From right, clockwise: I’m With Stupid, Legit, The Sopranos, Respectable, That Mitchell and Webb Look
TV
Reviews
CRIME DRAMA LOW WINTER SUN Channel 4, Thu 14, 21 Sep, 9pm
Corrupt cops have been ten a penny down the TV years. Everything from The Sweeney to The Shield have focussed on gung-ho anti-heroes who bent the rules to their own ends, usually to net the baddies but not always for reasons which benefited the community. The community here is a lush Edinburgh, whose skyline director Adrian Shergold (Dirty Filthy Love, The Second Coming) has clearly fallen in love with considering the number of times the actors go on a rooftop, whether it is to have a fag or a fight.
The corruption in Low Winter Sun goes from top to bottom, so you never know quite who to be drawn towards as your narrative guide. But when you have an actor who dominates the screen like The Long Firm’s Mark Strong (here swapping his Ye Olde London town cockney geeza accent for an Auld Reekie radge one), it’s hard to concentrate on anything else. As Frank Agnew, he is up to his elbows in it having helped bump off the real villain of the piece, nasty rozzer Brendan McCann who is dubbed by his partner and co-killer Joe Geddes (Brian McCardie) as ‘a sectarian bigot, a misogynist and homophobe‘. As the ring of truth starts to choke around both Agnew and Geddes, the true reasons why they murdered McCann begin to threaten their chances of getting away with it.
While the spectacular backdrop offers some sense of freedom and escape for the characters, the brooding synth soundtrack lets us all know that no one will come out of this without blood splashed all over their uniforms. Despite some moments of horrible over and underacting, this is an often intense and memorably corrupt experience. (Brian Donaldson)
- REMOTE CONTROL
Brian Donaldson finds that celebs and sluts still can‘t hold a candle to The Sopranos
The cult of celebrrty has been handled by comedians and satirrsts in so many ways that rt seems almost rmpossible to find a new way to approach the depiction of famous folk. Star Stories (Channel 4, Fri 75 Sep. 9pm) may well be one of the worst attempts ever at trying to make daft people look
90 THE LIST 7—41 Sep 2006
even dafter. Can rt really be possrble to parody the Beckhams as termrnally dull and Alex Ferguson as permanently furrous srnce Alrstarr McGowan and DOub/e Take have done rt so well”? No. If the r'eSult of thrs serres rs that start to get bored wrth our petty obsessrons about people who happen to haye gathered more wealth and column rnches than the rest of us. then rt wrll have done some krnd of servrce.
I’m With Stupid (BBCS. Sun 70 Sep. 700ml rs not the alternatrye trtle
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That Mitchell and Webb Look (BBQ? Thu H Sep. f).[r‘();)rnr must feel a hrt SttLlUC/(Etl. Scheduled rn hetxzeen the new ser'res of Extra}; and Mock the l’l/eek. the Peep Show gr {.5 may feel overwhelmerl by sur:h lauded company but then show. transferred from r'adro. rs a breath of trefsh cemedrr; arr. Not all of the sketches work (the rtr'rmehustrng due of an angel summoner and a Ble handrt rrder grxes up rti; larrre Joke all the tturckly and then proceeds. to hanrrrrer away at rt throughout) hrrt the \.lf;l()tl8 vrcar and the |udr<;r‘eut; numbers game Show trtjkle 2 me.
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