- The Guardian
14 Tuesday 30 July 2019
Refreshingly practical, but with an
attractive reality TV twist and some
appetising recipes, this cookery
competition is presented by Michelin-
starred chef Jason Atherton , whose task
is to turn a team of “raw cooking talent” –
10 inexperienced cooks who must avoid
relegation to a pool of replacements
hungry to take their place – into a chefs’
brigade capable of competing with the
fi nest restaurants in Europe. Tonight,
the team travel to Puglia in a bid to beat
the Italians at their own game.
Mike Bradley^Keeping Faith
9pm, BBC One
No sooner has Evan
(Bradley Freegard) arrived
home in Abercorran
than he has been sent
away again, this time at
Her Majesty’s pleasure.
Still, the Howells family
keep on keeping on –
chic resilience being
a speciality for Faith
(Eve Myles). Plus, there
is a murder trial for
them all to get through.
Ellen E JonesCounting Tigers:
A Survival Special
9pm, ITV
Given that there are
thought to be only
about 4,000 tigers
left in the wild, this
fi lm about the largest
survey ever carried
out to establish the
numbers in India has
added poignancy. Martin
Hughes-Games steps out
of his bittern-hunting
boots to explore the
future of the big cat. MBRevolutions: The
Ideas That Changed
the World
9pm, BBC Four
The documentary series
profi ling the inventions
that altered human
history continues with
such a deep dive into theorigins of the automobile
that you don’t even see
one for the fi rst half-hour.
Prof Jim Al-Khalili sets
out the story patiently,
with some unexpected
help from Jay Leno.
Graeme VirtueManifest
9pm, Sky One
So successful in the
US that it has just been
renewed for a second
season, this supernatural
drama follows the
passengers and crew of
Montego Air Flight 828,
who suddenly reappear
after being presumed
dead for fi ve years, only
to reveal that, to them, it
feels as though mere hours
have passed. A Lost - style
mystery that is well
worth a gander. MBI Am Kirsty
10pm, Channel 4
The second of three
partly improvised,
female-led shorts by
Dominic Savage and their
respective stars, I Am
Kirsty features Samantha
Morton as a struggling
mother. Although the
conclusion – which
Morton has described as
“autobiographical at its
heart” – feels rushed, it
is quietly devastating.
Hannah J DaviesAmol Rajan
with
(left to right)
Amaan, Ben
and ElvisThe Chefs’ Brigade
9pm, BBC Two
And
another
thingHow does Amy
Santiago aff ord
her apartment
in Brooklyn
Nine-Nine? It
concerns me.Review How to Break into
the Elite, BBC Two
We promise our children a meritocracy. If they
can keep their heads in their books while all around
them are losing theirs at nightclubs, if they can fi ll
the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds’ worth of
A-level revision done, then theirs will be the world
and everything in it.
We promise our children a lot of things , but
eventually they have to face the real world, which
has little interest in fairness and a lot of interest in
recruiting in its own image to perpetuate itself as safely
as possible. This was better illustrated by various
statistics from experts such as the sociologist Dr Sam
Friedman than by the graduates’ experiences. This
was partly because the plural of anecdote is not data –
although the former humanises the latter – and partly
because the statistics were so striking: for example, a
third of the population is working class and only 10%
of that third work in elite jobs – in which they earn on
average 16% less than their more privileged peers.
So many intangible factors, the kind that cannot
be quickly learned or easily faked, carry a premium :
confi dence, codes of politeness, knowing what to
wear , just ... fi tting in. After a knock back, Elvis note d
cheerily that “ no one’s reminded of themselves when
they look at me ”.
We saw Ben benefi t from being able to aff ord to
undertake unpaid work experience, and from the
confi dence life has given him to bluff his way through
diffi culties while there. Meanwhile, at least one of
Elvis’s interviews seem ed likely to have foundered
when he explained that he didn’t fully understand
the question (“ They said they were worried I couldn’t
operate under pressure”). Amaan’s crippling anxiety
when required to speak in a formal setting was so
overwhelming that it would have taken a candidate
from any background out of the equation. The point,
of course, is that a person born with more advantages
would be less likely to suff er from it to the same extent,
or would have been trained out of it.
It was an hour that made clear that none of the
candidates but Ben had the ineff able “polish” for which
elite employers look. It made equally – and, thanks to
Rajan, passionately – clear that this should not be a
recruitment requirement, serving only to reward those
who look, sound and act like those already there. It
made clear that someone who hacks his or her own path
through an obstacle-fi lled life to arrive at the interview
room should immediately be worthier of consideration
than someone who has slipped down a polished chute
to the same place. If employers would let the scales fall
from their eyes, they would see a world of potential that
is being left to rot by, at best, their ignorance and idiocy
and , at worst , multitudinous enduring prejudices.
What a morally unspeakable waste. Or, to put it
in terms a CEO somewhere might care about, what a
lucrative pool of assets waiting to be tapped by someone
clearsighted enough to see it. Sign them up.★★★☆☆
TV and radio
W
e live in a society that sees some of
the best minds of every generation
squandered because they are not
expressed in the right accent or
presented in the right clothes.
That was the conclusion
it was diffi cult to avoid by the end of Amol Rajan ’s
documentary How to Break into the Elite. It looked at
the likelihood of today’s youth being able to replicate
his journey from state school boy in south London
to BBC media editor, and showed the progress – or
otherwise – of graduates from various backgrounds as
they attempted to start their professional lives.
They included Amaan (Birmingham state school, fi rst
in economics from the University of Nottingham ), with
his ambition to work in equity sales in a merchant bank.
There was also Ben (the only white, solidly middle-class
case study, privately educated at Dulwich College) , who
is hoping for a career in sports journalism ; his parents
would prefer he follow in his father’s lawyerly footsteps.
There was Elvis from Dagenham, who wants to be a City
trader. His mother used to clean the Morgan Stanley
offi ces and suggested he try to get a job there. So, he set
his face against his schoolfriends’ ideas of a good time
and got a 2:1 in political economy from the University of
Birmingham , becoming the fi rst member of his family
to get a degree. “The least I can do,” he says as he sets
off for his fi rst interview, “is give my mum back a little
bit of something. Even if it is just the idea of me being
successful. That would be enough to make her happy.”
If you don’t think
privilege matters,
watch this
documentary
Lucy Mangan
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