IF YOU believe the adverts, the home of “original British drama” is the BBC. That may be true some of the time. Tuesday nights, for example, tend to get some good dramas. Silks (Tuesdays, 9pm, BBC 1) is pretty good as legal dramas go.
And, of course, there are the big-money productions such as Sherlock, although the most recent series did take the whole “can we believe what we're seeing” thing a little too far – surely not even a genius like Sherlock could really survive a multi-storey fall on to concrete.
However, Sunday night at the moment – traditionally the home of drama of some sort – feels somewhat barren. The Voice vote results show (Sundays, 7.30pm, BBC 1) is crammed into 30 minutes and fenced in by Countryfile – which, truth be told, should really be called Townies-going-to-the-countryside-for-the-weekend-file – on one side, and Planet Earth Live, a programme mischeviously misnamed given how much of it depends on probable death, on the other.
ITV isn't much better. The traditional home of such homely dramatic delights such as Heartbeat, The Royal and Where The Heart Is seems now to rely on sporadic crime dramas such as Vera to punctuate the gaps in the year when Simon Cowell isn't ruling Sundays.
So it's a big hoorah for Sky One, the unlikely home of one of the best dramas – admittedly a comedy drama but lets be grateful for what we can get – on telly at the moment, and certainly the best offering on a Sunday night.
Starlings (Sundays, Sky One, 8pm) is like a modern-day Darling Buds of May, only without a young actress destined to go on to marry a movie star millionaire or be ulitimately best known for shouting 'oggy, oggy oggy' at an awards ceremony.
Or a celebrated comedy actor fresh from a sitcom set in inner-city London determined to show he can put on a good country accent. Thank god David Jason went on to do Frost. Shame about The Royal Bodyguard though.
Instead, Starlings has Brendan Coyle, fresh out of Downtown Abbey – maybe I was wrong about the reinvention – and Lesley Sharp, last seen in Scott and Bailey, arguably one of the most under-rated crime dramas going.
Read Morehttp://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-culture/liverpool-arts/2012/05/24/tv-review-starlings-sets-the-bar-high-for-sunday-night-drama-99623-31024524/
No comments:
Post a Comment