11 September 1997 Edition
Television: Holding on in the big city
The teeming, violent life of the big city with its ten million people and ten million stories has always been the stuff of modern TV drama. All those lost souls thrown together in sleaze and decadence, riches and poverty are the perfect material for a quiet night in front of the telly.
And now the BBC has come up with another hit from its drama department. Holding Up (Monday, Tuesday, 9.30pm BBC2) is set in contemporary London and it follows a random group of characters whose lives would scare you so much that you might never leave your fireside again. There is a homeless psychotic, a young woman pestered by an office pervert, a tax investigator on the edge of a nervous breakdown, a taxi driver whose wife is having an affair with his brother, a bulimic restaurant critic and so on. At first, their lives are unconnected until the psychotic stabs the young woman in a phone box because he believes she is talking to the devil. She lies dead on the pavement outside a cinema, in which is playing Robert Altman's Short Cuts, an obvious reference to the film from which this drama draws its inspiration.
There are six more episodes and lots more stories to be examined and interwoven. As a picture of modern Britain, it will not please Tony Blair's accomplished spin doctors but they can take heart from the knowledge that it was conceived and written during the crumbling regime of John Major. That said, will New Labour's New Britain be any different from this menacing, hopeless picture of lost people's lives when it's Tony's time to face the wrath of the masses.
Holding Up is very well written and hold the attention in a modern, short timespan sort of way. It will be an achievement if it hold the audience's attention throughout its lengthy run but I have the feeling I'll stay with it on the strength of its first two episodes.
Inside Story (BBC1 Tuesday 10.00pm) delved into the unpleasant story of the Mandela United Football Club which ostensibly protected Winnie Mandela in her Soweto home. In those revolutionary days of the late 1980s, this group of undisciplined, untrained boys was never going to push forward the struggle. Instead, their fame has been earned through their involvement in the murder of young activist Stompie Moeketsi. Winnie Mandela was convicted of playing a role in his abduction and fined. Her bodyguard was sentenced to life for the murder.
Inside Story accused Winnie of actually carrying out the killing. Their chief source was Katiza Cebekhulu, a former member of the Mandela United Football Club who disappeared just before the murder trial. The programme claimed he was spirited out of South Africa on the orders of Nelson Mandela and eventually found in a prison cell in Zambia.
Cebekhulu came across as a thoroughly dodgy character. That's not to say that Winnie Mandela hasn't got a case to answer - the programme also put up other evidence which demolished some of the testimony Mandela gave in her trial. But Cebekhulu was far and away the main witness and I wouldn't trust him for a second. When I later read that he has a book deal tied in with the documentary, I was even more sceptical. Thoughts of Sean O'Callaghan, Martin McGartland and Eamon Collins entered my head. We all know how much the pound signs infect the testimony.
No doubt the Truth Commission will look into all this when Winnie Mandela appears before it at the end of the month. We'll wait and see.
And now the BBC has come up with another hit from its drama department. Holding Up (Monday, Tuesday, 9.30pm BBC2) is set in contemporary London and it follows a random group of characters whose lives would scare you so much that you might never leave your fireside again. There is a homeless psychotic, a young woman pestered by an office pervert, a tax investigator on the edge of a nervous breakdown, a taxi driver whose wife is having an affair with his brother, a bulimic restaurant critic and so on. At first, their lives are unconnected until the psychotic stabs the young woman in a phone box because he believes she is talking to the devil. She lies dead on the pavement outside a cinema, in which is playing Robert Altman's Short Cuts, an obvious reference to the film from which this drama draws its inspiration.
There are six more episodes and lots more stories to be examined and interwoven. As a picture of modern Britain, it will not please Tony Blair's accomplished spin doctors but they can take heart from the knowledge that it was conceived and written during the crumbling regime of John Major. That said, will New Labour's New Britain be any different from this menacing, hopeless picture of lost people's lives when it's Tony's time to face the wrath of the masses.
Holding Up is very well written and hold the attention in a modern, short timespan sort of way. It will be an achievement if it hold the audience's attention throughout its lengthy run but I have the feeling I'll stay with it on the strength of its first two episodes.
Inside Story (BBC1 Tuesday 10.00pm) delved into the unpleasant story of the Mandela United Football Club which ostensibly protected Winnie Mandela in her Soweto home. In those revolutionary days of the late 1980s, this group of undisciplined, untrained boys was never going to push forward the struggle. Instead, their fame has been earned through their involvement in the murder of young activist Stompie Moeketsi. Winnie Mandela was convicted of playing a role in his abduction and fined. Her bodyguard was sentenced to life for the murder.
Inside Story accused Winnie of actually carrying out the killing. Their chief source was Katiza Cebekhulu, a former member of the Mandela United Football Club who disappeared just before the murder trial. The programme claimed he was spirited out of South Africa on the orders of Nelson Mandela and eventually found in a prison cell in Zambia.
Cebekhulu came across as a thoroughly dodgy character. That's not to say that Winnie Mandela hasn't got a case to answer - the programme also put up other evidence which demolished some of the testimony Mandela gave in her trial. But Cebekhulu was far and away the main witness and I wouldn't trust him for a second. When I later read that he has a book deal tied in with the documentary, I was even more sceptical. Thoughts of Sean O'Callaghan, Martin McGartland and Eamon Collins entered my head. We all know how much the pound signs infect the testimony.
No doubt the Truth Commission will look into all this when Winnie Mandela appears before it at the end of the month. We'll wait and see.