Section:GDN 12 PaGe:14 Edition Date:190815 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 14/8/2019 17:15 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
- The Guardian
14 Thursday 15 August 2019
After scrambling over Alaskan terrain
with Barack Obama in 2015, Bear Grylls
buddies up with the Indian prime
minister, Narendra Modi, for a special
episode of his survival travelogue. After
a rainy rendezvous in the Himalayan
foothills, the pair embark on a brisk fi ve-
mile trek through Bengal tiger country
with pitstops for Grylls to manhandle
elephant dung. For his part, the 68-year-
old Modi matches the pace, but seems
unwilling to veer too far from his list of
talking points about conservation.
Graeme VirtueRoss Kemp Living
With Online Gambling
Addiction
7.30pm, ITV
The fi nal episode of
Kemp’s series tracking
modern dysfunctions
explores the human
collateral damage that
is a byproduct of an
industry worth £5.4bn
a year. He meets addicts
who have lost everything
and gambles a few quid
himself in the hope of
understanding. Eye-
opening in its way.
Phil HarrisonFugitives
8pm, BBC One
The third fi lm in the gritty
real-crime series begins
with a Metropolitan police
extradition unit searching
for two people convicted
of slavery and extortion
off ences in Italy. Later,
a team in Derbyshire are
led a merry dance in their
hunt for a felon wanted for
perverting the course of
justice in Slovakia.
Mike BradleyThe Secret Teacher
9pm, Channel 4
“It’s not for the faint-
hearted – if you can
teach at Parkwood, you
can teach anywhere,”
warns headteacher Vicky
Simcock. Cue this week’sundercover support
worker – Liverpudlian
property millionaire
Kate Stewart – who
embarks on a six-week
tenure at a secondary
school in Sheffi eld’s
deprived Shirecliff e
district. MBThis Way Up
10pm, Channel 4
Wittier by the week,
Aisling Bea’s bittersweet
comedy places the
emphasis fi rmly on the
sweet in this episode.
It is dedicated to
demonstrating how
everyone has been made
so paranoid in the age
of off ence that they are
even afraid to make jokes.
Plus, a private tuition job
goes horribly, gloriously
wrong. MBSpank Me Harder: The
Sex Business
10pm, Channel 5
From OAP escorts to
transgender sex workers,
nothing is off limits in this
sex-themed documentary
strand. While it has raised
Ofcom’s hackles with its
graphic content, it is at
least a fairly informative
series, marrying Channel
5’s growing obs-doc
prowess with one of its
favourite subjects.
Hannah J DaviesAnna Friel and
Rosalind Eleazar
as Lisa and KateMan vs Wild With Bear Grylls
and Narendra Modi
11pm, Discovery
And
another
thingWhile we’re
on about
comparisons,
should we call
Mike Bartlett’s
upcoming
drama about
managers
on a Reading
industrial
estate the New
(serious) Offi ce?Review Deep Water, ITV
perfectly laundered Sam’s clothes from the near-disaster
on the boat. “Gosh, ironed,” says Lisa. “He won’t know
what’s hit him.”
Lisa (Anna Friel), who runs a kennels, was
endearingly pleased when Kate (Rosalind Eleazar)
suggested coff ee, even more so when Kate fl attered her
after discussing the bullying by her son: “I told Guy: ‘Lisa
will understand, she’s one of us .’” When Kate invited
Lisa and her taxi-driver husband to dinner , Lisa could
barely contain her gratitude. So seduced with Kate’s
Farrow & Ball-ed lakeside house, and her rich relations- the other guests were sister Alexa and her husband,
Adam, a cosmetic surgeon – it didn’t take much to
throw her scruff y life overboard. Adam followed her to
the bathroom and they ha d the kind of sex that always
makes me worry about the integrity of the wash basin.
Roz (Sinead Keenan), meanwhile, a physiotherapist,
was struggling with debt. Her partner, Winston, was
out of work and a bit useless, too – although it was later
revealed he has a gambling addiction. He got one day
of work but, instead of being paid in cash, he took a
saxophone. Perhaps it was a small mercy that they were
about to be evicted, because what could be worse than
living with someone who likes to play the sax?
On the surface, Deep Water is entertainingly
watchable, but lurking not too far beneath is the feeling
that it is all so implausible. I don’t think bailiff s are
allowed to enter an empty house, however much a plot
requires them to.
Some of the dialogue is excruciating, with Kate
suff ering the worst of it. “You know, the one-eyed
monster from Greek mythology,” she says to Lisa,
explaining Sam’s bullying insult, as if you only know
what a cyclops is when you know your Homer. At the
awful dinner, she and Alexa ha d an argument after
gossiping about the marriage of a woman they know.
“We both know how damaging a divorce is for children,”
says Kate, jarring ly conveying signifi cant backstory.
Then there are the soapy supporting characters. Roz’s
brother is a camp chef. Alexa is a panto villain who calls
Lisa “working mummy” with an unnecessary contempt
that doesn’t ring true. Scott, one of Roz’s clients,
seems too smooth to be real, with all the signifi ers of a
Successful Businessman – nice car, fl ash suit – although
he doesn’t seem to spend much time at work, since he is
always at her practice or popping up in the background
wherever she is, like a silvery executive Where’s Wally.
He passed her house one day; saw her with her brother
on another. “Are you following me?” Roz asked. “This
is Windermere, the world’s smallest town,” he says. She
is probably going to take up his “business proposition”
to pay the bills. “I’m looking for a discreet physical
arrangement,” he says, creepy and unblinking.
Despite all this, I am going to stick with it, mostly for
the aspirational property and the liquid scenery. Not
the best reasons, I know, but that’s also what kept me
watching Big Little Lies.
★★★☆☆
TV and radio
M
uch has already been made of how
similar Deep Water is to Sky Atlantic’s
Big Little Lies. At fi rst you think
that is just the sort of comparison
everything has to have these days –
the new Fleabag, etc – but, goodness,
it is inescapable here. Here we have a group of school-
run mothers with whom appearances are deceptive,
incomes are contrasting and there is at least one
beautiful house to look at. There are watery backdrops- the Lake District is a fi ne substitute for Monterey,
California – and a swoony soundtrack.
It is a bit irritating because, based on the novels by
Paula Daly, Deep Water has the making of an interesting
story in its own right. Hopefully, as it goes on, the
comparison will seem less glaring.
It opened with a boy, Sam, falling overboard on a boat
trip with his friend’s family. Sam might be a bit of a bully - he wa s mean to his friend Fergus, who wears an eye
patch – but it was unclear whether Fergus pushed Sam
in. Anyway, Fergus’s dad Guy dived in to save him and all
was well again for the family. For now.
Next, we were on our way to school where working
mums Roz and Lisa were chaotic and stressed. Book bags
were lost, ingredients for cookery class went missing,
historical dress-up day was forgotten and wasn’t it only
just “World bloody Book Day,” complains Lisa. The
third woman, Kate – Fergus’s mum – appeared looking
perfect, with her son in full Roman emperor costume.
As if to underline her apparent ease through life, she had
It’s Big Little Lies
in the Lakes, but
this new drama
may yet deliver
Emine Saner
РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS