HELLO Alan Yentob, what have you got for us in your enchanted curiosity box this week?
"Well, children, can you guess where I am?"
Yes, patently. I'm not an idiot. You're standing in front of a guitar shop. God, you're not going to talk about
rock music like you did in that slightly embarrassing The Story of the Guitar series recently, are you?
"Umm, yes. Yes I am. Why, do you think it makes me look a bit like someone's Dad awkwardly trying to join in at a Ting Tings concert?"
Yes. That and a self-appointed cultural polymath struggling to pretend that he's interested and informed about every single facet of the arts. You're not fooling anyone, Yentob.
"But wait, come back! This is one of those Imagine… programmes in which I present an edited version of an already existing documentary and just appear at the beginning and end for no real reason whatsoever. Those are usually more tolerable, aren't they?"
Yes they are. Carry on then.
Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi's feature-length documentary, Heavy Metal in Baghdad, was virtually chopped in half by Yentob's editors, rendering it rather piecemeal and unsatisfying.
Chronicling three years in the lives of Iraq's only heavy metal band, Acrassicauda (Latin for "The Black Scorpion"), this low-budget, rough-edged effort was still quite interesting despite its compromised presentation.
If nothing else, Moretti and Alvi's film certainly gave a powerful impression of what it's actually like on the ground in occupied Baghdad. An ever-present sense of fear and paranoia permeated proceedings, as Acrassicauda struggled for survival against an oppressive backdrop of gunfire, bombings and endless red tape.
"Look around," noted singer/guitarist Faisal dryly. "We are living in the heavy metal world."
Although annoyingly over-fond of the word "dude", they were a bright, articulate bunch who spoke in perfect English with what sounded like a vague American twang. The irony of oppressed Iraqis being in thrall to American pop culture (their favourite band was Metallica) wasn't lost on them, but they simply didn't care. All they wanted to do was rock.
Under Saddam's regime they were barely allowed to play at all. Banned from growing their hair, they were even instructed to write a song in tribute to their glorious leader, which they did in amusingly half-hearted fashion.
Watching old footage of one of their gigs, bassist Firas noted that most of their adoring fans had since died or disappeared.
The band fled Baghdad as soon as they could, eking out a living as refugees in Turkey and later New York. Unfortunately, when the original film ended, two of them lived in the former, the other two in the latter.
Just as their saga seemed to be winding down, up popped Yentob just before the end to find out what had happened to them since. Still forcibly separated, the future for Acrassicauda looked about as hopeful as that of their homeland. "We just want it to end," sighed Firas.
The characters in Survivors can surely empathise. In the latest episode of this compelling post-apocalyptic drama, Abby (Julie Graham, successfully washing her hands of the awful Bonekickers) encountered the last surviving member of the British Government, who was struggling to re-establish some order in this desiccated world.
Survivors is one of the most unsparingly gloomy dramas I've seen in a long time, and is all the better for it.
"Wait!" interrupts Alan Yentob. "Can I just say that Survivors is a powerful addition to Britain's rich heritage of dystopias, which…"
No, you can't. Go away.
WILD ABOUT YOUR GARDEN
BBC1, 8:30pm
Now here's a good idea. Instead of covering gardens with decking and paving and creating order from chaos, the team here are doing the reverse, turning urban spaces into little oases of wilderness. Nick Knowles, garden designer Chris Beardshaw and wildlife specialist Ellie Harrison rip up the garden of Betty from Crayford, who misses the birds and butterflies she used to see out of her window, and stick lots of trees in. Let's just hope there's no leylandii.
DANGEROUS ADVENTURES FOR BOYS
Five, 9pm
Not so much dangerous as difficult (although there is always the danger of a boiler blowing up or something). Todd Carty and his 11-year-old son learn how to look after and drive a steam train along an 18-mile track originally built by George Stevenson. Sounds like fun, but there's a lot of cleaning, oiling and literally tons of hard stoking to be done before the journey gets under way.
OUTNUMBERED
BBC2, 10pm
Though the big names in this sitcom are Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner, below, as the perennially flustered parents, the real star of the show is Ramona Marquez as little Karen, whose innocence allows writers Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin to make hilariously awful yet logical observations. This week the family, spurred on by their perfect neighbours, decide to ban TV and have a traditional Sunday. However, dad has problems when the birds-and-the-bees talk rears its ugly head.
DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE
BBC2, 11:30am
The Doctor series that confirmed Dirk Bogarde as a British screen idol kicks off with this mildly amusing tale of medical students going through training. There are romantic interludes to the japes and mishaps which tend to drag a little, but the combination of Kenneth More, Donald Sinden and the majestically grumpy James Robertson Justice as the blustering Sir Lancelot Spratt more than make up for it. Not bad for a film that's pushing 54.
DANTE'S PEAK
ITV2, 11pm
Between Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies, Pierce Brosnan made disaster films. In 1996 he was Dr Kessler in the wonderful Mars Attacks and here he's Dr Dalton: a dashing and resourceful scientist who tries to persuade the residents of Dante's Peak that the local dormant volcano is about to erupt. Of course, they don't believe him until it's too late: there would be no film otherwise. As volcanic disasters go, it's quite impressive and reasonably accurate
Craig Naples
MANSFIELD PARK
ITV3, 9pm
Billie Piper stars in an adaptation of what is probably Jane Austen's least-read novel. Fanny Price is lifted out of poverty and sent to live with posh relatives, but can she learn to live in a world that can't forget her status?
The full article contains 1063 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
