TV Review: As most television viewers know, last year Oceanic Air flight 815 belly-flopped out of the sky, scattering parts of its fuselage and 48 of its better-looking passengers all over the new LCD screen.
Lost, the phenomenally successful US drama, returned this week with more spooky horticulture and distressingly inventive jungle mayhem. Instructively, as a precursor to series two, we were given an hour-long highlights compilation of series one (complete with reassuring, avuncular voice over) to bring the uninitiated and the forgetful (and the recalcitrant critic) up to speed.
Lost works. And yes, it is bananas that the bunch of golden-blonde, girl band-esque survivors somehow never seem to have any re-growth; bananas too that Jack (Matthew Fox), surgeon and reluctant group leader, manages to maintain an unchanging five o'clock shadow alongside his seamless diplomacy and manly equivocation; bananas that the French woman marooned on the island for the last 16 years still looks safari-chic in her crumpled linen; and bananas that any of them are still alive at all, given that the island is inhabited by "the others" (whoever they are) and that people get dragged into cesspools by plumes of smoke, hijacked by pirates and petrified by the growling foliage.
Lost works much as the fantastic shaggy-dog tale of Twin Peaks worked, by being visually alluring, sometimes terrifying and almost theatrically inventive. The underlying theme of science versus faith, and of one man's date with destiny, allows the series to romp through the undergrowth scattering visual clues and red herrings as merrily as Hansel and Gretel in the wood with yesterday's sliced pan.
At the start of series two, Locke (Terry O'Quinn) dynamites the lid off an enormous metal vat he has found buried in the jungle. This Pandora's box, entered after much rope-trickery and soul-searching, revealed a quasi-home, circa 1972, complete with record turntable, exercise bike and electric blender. It is inhabited by a mysterious Scot with a dodgy accent, who has a liking for Mama Cass Elliot, a unique system of intravenous drug-taking and, seemingly, a talent for miracles. Add this contagious (possibly literally - the word "quarantine" was writ large on the metal vat) new character to the jungle conundrum and now maybe the lovely boys and girls of flight 815 really will have something to lose their shiny hair over.
"OH, THE VIEW!" gasped the chocolate-box-charming 21-year-old Gwenda (Sophia Myles), rushing through the shrubbery towards the glinting sea at the end of the garden. But Gwenda, proud new owner of a pretty seaside house in Devon, would soon need more than a seascape and her polka-dot party frock to keep her spirits up! Oh God, it's the floppy-hatted sleuth again. Personally, I'd rather eat the cat litter than watch Agatha Christie's Marple, but don't let me stop you if you want to enjoy the star-studded tripe. At least the hat is on the capable head of veteran English actor Geraldine McEwan, and the new series prowled confidently on to the screen, well-fed as it was on celebrity star turns.
The plot, classic Christie with a bit of implausible psychology tacked on the end, concerned the orphaned young Gwenda and her oddly lustful uncle, James (Phil Davis), who, being a psychiatrist, lived in flat-roofed modernism and played a grand piano. There was also an accidental jewellery robbery, a fake death and some rather banal hints at incest (which the St Mary Meade spinster referred to euphemistically as "over-protectiveness").
Flimsy and whimsical as Marple's embroidered hanky, the storyline was thankfully obscured by some earth-shatteringly complacent performances from well-known telly faces. Dawn French, Russ Abbot and Martin Kemp were among a fulsome cast who had a ball sitting around pretty drawingrooms, hamming it up as part of a theatrical troupe called The Funny Bones and disporting themselves around the seaside town in blazers and boaters. The most ingratiatingly nauseating performance award, however, must surely go to Una Stubbs as the talkative housekeeper and fridge-lover who, more than all the other luvvies, seemed to embrace the melodrama with incautious enthusiasm.
For those who do enjoy Agatha Christie (and, let's face it, given that she is one of the bestselling authors of all time, that's probably a lot of people), this latest leafy outing, complete with topiary-loving chief inspectors and lapping wavelets, will be welcome viewing. There are another four stories in the series. Through gritted teeth, I bid you enjoy.
WITH MANY WOMEN leaving the decision to have children until they are in their late 30s or early 40s, the issues of fertility, single parenting and assisted conception are increasingly on the social agenda. In The Baby Race, Channel 4 assembled a group of 30 single women in their mid-to-late 30s and followed their progress over 18 months as they attempted to conceive or adopt.
The most popular choice among the women was to opt for artificial insemination by donors from a sperm bank. In a complicated process, each woman's fertility has to be assessed before the chosen sperm (which has been quarantined and frozen for six months, partly to give the donor a chance to change his mind) becomes available, and then, if they are fortunate enough to synchronise ovulation with the clinic's opening times, insemination can take place.
These single women, who are choosing assisted conception, and their offspring represent a new type of family, the programme claimed. Many have had to overcome discrimination and negative societal attitudes in the process, as in the case of Natalie, self-described as a disabled 40-year-old lesbian, who (with a sperm donation from a close friend) eventually gave birth to her son, Oscar. Changes to British law mean that, since 2005, children conceived using donor sperm are entitled to trace their fathers. Fertility clinics now keep a file on donors, which can include "goodwill messages" to the children.
Other single women attempting adoption, both at home and abroad, fought a system seemingly mired in complications. Particularly heartbreaking was Karen's story: a staff nurse in her mid-30s, warm, realistic and committed, she was attempting, with support from her family and colleagues, to adopt a six-year-old London girl (the chances of adopting an infant in Britain being almost non-existent). Having been told that the adoption was going through, she was, at the 11th hour, called in to meet senior social workers who had decided at this late stage that the lack of a male role model in the child's life would be "an issue". The adoption was denied. If, a few streets away, life can be gifted by a donor and paternal support can take the form of a goodwill message, the system seems terribly unjust.
WHILE RAIN FELL outside like needles and February wrapped her claws around our throats, it was uplifting to be reminded that sometimes our damp island basks in sunshine and we sit outside bars with cold pints and freckles, watching the boats come in. The Hairy Bikers' Cookbook roared into Ireland sometime last summer, when hirsute northern English gastronomes Simon King and Dave Myers (Si'n'Dave) embarked on a culinary journey that took them north from Dublin to Carlingford, on to Co Cavan and finally to the foot of Croagh Patrick in Co Mayo. The hairies, big woolly foodies and bon viveurs that they are, cooking Louisiana Po'Boys oysters on the carpeted grass of the ruins of Carlingford Castle or competing against one another to make an Irish stew on a Co Mayo beach, offered a glimpse of Ireland that truly was beautiful and alluring.
In Blacklion, Co Cavan, the cooks visited chef Nevin Maguire at his restaurant - which was opened by his parents but which closed for more than 15 years from 1973 because of the Troubles - where, in a tasteful bit of geography, they were served Irish Peking duck. At Enniscrone, the two men, who carry a lifetime's appreciation and love of food around their waistlines, partook of a seaweed bath, possibly denuding an entire shoreline in the process. Then, traversing leafy Co Mayo in a horse-drawn caravan on their way to scale Croagh Patrick on their knees (oh yeah?), Dave assembled three Irish whiskey syllabubs.
"Keep whipping till you've got firm peaks," he said through the curtain of his moustache (he'd need to go round Croagh Patrick twice as penance for that remark). As the three of them (Si, Dave and the horse) sipped their syllabubs in the dappled evening light, it almost felt like summer.
