The TV shows to watch this week: From Love Island to Killing Eve
Sean O’Grady isn’t sad to see the summer of love (and emotional counselling) come to an end
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Your support makes all the difference.It would be remiss, not to say disloyal of me to fail to mention How to Break Into the Elite, presented by the former editor of The Independent, Amol Rajan. Now the BBC’s media editor, and still a young man, he is himself a striking example of how a talented kid from a state school and a relatively humble background can make some progress in our supposedly hidebound, class-obsessed society, at least in the more liberal sections of the establishment. The most diverse cabinet in history, you could argue, speaks eloquently for the changes in British society. Not so long ago, after all, the official Conservative Party policy was to “repatriate” some of those now serving at the top of government.
Anyway, you may not be too surprised to find out that who you know can matter as much as what you know, and that a private education can endow you with the crucial but indefinable quality of confidence that can carry you through interviews and work placements. But what can you do if you lack such a background and the right connections?
Well, one answer to that is to take the fast-track to celebrity by going on Love Island. In a disturbing announcement last week – aside from the formation of the Johnson government – came the news that ITV have been doing so well with this reality TV show that they’re going to be broadcasting two series every year. This is bad for the moral fibre of the nation, bad news in particular for those of us who have to sit through it and review the alternately dull and bizarre proceedings and bad news for those who find themselves lodging in this sun-kissed mental health emergency. I don’t need to labour on all the usual criticism of the show: the ordeals suffered by some of the very young people we’ve witnessed in recent weeks say everything, really. No television programme should ever need to provide emotional counselling for those who appear on it. I mean, Newsnight doesn’t have a team of therapists parked in the green room waiting for those reeling from their treatment by Emily Maitlis.
No such problems with Who Do You Think You Are? This genealogical treat has been running for some years and I recently rediscovered the Boris Johnson episode, where it revealed that he has some quite illustrious forbears, including King George II (who couldn’t speak English), another princeling who was, apparently, an amusing womaniser, and the man who founded the YMCA. Well worth seeking out.
This week it is the turn of black actress Naomie Harris, some of whose forbears came from the Caribbean island of Grenada. The shock (look away now if you don’t want the surprise to be spoiled by me) is that one of her ancestors was a slave master, tasked with managing (ie punishing) the plantation workers. This is of course a couple of centuries ago, so it’s distant enough not to provoke a nervous breakdown, but remains poignant and thought-provoking. It is odd how these revelations affect people, because a long-gone relative is just that – a stranger who just happens to share your DNA.
“Beautiful backdrop, lovely river, two idiots” Or, elaborating a little: “The Brecon Beacons, the River Usk, Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse." Actually the show is much more about chatting, philosophising and joking than it is about angling – the perch and the carp are incidental. Which is just as well, if you think about it. Anyway, in this first of six reflective episodes, angler Paul takes Bob off to the picturesque River Usk in Wales, where Paul’s father first taught him to fish as a boy. Their conversation roams around childhoods, family lives, values and music. I wonder if someone should suggest that their respective other comedy halves should team up for a parallel series, so that Harry Enfield and Vic Reeves could go pony trekking in the Lake District or go karting in Lincoln.
It’s your last chance to catch the second series of Killing Eve. Even if the second series hasn’t quite had the same impact as the first. Anyhow, Eve (Sandra Oh) and Villanelle (Jodie Comer) have a bit of a showdown in a Roman ruin. It’s a bit tricky to work out who’s doing what to whom, or why. Maybe the third series, if there is one, will sort things out, eh?
How to Break into the Elite (BBC2, Monday 9pm); Love Island: the Live Final (ITV2, Monday 9pm); Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC1, Monday 9pm); Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing (BBC2, Friday 8pm); Killing Eve (BBC1, Saturday 9.15pm)
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