like everyone else, Will rarely says what he means, but he doesn’t know what he means anyway so it doesn’t matter.  He’s the awkward intern who’s overstayed his internship, but Skinner’s facial expressions show the perfect perplexity as Will screws up the simplest of tasks.

Four: Anna Rampton, played by Sarah Parish

As Head of Output, Rampton’s inability to move her top lip marks her out as a serious woman in business.  By repeating “yes, exactly, yes” she falsely portrays an air of decisive action while never doing anything.  Her catchphrase wears out slightly in later series, but she is at her funniest early on refusing every requested refreshment that is brought to her: “No, I don’t want that.”

Five: Simon Harwood, played by Jason Watkins

Harwood is that colleague we all sadly have.  The saboteur who wanted your role.  Non-committal, but always prepare to play his hand as a self-claimed confidante of the Director General (with whom he might enjoy the odd morning muffin), Harwood’s passive-aggression can be seen from space.  He’s constantly telling people he has no idea how things work (because they should) and that they will know how they want to play things (because he’s sure as hell not helping), before emitting one of his frequent exclamations of “brilliant” no matter what’s been decided.

I could go on.  There’s the for-once palatable David Tennant narrating, inserting the odd word to render all action ridiculous (particularly the Ministry for Culture, Media and, also, Sport).  You’ve got Tracy Pritchard beginning every criticism with “I’m not being funny but…”  Ben and/or Jerry bring a surreal element to the incredible pacing of every Damage Limitation meeting.  Layer upon layer of farce is dolloped out in rich scoops, crescendoing into ill-fated launches.  But it’s almost too close to home.  Some of the meetings feel like they were taken directly out of my life.  The curious inability of each and every character to communicate clearly makes wondrous use of two of the English language’s most abused words: yes and no.  Never seen alone or with certainty, W1A is strewn with oodles of “yes no” and lashings of “no yes” and then further fleshed out with generous portions of “yes no yes” and “no yes no.”  Playing out in a corner of London where I’ve worked for the last ten years, I look for myself in the background of scenes were Fletchers cycles into the office on his terrible Brompton (which bikes’ super-naffness is played for miles as laughs).  I’ve even been in the offices of Siobhan Sharp’s Fun Media on many occasions.

Get on the sofa and consume this immediately.  And then tell me if I was right or wrong about its brilliance.  Fair play to the Beeb for being such a good sport, lampooning itself for comedy (though never mentioning its news coverage’s right-wing leanings).  It’s not perfect – some exasperation at increasing wokeness has dated slightly.  Characters start to repeat their catchphrases too much and the freshness of the surprise wears off.  There’s an inevitable love triangle involving Ian Fletcher that doesn’t ring true, while the relationship between Izzy and Will remains effortlessly more charming.  We might not be able to organise a Brexit (so let’s stay) or a pandemic, but we sure can organise a silly sitcom about people who can’t organise things.

I May Destroy You

I wasn’t sure if I was going to write about this show.  In fact, I had already decided that I wouldn’t.  It was never up for debate whether I would watch it.  I was committed to viewing the whole thing the minute its PR machine swung into action and my daily trawling of the Guardian app for things to read that are relevant without being depressing (favouring articles about slavers’ statues being thrown into rivers at the expense of content relating to Tory gammonflakes personifying genuine incompetence and alarming inhumanity) saw me clicking on anything and everything to do with Michaela Coel.  Regular readers will have noted in my post on Chewing Gum that I have strong feelings about Michaela.  I’m not being funny (and, indeed, those same regular readers (both of them) will know I rarely am) but I am committed to her being recognised with national treasure status.  Friends are still only just uncovering Chewing Gum in lockdown, but if you’re expecting the same laughs generated by our Tracey, you’re in the wrong boxset.

I wasn’t going to write about it because I wasn’t sure I would have anything of value to say.  But now I am definitely writing about it.  I should have expected this, but I May Destroy You is a deeply affecting piece of television.  I have no choice but to throw my unwanted voice into the mix of unpopular online commentators looking to influence others’ behaviour.  As such, I urge everyone to watch this.  I’m not sure if the BBC felt the same, scheduling broadcasts of the twelve half-hour episodes in late-peak Monday-and-Tuesday pairs over the last few weeks, though the whole thing was available on iPlayer throughout.  We’ll get into why it’s a necessary watch, but I’ll first take it upon myself to tell you how to watch it as well.  Put your phone in a different room, settle down somewhere comfortable, give the screen your full attention and, most importantly of all, make sure nobody else is in the room who might make you feel awkward about some of the scenes that will ensue.

Like her previous hit, I May Destroy You has roots in Coel’s own real-life experiences.  However, if I were to say what it’s about, I would need to cop out with a list of things.  First and foremost, it deals with consent, particularly in the sexual sphere, and more specifically, the lack of it.  Whether this absence relates to hard-and-fast undeniable crimes, or shifts into a spectrum of permissibility that examines the interplay between deception and reticence, it’s a journey that is gruesomely fascinating.  The hooks that this series gets into you latch in deeply and quickly, and soon the onscreen action captures your attention to such an extent that you won’t even have twitching thumbs for your phone in the next room.  It’s a challenge on all levels.  Yet, it’s also entertaining, rewarding each provoked thought with a gem of universality, a raised eyebrow of humour or an eyeful of delicious delicious cinematography.

I promised myself I wouldn’t gush till the fourth paragraph, but it’s too late now.  You’ll get the point though: I rate this show.  Coel, whom I’d watch do anything, plays the central role of Arabella, a new writer approaching the twilight of her young adulthood.  She can follow her impulses to make bad choices, both enabled and thwarted by her two best friends: wannabe actress Terry (Weruche Opia) and Grindr addict Kwame (Paapa Essiedu).  These three things are brighter and younger than I’ll ever be, forming a sparkling trilogy of city-dwelling points of intrigue.  Through their lenses, we examine the discourses on consent that form our various plots.  But we look at so much more: race, gender, relationships, ambition, creativity, youth, family, heritage.

As if these three didn’t have mileage enough, they are surrounded by a seemingly endless swirl of supporting cast.  Coel creates the unique situation where you want to find out more about every incidental character and supporting role.  They are not just there as a foil or device to contrive along our next plot beat.  Why is Susy Henny so manipulative?  What has become of Theo (credit to Harriet Webb for genuinely making me forget I was watching acting)?  Why can’t I work Simon out at all?  In an honest reflection of London’s diversity, the glorious casting of such talent really lands the point that we’re all sick of seeing so many white people on TV.  In the neat packaging of the twelve episodes, you’ll find yourself wondering what happened to so and so from an earlier instalment, proving that Coel has created a universe of such credibility that it presents as truly real.  But, in throwing out the generic rulebook about how a drama should be constructed, that universe is also as enhanced as the colours of Arabella’s various wigs.  Suddenly we’re in Italy, then we’re back in the noughties, then we’ve moved on from those people to these people – keep up.  Coel doesn’t need your rules.

I only hope we continue to give Michaela Coel carte blanche to tell her stories.  The burden on one person to produce and replicate such quality TV must be enormous.  Even the soundtrack feels laced with sly nods to a greater understanding of her own message (great to hear Babycakes again).  She’s taken on sexual assault and revenge, creating in the process something that demands everyone’s attention, dancing between gravity and levity, but ultimately making you hold your breath through each episode.  This is intense viewing and I would like part two straightaway please.  And this is why I wasn’t going to write about it, because my only response would be to ask for more.

Toast Of London

Apropos of nothing, this week I shall be peeling back the skin of Toast Of London, taking a look at what lies beneath and maybe even sniffing it.  I say apropos of nothing, as I cannot link this week’s choice to anything happening in wider popular culture (plus the wankiness of the term suits the pretension of the programme in question).  Toast Of London’s three series came out between 2012 and 2015, yet my stumbling across them on Netflix in recent times and harnessing the gentle mirth and subversive lampooning of the luvvies that dominate British acting as my accompanying background viewing to Sunday evenings’ food prep marathon (step one: peel sweet potatoes, step two: accept the weekend is over) is particular only to me.  Yet that has never stopped me doing anything on this blog – in fact, regular readers will know it revolves more around me than it does around actually providing useful boxset recommendations.  That said, I have been craving more of Matt Berry since I made my way through The IT Crowd.  My need for his incredible voice was partly fulfilled by old episodes of The Adam Buxton Podcast (that’s right, I also voraciously consume content in podcast form – the eagle-eared among you may even have noticed a quotation from Russell Brand’s Under The Skin in this very introduction), but a vehicle of his own would surely hit the spot.

Fans of silliness will be well rewarded, though the brand of silliness is more conceptual than you might find in my other favourite silly sitcom, Miranda.  Toast is a London-based actor who isn’t that successful.  He gets enough degrading voiceover work to keep going, he has potentially been a household name during a previous decade’s heyday, but he still needs to badger his agent for work while she too badgers him to take up unsuitable jobs.  Like Andy Millman in Extras, he exhibits seething jealousy for any member of his acting cohort who is doing better than him.  The best thing about all of these minor actors is their surnames.  Toast in itself is enough to stop any top billing sounding too serious, conjuring up images of melting butter spread with crumb-covered knives.  Surpassing that English word for banal naffness is the name of Toast’s greatest rival, Ray “Bloody” Purchase.  Purchase is such a wet sock of a word and of a name.  Neither glamorous, nor familiar, it’s a simple monetary transaction for a good or service.  Starring Ray Purchase and Steven Toast isn’t what you want to hear about any blockbuster film.  Nor will you.  Purchase turns up on almost every job of Toast’s, outdoing him through chumminess with difficult prima donna directors or getting on better with smirkingly smug mugs of voiceover booth technicians.

Both take their craft seriously, but the comedy comes from showing how amateur and ham they really are.  Even Toast’s natural flair as a high winds actor (shouting in front of large fans) doesn’t bode well for future jobs, as whatever can go wrong does.  Helping to expose the evil of taking acting too seriously is a supporting cast with names as delicious as Toast’s and Purchase’s.  There’s Ken Suggestion, Duncan Clench, Cliff Bonanza, Jenny Spasm and Max Gland, not to mention a further raft of names who are only ever referred to such as Warren Organ and Sookie Houseboat.  Each belongs beneath a signed black-and-white headshot in a regional curry house.  Most beloved for me, though, is Toast’s agent, Jane Plough (pronounced Pluff).  Played by Doon Mackichan (whom I’ve always loved since Smack The Pony and I once smiled at on a train), Plough makes grandiose statements about never opening the attachments on emails (amen) and is often seen calling her client from completely unexplained sexual scenarios involving scantily clad young men and some dessert options.

Self-importance is easily made ridiculous, but we all end up on Team Toast, rooting for him to catch a break, despite him being a misogynist pig who only cares about himself.  He is aghast at current trends and longs for his younger years galivanting around Soho when he was a youthful upstart, rather than having to cope with the sniggers his voiceover recordings invariably draw.  Sending up how the British revere their stage and screen actors might seem like easy prey, but Toast Of London’s silliness has a caustic edge, an absurd narrative and a surrealist approach to almost every scene.  You’ll feel delicious every time you hear that immortal line: “Hello Steven, it’s Clem Fandango here.  Can you hear me?”  And so, apropos of nothing, let’s have another series please.

Top Boy

In 2001, the lyrics to So Solid Crew’s breakthrough number one hit 21 Seconds taught me two lessons that I have lived by ever since.  The first was “Asher D’s never fading” and, true to his word, Ashley Walters is back on Netflix screens across the country in a new series of Top Boy, prompting immediate Just One More Episode treatment in this week’s post.  And the second: “So Solid are amazing” is just a god-damn plain fact that nobody can deny.  You might wonder what a bookish young lad from affluent Surrey could find to identify with in the brutal rhymes of an inner London garage collective, but poetry is poetry and that song has soundtracked subsequent moments in my life on many occasions.  I remember a work ski trip where 80 of us took over an après bar (which already shows how urban I am) and requested this song.  Cue unleashed office workers clad in snowboarding jackets and salopettes stood atop tables in a group recital of every single verse.  At a recent wedding, this song came on, and even the southern French heatwave (see earlier comment about being urban) couldn’t stop me taking to the dancefloor, inebriated enough to be convinced I am not only the world’s best undiscovered dancer, but also an MC so talented that surely being able to shout along with every single word couldn’t fail to impress all the other guests.  Seeing them giving me a wide berth, their expressions concerned, was the proof I needed that any of us can be a member of So Solid.

Another way for me as a Home Counties young adult to gain access to this inner circle was to follow its members’ pursuits in other artforms.  Of course, I was therefore glued to the screen when not just Harvey, but also Romeo and Lisa Maffia took part in Channel 4’s The Games between 2003 and 2005.  But it was Ashley Walters in 2004’s Bullet Boy that really showed me So Solid really are amazing.  So when Top Boy appeared on Channel 4 in 2011, my viewership was guaranteed from the first promotional trailer.  The four episodes of that first series, and the four in 2013’s season two stayed with me long afterwards, but I was convinced the whole experience was a hidden treasure only I, and maybe my sister, had found.  Drawing up a list of beloved shows to cover here when I started this self-gratifying blog, Top Boy easily made the list.  But, uncertain of its broader appeal, it had to wait its turn.  Until now.  It turns out I wasn’t alone and being a fan of Top Boy is just one of the many things I have in common with Drake.  To paraphrase inaccurately the PR coverage surrounding the third series recently brought out by Netflix and trending at number one, this celebrity fan (Drake, not me) was able to click his fingers to have his favourite show resurrected, after Channel 4 were too busy with Bake Off (although maybe they could have collaborated on The Great British Drake Off).  So let’s relive the Top Boy journey below:

Season one, 2011

Now labelled as Top Boy: Summerhouse on Netflix and positioned as a separate companion series, I would actually attest that you need to watch both previous seasons of Top Boy before starting the new stuff.  In fact, recently re-watching everything in preparation for the new instalment only made me more certain that the episodes work best all together.  We’re introduced to the Summerhouse Estate in Hackney through the eyes of Ra’Nell, a fairly reticent lad who’s coping with his mother’s mental health problems while trying to hold down school and resist the lure of easy money offered by drug-dealing gangs he has to walk past every day.  Heading up one of those gangs are Dushane (Walters) and Sully (Kane “Kano” Robinson), and while the latter actively tries to recruit Ra’Nell and his hapless bestie Gem, Dushane is our dealer with a more complex moral compass.

There is neither glitz nor glamour in this production, just grimness.  Every interior betrays neglect, every exterior is swirling in trash on concrete.  Yet here are people trying to get by, and you can stare at them as much as you like from your middle-class bubble.  Everyone is trying to get out and do better, but it’s clear their options are limited, so their misdemeanours take on undeniable plausibility.  For example, pregnant Heather converts her spare room to a cannabis farm, babyface Michael swaps primary school for dealers’ errands, Dushane and Sully resort to kidnapping.  The drama unfolds, harrowing scenes rain down, but you can’t look away.  You learn that the good guys cannot win.

Season two, 2013

The repercussions of the first series’ climactic finale are still being felt, though there’s an injection of new characters that step the narrative on into new directions as well.  An underclass in himself, Jason shows the direct results of the drugs that the rest of the characters worry so much about dealing, coming and going from his junkie mother’s squalid squat and rarely catching a break.  Dushane, meanwhile, still runs the estate, but rather than glamorising his success, the show manoeuvres to expose his unenviable position.  His new legal counsel (and love interest) points out that the only way to protect his position is through constant paranoia and violence, all while being unable to enjoy the wealth his entrepreneurial spirit brings him.

Imagine if other industries operated like drug dealing.  If someone finds a better supplier, you steal that supply.  If someone brings out a rival product, you threaten or kill them.  Dushane sells his foot soldiers an unattainable goal, one they must pursue through unfair working practices, risk and deprivation.  Yet, again, we see this is their only option.  Series two examines the Dushane-Sully dynamic while ramping up the action with more violence.  Their story starts to seem more outlandish when compared to the first season’s reliance on the threat of violence.  But we remain rooted in the banal, with Ra’Nell’s mother fighting hopelessly against gentrification, and Ra’Nell himself, played with unrivalled intensity by Malcolm Kamulete, steering his course through the misfortune.  My beloved Michaela Coel (Chewing Gum) steals scenes while falling victim to Dushane’s darkest sides, but it’s Ashley Walters’ inscrutable expressions that come across as a masterclass in understated character.  We never know what he’s thinking, but we root for him.  Even though we start to suspect we shouldn’t.

Season three, 2019

And so here we are, six years later, on Netflix, with ten whole new episodes.  Just because Drake wanted it.  Imagine what else he could achieve.  Our settings have expanded into Jamaica, Ramsgate and prison, but inner London estates are still the scenes of our crimes.  The show takes pains to lay bare how much London has changed (gentrified), perfectly lampooning pretentious coffee culture as it perplexes Dushane.  We have new characters, with a household of brothers led by Micheal Ward as Jamie, treading a similar tightrope to Dushane: doing the right thing by his family while committing crimes to support them.  However, each time a character from the old series reappears, you feel a resurgence of emotion at the reunion.  Sadly, though, it’s clear that any expectations we were ever left with of happy endings are to be dashed.  Even those still standing on the same street corners have been ravaged by age and lifestyle, with Dris, though still in possession of his ability to make the most cutting remarks, a shadow of his former self thanks to excessive nitrous oxide use.  Nevertheless, Shone Romulus’s performance demands to be seen.  Immigration law becomes one additional strand woven in with the rest in this tableau of societal injustice but, ultimately, not much has changed beyond the price of coffee.  So we stand with Dushane, Sully and Jamie as they try to get by on the cards they’ve been dealt.  They deal.  It’s an appalling reflection on Britain today that Sully says, “What else is there?”

Filling the ten episodes does start to fall into the Netflix trap of overcomplicating the plot, but the later instalments crescendo as new layers of jeopardy are thrust upon our leads.  We’re spending more time getting to know the characters, creating narratives around the rival gangs rather than casting anonymous hooded figures, which adds greater significance to their actions and their actions’ consequences.  I would simply to urge everyone to watch all of this programme.  If not for the compelling drama, then click play for the stark look at the society we live in today.  There’s no one interpretation of its message – you’ll think about different things throughout.  Any claims of glorification or fetishisation fall away.  As a Londoner, certain scenes seem familiar, but my privileged upbringing means my reality is a world away.  If anything, I’m one of the awful gentrifiers in the background (I’ve bought a flat in an area of London undergoing extensive redevelopment and my only contribution to the local economy has been some overpriced coffee and a few hipster haircuts).  I shouldn’t have made my flippant fanboy comments about So Solid Crew at the start because they risk taking away from Top Boy’s serious effect.  While our politicians fail to govern due to neighbourly preoccupations, a whole generation is being left without access to the UK’s prosperity.

Made In Chelsea

In a wild departure for the 104^th blogpost spectacular (please make sure you’ve read them all or don’t speak to me anymore) I’m branching out to sneer at a show I don’t actually watch.  Made In Chelsea popped politely onto our screens in 2011 and, of the 17 series and five abroad specials so far (and counting) I would say I am about 199 episodes short of the 200 plus that have cluttered up various e4 schedules in the eight years since.  But that doesn’t stop me weighing in with a few thoughts and observations, as its cultural influence is so great that even non-viewers like me can’t exist quietly without a passing awareness of its stars and storylines.  To summarise the action for those that have never tuned in for the adventures of Proudlock, Mark-Francis, Jamie, Victoria and chums, Made In Chelsea is a scripted reality show following a bunch of the well-groomed progeny of wealthy families living it up in London’s cash-drenched SW3 while dating each other silly.  In my (very grown-up) job alone, teams have used Chelsea talent in advertising campaigns and even sponsored the bloody show itself.  I don’t know if I could sit through an episode (and we all know I’ll watch anything) but let’s celebrate this modern juggernaut that yields no signs of stopping.

We’ll talk casting first.  In a noughties update of the Sloane Ranger, Made In Chelsea’s guys and gals are all posh.  In fact, it’s probably the main thing about the whole production.  This has a great bonus in creating watchable telly.  Posh people have often had access to good educations.  As such, the cast members are all more articulate than your average attention seeker.  They know the long words and that.  In addition, there’s something about their boarding school humour that layers a little bit of wittiness over the top.  That, and some cracking diction that hits every consonant, never dropping an H, gives the snob in us all an aspirational viewing experience.  I’m not saying posh people are better than normos like us, but let’s face it, they are worth more (based on the investment in their education).  But it’s not just the cast that are filtered to create a better version of reality…

The locations!  After 12 years living in London, I’ll be the first to admit it can be a hideous hellhole.  When the skies are grey and the drizzle persistent, there are concrete neighbourhoods that can bring a man to weeping, whether you’re stuck on a bus on Southampton Row or picking litter off your shoe in Clapham Junction.  Somehow, however, the researchers, location scouts and producers on Made In Chelsea make the city look immaculate.  Maybe it’s the lenses they use, or the fact they stay around the King’s Road, or perhaps they have an inordinate budget for special effects, but every location the cast rock up at for passive-aggressive discussions of dating etiquette makes you want to go there.  It could be a bar you know is shit – Made In Chelsea will have you grabbing your coat and heading out the door before your Millennial mind can repossess its senses.  Then you realise that you can’t actually afford to be out all the time, as your parents didn’t found the McVitie’s biscuit empire, reminding us all that London is a great place, but only if you’re rich.

And so we come on to how Made In Chelsea really has nothing to do with reality.  We’re not simply a fly on the wall.  Instead, each scene is set up with rigorous control.  Sure, the conceit is that two big-haired young rahs have run into each other on the street, but the establishing tracking shots and the fact than any homeless people have been cajoled out of screen betray a strong sense that everything is ruthlessly planned.  Ours ear are bathed in an expertly curated soundtrack (while the theme music, Midnight City by M83, has been used in every media creds reel I ever seen in my job over the last eleven years), which then fades out so the awkward dialogue may start.  I know I’ve mentioned the cast are good conversationalists, but, for some unknown reason, every scene only cranks into gear after several verbal misfires that not only make my toes curl up, they rip themselves off and run out the room screaming.  Here’s how our exchanges usually begin, following on from the interstitial shots of the road name sign or someone pouring cocktails:

“Oh hey Hortense; how lovely to see you.”

“Spiffy – I didn’t expect to see you here.”

*air kiss, air kiss, air kiss*

“So, how are you?”

“Oh, you know, really busy.  How are you?”

“Really busy.”

*awkward pause*

“It’s fortuitous that I have seen you really because, er, I wanted to…”

And then you just insert any of the following and you have yourself an episode:

“I wanted to ask you about last night with Arabella.”

“I wanted to know why you have been talking about Winston.”

“I wanted to let you know that I also really really like Georgie.”

If that imagined script has failed to bring it to life for you, then please watch this excellent parody from Watson & Oliver that perfectly captures the inanity.  People call this entertainment, but it’s no different to being pulled for a chat around the gardens of the Love Island villa, only the latter situation has more brow sweat and fewer items of clothing.  But this is where my interest dies: the Made In Chelsea storylines revolve solely around dating.  It’s as if they are all terrified of being alone (with their millions).  If I were them, I would focus on enjoying my life (and my money) and maybe volunteer in the community, certain that true love would find me only when I was least expecting it.  But that wouldn’t make very good drama, would it?

Where the wheels really come off is any multi-cast member party scene.  Aimless extras shuffle about clutching drinks while our romantic leads are brought to the fore to thrash out whatever dating shenanigans we have all lost interest in.  Loud music would interfere with the mics, so everyone must sway in time to silence so that the tunes can be added later, giving things an even more stilted edge than normal.

But I’m not a hater of Made In Chelsea.  There are many things to love.  You can’t beat a posh nickname, with many of the girls monickered with increasingly euphemistic ones, from Caggie to Toff to Binky.  Why not just be done with it and introduce the following new cast members: Jizzy, Flappy and Titty?  Either way, the Chelsea lot are always charming – Cheska was beyond professional when she did commercial work for us, while those that have popped up in Celebrity Big Brother or I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here have been a joy to have on screen.  I’ve even bumped into Spencer at my gym, and by bump, I mean I almost fell over his dog.

So, in the world of reality TV, Made In Chelsea is like the King’s Road – it’s nicer than the alternatives.  Whereas shopping on Oxford Street with the great unwashed hordes requires having to press the button and wait for the green man so you can be chased across the road by an angry cab driver while carrying your poverty-indicating Primark bags, the King’s Road has lovely zebra crossings so you can strut out into traffic at any juncture, beelining for Jack Wills, and the BMWs and Mercedes politely halt lest you be turned into expensive roadkill.  London is run for the wealthy, by the downtrodden, but watching Made In Chelsea at least gives you an hour’s fantasy that you’re rubbing shoulders with the right crowd.

Luther

“Luther; is he really as dirty as they say?”  Well, this was the question I had been asking myself when I finally succumbed to clicking atop Idris Elba’s brooding face on my Netflix menu.  Now an experienced viewer of gritty British crime dramas (Happy Valley, Line Of Duty), I was prepped to plumb further depths in my exploring of the nation’s obsession with murders and police officers.  Christmas 2018 had been peppered with constant conversational mentions of buses becoming worrying territory after a harrowing scene in the fifth series that the BBC broadcast as part of their festive schedule.  As someone whose average daily consumption of London buses is between three and five (I end up on the 137 most days, but most covet the rare appearance of a spiffy little P5), this warranted further investigation.  Also: Idris Elba.  I like his coats.

All I knew was that he plays a copper, but most likely one who doesn’t care much for due process, particularly after I gleaned a reference to anger issues in the blurb.  John Luther specifically works in the department of the police that looks at murders.  I’m not sure what other sort of law enforcement I thought he would be doing.  You don’t get your own series prosecuting for benefit fraud, I suppose.  Based in and around East London (which means I’m often distracted during exterior set-up shots trying to see if I can recognise various Prets I’ve grabbed overpriced gluten-free snacks in on the way to meetings in that part of town) the Victorian brickwork and city history create an environment abundant in stylistic aesthetics and stabbings most horrid.  Whereas I expected each series of a handful of episodes to revolve around a singular detailed case, the first season episodically works through a number of different killers.  With the exception of the first perp we come across (the fiery Alice Morgan who, if only to demonstrate sizzling sexual tension, turns up throughout future instalments) most of the killers Luther goes after are of the serial variety, often with specialist perversions.

Enter, then, a revolving cast of supporting actors whose odds to survive even ten minutes into the drama are not high.  If they’re not an established character, you’re really just counting down the moments until the come a cropper on the end of an axe (though this arguably also happens with established characters).  It brings to mind the Saturday evenings of growing up, when the family would gather round the box for Casualty.  In between progressing long-running storylines of the hospital staff, character actors would appear for set-up scenes.  We all knew someone was going to end up in accident and emergency, so there was a grisly thrill in eying each wobbly ladder or erratic motoring decision before we could tut at the crunching of bone and bursting forth of blood that necessitated a visit from Holby’s finest.  Similarly, with our Luther, we lay in wait as viewers, eager for the closure of each bit-part’s untimely dispatching at the hands of some sort of fantastical psychopath.  Often, Luther himself is trying to anticipate a maniac’s next move, glancing at some bits of paper pinned to a board in order to leap unfathomably to incredible conclusions that allow him to deduce the upcoming location of the culprit’s next hit.  Racing across town in his awful Volvo, Luther must have lost count of the number of times he’s been too late to save the victim.  If I’m late to a meeting at work, we just start five minutes later.  If Luther arrives delayed, folk get murdered.

I’m sure that makes for some awkward chats in his end-of-year reviews.  Later series see him under the leadership of DSU Martin Schenk (a more sort of subterranean Ted Hasting with much less lustrous hair).  Given the track record of Luther’s subordinates to end up dead themselves, we can only imagine what sort of constructive criticism is offered for his line management skills.  Getting assigned to his team can’t just therefore signify a death knell for any young detective sergeant’s career; it also drastically reduces their life expectancy.  Oh well, there’s still plenty of decent shop chat.  One police idiom for being convinced a suspect has committed a crime is expressed with the verb to fancy someone for something.  “Did you fancy him for it?” Luther will ask a seasoned colleague when the database throws up candidates for various bodily mutilations.  I think it’s meant to sound blokey, but all I can think about is the playground usage of to fancy: my head is filled with an embarrassed DCI giggling as they ask a hardened criminal if they’d like to dance at a school disco.

But Luther is such a lad that he can say and do what he wants and still he’d be our hero.  Plagued by family problems, career problems, and wedged-in problems where new hangers-on suddenly emerge to whom he seems to owe excessive favours, the jeopardy of whether Luther will solve the case before the rest of London is brutally slain is multiplied by pressure from mafia bosses and other such inconveniences.  For me, these pale in interest to the actual killings, but that’s more likely just me struggling with complex storylines.  Either way, these plot devices lead to one of my favourite scenes where Luther beats off two would-be assassins.  His weapon of choice?  A bin.  Truly legendary.

Altogether, though, Luther is a classy contribution to the insatiable canon of British crime drama, with more grit than a Highways Agency lorry on a frosty morning.  He’s made me consider investing in my own set of baggy grey work shirts, but Luther’s greatest sartorial achievement if twinning tweed overcoats with blazers, turning up the collars on both, chasing after a criminal and then not having to take everything off at the end of it due to be too sweaty.  I did mention he’s an extraordinary man, as he doesn’t seem to get as hot as I would.  Watch Luther at home alone with the lights if you’re feeling brave, then go out and ride the deserted top decks of night buses through underpopulated suburbs and see how your nerves hold out.  Luther focuses your mind back on the endless human potential for evil, filtered through the lens of work being a pain in the arse.  Whether there’s a murderer under your bed or a serial killer in your cupboard, you’ve still got to drag yourself into the office in the morning, just as Luther needs to keep solving crimes in order to afford his lavish collection of the same shirts and coats.  We can conclude, then, that he’s not as dirty as they say, as he clearly has a clean outfit for each day of the week.