- The Guardian
14 Wednesday 24 July 2019
Normally the kind of thing you would
expect to fi nd squirrelled away between
sharks and Nazis on Channel 5, this is
a glamorous deconstruction of the
diamonds and decorum that cloak (and
simultaneously advertise) the British
royal family. Fundamentally, it is a fi lm
about branding, in which designers,
fashion historians, royal watchers and
trendsetters interpret the signifi cance
and analyse the planning behind classic
royal dresses and the impact of royal
women on British fashion.
Mike BradleyAnimal Babies:
First Year on Earth
9pm, BBC Two
A newborn elephant
i n Kenya ha s adorable
Dumbo-like ears, but they
are no help when it comes
to keeping up with the
herd. For many species,
these fi rst few months
of life are fraught with
danger, which makes
this three-part wildlife
documentary much
more than a string of
fur-baby photo ops.
Ellen E JonesGomorrah
9pm, Sky Atlantic
Gomorrah always
does good fi nales and
this double-bill ending
to sea son fou r is no
exception. Prepare for
a rollercoaster ride as
Genny declares: “I gotta
take back Secondigliano.”
Plus, fans impatient for
season fi ve can look
forward to the prequel
fi lm The Immortal, which
is currently in the works.
MBGameFace
10pm, Channel 4
Still reeling from being
called “a potato-faced
slapper” by Simon’s
ex-wife Tanya, a bruised
Marcella seeks solace in
her acting work; troubleis, barring a bit part as
a monk, she can’t fi nd
any. Writer-star Roisin
Conaty’s scripts get better
by the week, with the
internal rhythms of her
comedy winning our
hearts. MBOur Borough:
Love & Hustle
10.35pm, BBC One
Youth deaths in London
are scarcely out of the
headlines, but accurate
portrayals of growing up
in the capital are still
rare. This two-part
documentary off ers a
corrective, telling the
stories of pastor Onyeka,
performance poet Taz and
others, doing their best
despite challenges in their
corner of north London.
Hannah J DaviesGeneration Porn
10.35pm, Channel 4
The uncomfortably frank
dissection of online fi lth
concludes by looking at
where porn is going now.
While an ex-gardener
tries to convince his
bus-driver friend to join
his burgeoning smut
empire, a campaigner
mounts the familiar
argument that the answer
to porn’s toxicity is to
make it more realistic.
Jack SealeAll too believable:
Vicky McLure
as Nicola with
Perry Fitzpatrick
as AdamHow to Dress Like a Princess:
Royal Fashion Secrets
10.15pm, More4
And
another
thingNews of the
Gossip Girl
reboot is
consuming
me. So many
questions!
And as yet no
answers! TELL
ME STUFF.Review I Am Nicola,
Channel 4
with that of friends from diff erent backgrounds and
diff erent genders would be an interesting, illustrative
exercise. When he chides her not to be “silly” when
she mentions that she wants them to “do more shit
together”. Or when he nudges her into cancelling a trip
to the pub with a friend (“See them all day at work
anyway, don’t you?”). Or is it his constant questioning –
“Are you all right? I just want to make sure you’re all
right” – that sets you off? It’s overwhelming concern,
because its very purpose is to overwhelm. It’s impossible
to clear enough space to think straight when anything is
encroaching from all sides.
All the scenes are closeups, the camera coming in at
odd, choppy angles, evoking the pair’s mental bobbing
and weaving as Adam seeks to box her in and Nicola tries
to duck under his jabs or slumps against the ropes in
acquiescence. The dialogue is so naturalistic you would
believe it was improvised on the spot, if their arguments
weren’t such perfect replications of the real things –
circular horrors that take place on shifting sands, so you
return to a slightly worse place than the one you left.
Both actors are brilliantly surefooted. Fitzpatrick
pitches Adam’s toxicity just right, the bully resting just
inches below the surface of his everyman fa cade, and
the coward just an inch or two below that. #NotAllMen,
no – but so many more than you think or hope. And
McClure is back on the This is Englandish ground that
rightly made her name. She has, of course, become
much more famous since via her turn as AC-12’s Kate
Fleming in Line of Duty, but she is wasted in the role
(particularly in the most recent series) and so much
better suited to this kind of intimate, emotionally
granular work that it is both a joy and a relief to see
her fl ex her talents fully again.
Her Nicola is wholly believable, wholly identifi able.
Nicola has insight into her situation (“I’m not gonna lie,”
she tells Adam in the wake of one of his wheedling
apologies, this time after objecting to her tight gym
clothes, “It’s weird. Alarm bells ring”) and his mindset.
She tries to tell him, warn him, teach him – not because
she is a pushover, but because she is normal; normally
kind, normally hopeful, and it takes time for these
humane instincts to burn out and be replaced by the
necessary toughness required to resist.
There isn’t much in the way of plot. This is, above
all, a mood piece. As with life, there is no dramatic or
Damascene moment for Nicola – just a cumulative
pressure, a gradual admission that the scales of
happiness are unignorably tipped. There is no neat
resolution, but when Nicola fi nally leaves to spend a
night at her mum’s (she had intended to leave for good,
but Adam hints at suicide, so it is whittled down to a
week and then a bare 24 hours), we see her walk across
the family garden and smile. From the grin alone we
may infer liberation.
If you see yourself in any of it, listen to the alarm
bells. When did you last smile freely?★★★★★
TV and radio
I
Am Nicola is a rare, beautifully realised piece
about an underexamined, ugly phenomenon.
The fi rst of three female-led, hour-long dramas
written by Dominic Savage after collaborations
with a trio of actors – Samantha Morton, Gemma
Chan and, here, Vicky McClure – it was a subtle,
onion-layered thing that peeled itself down to the truth
over 60 tense, claustrophobic minutes.
McClure plays Nicola, a hairdresser who initially
seems to be chafi ng at the inevitable boredoms that creep
into a long-term relationship. Her partner Adam (Perry
Fitzpatrick) seems like a nice enough guy. As viewers, we
lag only slightly behind Nicola in our reappraisal. If you
have been there yourself, you will catch up slightly
quicker. If you have watched a friend go through
something similar, the sensation of watching Nicola,
trying to catch her attention, explain things to her as
if through a thick pane of glass, will be rendered
uncomfortably literal.
Adam never hits her, although you feel the threat
hovering on the horizon, particularly when he gets into
a row at a barbecue at their friends’ house. The task
Savage and his actors have set themselves is the much
harder one of limning the intangible violence recently
named and outlawed as “coercive control”: the
emotional manipulation, the erosion of a supposedly
loved one’s mental freedoms, the gentle battering of
a psyche into submission.
There is just something slightly off about him. About
them. To compare where your spider-sense began tinglingCaught in
the trap of a
toxic, coercive
relationship
Lucy Mangan
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