just goes to show that teasing the old is still pretty funny.
(Brian Donaldson)
SOAP
NIGHT AND DAY Scottish, Tue—Thu 5.05pm, Thu 10.20pm OO
MISSING
«Ave You saw THIS GIRL ?
The trouble with ITV's new crop of teatime soaps. is they wilfully ignore the formula that guarantees obscene viewing figures. Filling the screen with buff. gleaming. talentless boys and girls may inspire passing interest. but COuld never sire the obsessive. compulsive behaviour generated by gritty melodramas like EastEnders and Corrie.
Night And Day is basically Hol/yoaks Life. with a youthful cast of inter-changeable beautiful people. plucked from the Gap catalogue. They do have names — Sam. Alex. Lucy. Roxanne - but you'd be hard pressed to differentiate between the characters, while storylines scrape the bottom of the predictable barrel (so- and-so's birthday party ends in tears etc.)
For those with a low attention span, there's the odd familiar face: Joe McGann. Lesley Joseph and Gareth Hunt. back from the dead (well, advertising cofiee)
The late night edition offers more of the same. but with soft-focus shagging for our titillation. Give me David Dimbleby and a hot cup of camomile any Thursday night over this unmitigated crap.
(Allan Radcliffe)
DOCUMENTARY CRIME SCENE CLEANER
Channel 4, Tue 20 Nov, 10pm 0000
Neal Smither is the rather unpleasant founder of a post crime
scene cleaning service and has all the nasty attributes of the boy in school who collected Holocaust memorabilia. Showing a complete lack of humanity towards the numerous suicides. accidental deaths and murders he attends in California. it's difficult to feel anything but contempt for the little guy.
Joseph Bullman‘s excellent documentary is a sad and cautionary indictment of the way we live today and more importantly the way we die. Despite his inhumanity. Smither hits the nail on the head by stating that we are all too willing to allow our loved ones die alone.
We also get the joy of following the dreary marital path of Neal and his fiancee as they gear up for a wedding in Disneyland: an event that leaves the groom so non-plussed he takes business calls at the altar. Wonh watching but very depressing. (Paul Dale)
MUSIC
PUMP UP THE VOLUME
Channel 4, Tue 20 & 27
Nov, 11.05pm 0000
Credible dance music documentaries are few and far between but having done a grand job on The Hip Hop Years. Channel 4 are delivering the goods once again with this history of house.
Having traced the birth of house music in the underground clubs of New York and Chicago in the first instalment. programme two picks up the story in 1986 when the influence of DJ/producers like Farley ‘Jackmaster' Funk. Larry Heard and Steve ‘Silk' Hurley was beginning to
be felt over here. The vibrancy of the subsequent acid house explosion is then conveyed by stock footage of illegal raves. the inclusion of the decade's seminal tracks and eye-witness accounts from players and punters. Programme three brings it all up to date but it‘s the mood of mid- 80s dance euphoria that will really make you wish you were ‘on one. top one' feeling it in a field in the middle of nowhere. (Catherine Bromley)
LEGAL DRAMA JUDGE JOHN DEED
8801, Mon 26 Nov, 9pm 0000
Given that most people's experience of judges is limited to laughing when they ask questions like ‘who is Gazza’?'. a series that suggests they might be more than just doddering caricatures should probably be welcomed. Which isn‘t.
of course. to suggest
that Martin Shaw's John Deed is entirely free from cliche.
The maverick judge returns to his second series with a couple of nasty cases on the boil. Besides sifting through the tissue of lies that surround a rape. Deed is under pressure to acquit a man whose work in infiltrating the Real IRA is vital to the government but is guilty of horrific domestic violence.
The role of the otherwise upstanding Deed is complicated by the fact that he IS getting involved with an aristocratic bullyboy's wife. adding blackmail and some nifty chat-up
Marty wigs out as the upstanding Deed
lines to an already entertaining mix. (James Smart)
DOCUMENTARY WHAT MAKES JEFFREY TICK? Channel 5, Wed 28 Nov, 8pm 0.
Sadly. the answer is not ‘the bomb I've just shoved up his arse'. but Jeffrey Archer's own personality. And Channel 5's filmmakers. never ones to shirk a controversial but ultimately pointless question. are here suggesting that everyone's favourite jailed peer is. technically. a psychopath.
It‘s basically an excuse for various talking heads. including the false alibi who got him in jail. a recent mistress and Archer's biographer to reveal their own 'ooh.
isn't he awful stories. it yOu haven't heard Ill-1.1;] all already. (l()f3(1l'lj)llt).".:3 of his dalliances ‘nxith
prostitutes. his lies to 1;; .i
into Oxford and ins novelistic (ElltltEtt‘, o. il .. are reasonath entertaining.
The programme concludes that Altil2£;l indeed a psychopo v although if satisfy.” most critOrza from lit; checklist l‘siij,t2i’fin at: i. Charming, ‘attcnl 43." seeking. 'reckletss'. ‘failure to learn from experience) quaEfz-u. yOu as a j)S\,'(2ll(). iii-:mt of our politicians :;l‘.: be confined to secure,- units. Now there’s a thougt (James :Sll‘Qtt‘.
SHORT FILMS TARTAN SHORTS 2001
BBCZ, Sun 18 Nov, 10.30pm 0.00
Now in its ninth year. Tartan Shorts was originally set up to nurture yOung Sci. ttisl‘ filmmaking talent. /\ll(l
the joint funding l); iii-3'1:
Scotland and Scottish Screen has helped the likes Of Lynne Ramsay and Peter Mullah on
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THE LIST 109