Worth Watching: ‘The Life and Death of Lily Savage’, ‘Baby Reindeer’ and ‘Michael Palin in Nigeria’
It’s your Worth Watching email.
Hello,
Welcome to Worth Watching.
Hope you have been having a great week. I have a bit of news to share later in this newsletter (cough, new podcast, cough), but before all that, here are this week’s recommendations.
DOCUMENTARY OF THE WEEK
The Life and Death of Lily Savage (ITVX - one-off documentary) - Airing on the anniversary of the late great comedian’s death, this documentary follows the career of Lily Savage, the drag act that made Paul O’Grady such a household name.
Featuring contributions from many of his family and friends, this documentary hones in on how much of a pioneer for LGBTQ+ representation she was. I mean, she was presenting Blankety Blank to mainstream, largely heterosexual, BBC One audiences back in the nineties. The narrator of the documentary is O’Grady himself, his voice taken from various interviews — a great creative choice, as he was one of life’s most gifted storytellers.
Anecdotes of Lily’s activism are great to hear about too, from protesting against the homophobic law of Section 28, to the infamous time the police raided the Royal Vauxhall Tavern whilst she was performing on stage at the height of the AIDS Crisis.
Noticing that the police were wearing rubber gloves during the raid, she told the audience: ‘lads, you’ve come to do the washing up, and that’s great’.
YES, IT IS AS GOOD AS EVERYONE HAS BEEN SAYING
Baby Reindeer (Netflix - all episodes) - This seven-part semi-autobiographical drama — created, written and starring Richard Gadd — is such a captivating watch because what you first assume to be a story about the horrors of being stalked, ends up becoming a brutally honest self-reflection about guilt, trauma and recovery. It reminds me so much of Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, where the strength of the whole show rests on someone’s own lived experience and their singular voice radiating through the television.
A masterstroke is also the fact that Martha, the person stalking Donny (Gadd) in the series (portrayed by the brilliant Jessica Gunning) is not a one-dimensional character. Also the fact that you have such a complex, rich, absorbing series… and yet nearly all of the episodes are only thirty minutes long. Sublime.
OTHER SHOWS OUT THIS WEEK
Michael Palin in Nigeria (Channel 5 - new episodes out weekly) - In his latest Channel 5 series, Michael Palin travels 1300 miles across Nigeria, starting in Lagos. He’s one of the best television broadcasters because of his natural ease in engaging with people. It can feel a bit like a whistle-stop tour, lacking the depth of his famous travel documentaries of old. But then again, he is in his eighties.
Fallout (Amazon Prime Video - all episodes of series one) - Not long after The Last of Us, comes another apocalyptic television series based on a hugely successful video game. Transferring a video game into a television show can usually make a show feel stilted, but this one, set in a future nuclear hellscape where humanity lives underground, has fantastic world-building. Oh, by the way, violence can be a bit gratuitous for gratuitousness’ sake (think of it being a bit like The Boys).
Mammoth (BBC Two - all episodes available) - A sort of a mixture between cult Channel 4 comedy Toast of London and Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) in Life on Mars, this new comedy is about Tony Mammoth (Mike Bubbins) who was frozen in an avalanche back in the 1970s and then wakes up in the modern era.
I HAVE A NEW PODCAST
It’s called The Bachelor of Buckingham Palace and it explores the bizarre US reality show I Wanna Marry Harry, in which 12 American women were encouraged to believe that they were dating Prince Harry (when in fact it was a lookalike.)
At the time, the women in the show became a laughing stock for ‘falling’ for the ruse, but actually, there’s a lot more to the story than you might think. I wrote about the podcast in an article for The Guardian earlier this week:
It turns out the women involved had not expected to date Prince Harry at all. Rather, they had applied for a show called Dream Date, which offered them the chance to find love (and of course appear on television and possibly build a career). They were flown to the UK with little notice. This was years before The Crown, and Harry and Meghan were not yet dominating the gossip pages: the younger prince was not as recognisable to average Americans as he is now.
From the moment the women arrived at the mansion, they were cut off from the outside world. Their phones were confiscated and they were often unable to speak to one another on set when the cameras were not rolling.
The Guardian has listed the new series as one of their podcasts of the week, whilst the Financial Times described it as ‘A hoot — while taking the deception at the heart of the show entirely seriously’.
The Bachelor of Buckingham Palace is now available to listen to on Wondery+, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and on Podfollow.
Episodes will be available on Wondery+ exclusively for a little while, with all episodes then widely available later in the year.
This series was a huge undertaking, so I just want to say thanks to a few people: Natalia Rodriguez (my brilliant producer), Thomas Curry (the big boss), Ana Ayora, Hamed Taghian, Daniel Turcan, Johnny Galvin, Matt Willis, Tom Berry and Ivor Manley. Plus everyone involved at Vespucci Productions and Wondery.
WHERE ELSE TO FIND ME THIS WEEK
I wrote for Yahoo about the surprising, ongoing success of British Saturday night television (I reckon a lot of it is down to the fact that Netflix et al don’t do many family shows).
On the latest edition of Must Watch we review ITV’s Red Eye, Michael Palin in Nigeria and The Jinx: Part Two.
Thank you for reading,
Scotty / @scottygb on Twitter and Threads
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