The Guardian - UK (2022-05-02)

• The Guardian
  10 Monday 2 May 2022

“They all know I’ve been brought in to

tick a box.” DI Rachita Ray (Parminder

Nagra) has just been promoted and is

asked to join a murder investigation.

However, on her fi rst day, she’s told the

case she’s been assigned is a culturally

specifi c homicide, and she suspects she

is a “token appointment”. Written by the

Line of Duty actor Maya Sondhi, and

executive produced by Jed Mercurio,

this four-part drama – which runs nightly

this week – is a sound crime story told

from a fresh perspective.

Hollie Richardson

The Split

9pm, BBC One

The Defoe clan go

camping – and what could

possibly go wrong? Nathan

turns green with food

poisoning, Rose is

constantly reminded of

James, and Nina has a

stomach-churning

realisation that Tyler is

a very bad egg. Things

get even worse when

Nathan’s pregnant

girlfriend fi nds him

giggling in a campervan

with Hannah. HR

Davina McCall:

Sex, Mind and the

Menopause

9pm, Channel 4

A year after exploring her

own menopause to help

bust the taboos around it,

Davina is back with

another special episode –

this time, focusing on

how the menopause

aff ects the brain. She

speaks to experts about

the issues menopausal

women want answers on,

from hormone therapy to

memory loss. HR

Married to a

Psychopath

10pm, Channel 4

Detective Charles Henry

recalls his never-before-

told three-year

investigation which

spanned several

continents and led to the

murder conviction of

Malcolm Webster – the

fraudster who targeted

wealthy women

throughout the 1990s. HR

Comedians Giving

Lectures

10pm, Dave

If there’s one thing the

politician-parodying

comedian Michael Spicer

is an expert on, it’s

dreadful leaders. Hence

his highly enjoyable talk

on how to lead when you

don’t know what you’re

doing in this show that

sees comics invent talks.

He’s joined by Ken Cheng

and Alex Brooker, who

tackle networking and

parenting.

Alexi Duggins

A Very British

Job Agency

11.05pm, Channel 4

More turmoil at Bognor

Regis’s most boisterous

recruitment agency. With

hospitality employees in

short supply, manager

Rich and Sarah trawl the

streets for potential new

workers (an “old-school,

press gang” approach).

But customised T-shirts

and lively patter may

not be enough.

Graeme Virtue

Remarkable ...

Toby Stephens

as the imprisoned

Oscar Wilde

DI Ray

9pm, ITV

And

another

thing

For more late-

period Oscar

Wilde, Rupert

Everett’s 2018

fi lm The Happy

Prince is an

outstanding

biopic

Review Prisoner C33,

BBC Four

He’s cold, hungry, sick, dirty – and bored. “I can bear

anything except losing my mind,” he says, as if the

prospect is imminent. Perhaps it was. Most of the

drama concentrates on this wretched version of Wilde,

a man who can only refer to himself by his prisoner

number , in conversation with his younger self – a witty ,

elegant man, dressed in immaculate velvet, with

rouged cheeks , who is urging his counterpart to strive

for survival. “I say, remember yourself for who you are.

A great and exceptional man,” says the young Oscar to

the prison Oscar, who refers to his surroundings as

“this tomb for those who are not yet dead”.

Nunn directs with utter sparseness, as if for a stage

production, and, clearly, this is about the dialogue and

the performance (or should that be performances? ).

Wilde debates grand subjects with himself. He rails

against England and “sound English common sense”

and the English education system. He talks of morality

and art and faith and God. Is art useless? Is he ashamed

of the success of The Importance of Being Earnest , a

play he wrote in haste for money , that the young Oscar

says will be performed for the rest of time? Wilde’s

ego and snobbery come and go. He is ashamed of his

materialism, yet fi nds solace in imagining rich fabrics

and good French soap.

There is much to say about love, too, from the

betrayal of “sweet Bosie” to his adoration of his wife and

children, though we know that he would never see them

again. He wonders if his ability to see “all the beauty in

the world”, in men and in women, makes him a superior

man. It would truly be a crime if this famous wit were

not allowed a glimmer of comedy in his musings, and

among the trauma and the horrors, there are plenty of

moments of sly humour. If his sexuality is superior,

should he expect an honour from the Queen? “Well,

certainly a tax rebate, at the very least,” he quips.

It is not an easy watch, and I mean that quite

literally. The conditions of a prison in 189 5 were grim,

and the idea that his cell “lacks a woman’s touch” is

laughable; no woman could improve on that fi lthy,

freezing cesspit. It is dark and gloomy (if this were

BBC One prime time, there would be issues raised by

the viewers who complain about mumbling ), its

protagonists looking for light in the shadows, and

there is a piercing, high-pitched noise every time Wilde

repeats his refrain of “If it was not for my ear ...”

But Stephens is remarkable, and gives it his all as

both the wreck of a man who would live only for

another four years, and as the suave, younger Wilde,

exhorting his older, ruined counterpart to live.

A man imprisoned for gay sex might now be a relic

of the past in this country, but it makes a pitch for

contemporary relevance in other ways, too. “We

cannot keep on living like this, governed by fools who

think only of wealth and of war and the size of their

estates,” Wilde rages, adding a touch of timelessness

to this sorry, sad tale.

★★★☆☆

TV and radio

W

atching plays on television requires
a certain mindset. Appearing as
part of BBC Four’s Sunday Night
Performance strand, Prisoner C33
is a brand new one-man play about
Oscar Wilde’s time in Reading Gaol.
It’s written by Stuart Pat erson , directed by Trevor Nunn
and star s a very good Toby Stephens as Wilde, playing
two very diff erent versions of the writer in conversation
with each other. If you are in the mood for an hour of
one man talking to himself about the great misfortunes
of his life, in a dim, candlelit cell, while the perforated
eardrum that would contribute to his death causes him
great pain, then this is a poetic and well-crafted play
that I imagine would be even more electric on stage.
That hour doesn’t stretch patience or outstay its
welcome. It begins with an animalistic moan, deep in
the bowels of the Victorian prison, its candles and iron
gates lending this a gothic chill. The moan is not coming
from Wilde, yet, but from a disturbed man a few cells
down, whose mutterings earn him an off -screen beating
from a guard. This is 189 5, and Wilde is in prison for
gross indecency after his aff air with Lord Alfred
Douglas, his beloved Bosie, became public knowledge.
He would emerge from his sentence having written De
Profundis and with the material for The Ballad of
Reading Gaol, but prisoner C33 is more concerned with
what Wilde had to endure, and the ultimate cost of that.
Stephens plays him as a wretched, tortured soul
brought to the depths of despair by his predicament.

Trevor Nunn’s

ballad of Reading

gaol is a sad and

wretched tale

Rebecca

Nicholson