Reviews

Peter Cook, Yes, lots to say there, but this is a 1980 incarnation, and the show is full of other talent. Don't know how bad Cook's drinking was at this time, but he holds up really well, especially as Mr Hainault in the plumber sketch with Beryl Reid and Paula Wilcox, which has to be the absolute highlight. There is some filler, and weirdly, the sketches featuring a pre-Blackadder Rowan Atkinson are some of the weakest (This is just my opinion). As a historical record of other acts, it's great to see Reid hamming it up so splendidly, dressed as a bee and demanding marijuana. The Hainault's toilet is blocked, and the plumber (Reid as Mzz Elke Starr-Borgling), arrives to repeatedly distract and bamboozle them with comic gems: In trying to determine who was responsible for the blockage, Mzz Starr-Borgling suggests 'assailant unknown'. I admit I wept with laughter at this sketch, but this is only my opinion.

A time capsule that reveals what the wrecking ball in 'Withnail & I' was busy tearing down. I wonder what contemporary audiences made of it. The end credits state that the production dates from 1967 not 1969, only deepening the sense of dislocation that permeates this documentary, which shows the remnants of Victorian London being swept away wholesale by Sixties developers. The faceless modern buildings being erected at the time have themselves now been woven into the fabric of London (I think one shot is of the then new, but empty-for-years Centre Point). James Mason is our unlikely guide, and notable in his narration is both a lament for the old and lost, and the sensible reminder that it was mostly pretty dreadful in the past, that the new is the conduit for improvement. The film wisely opts to focus on the smaller scale details: The public urinals (Peeing is something of a repeated theme), a street market, a rail yard, a cemetery, a ruined music hall, a single house, a deli, an eel and mash café, a Sally Army hostel, and then adds colour to these locations by including characters for whom (in every sense) time is running out: Street buskers, market traders, the on-their-uppers flotsam for whom meths drinking has actually become an option. Hearing them speak, we hear the reality of being down-and-out at a time when National Assistance and the National 'Elf could not be relied on to turn lives around. It's the old story, rents go up, poor people suffer. Times change. And for the average Eastender, scraping a crust from selling on street markets, or another long-gone trade? Popular and bustling Mark's deli has disappeared into oblivion, following the Grand Palais Yiddish Theatre, which leads onto another aspect inadvertently captured in the timing of the film: Demographic replacement. Look at the faces of the elderly in the Whitechapel slums, or the kids in the Tower Hamlets playgrounds, and what do you see? Something you would never see today. Today, Jewish life is all but driven out from Spitalfields and Brick Lane. There is a scene towards the end where a man in a wide brimmed hat repeats that he had tried to improve things for himself, but it hadn't worked out. He then proceeds sings a moving hymn, in Yiddish, which for me was the most poignant of all the individual voices on camera, heard over scenes of children's faces and the wrecking ball pulverizing bricks and mortar, confirming, as the final sequence playfully suggests, that the End Is Nigh, but no-one cares. Note: One great song made famous in the 1930's by Leslie Sarony plays over an earlier scene of derelict Victorian graves and statuary, entitled 'Aint it Grand to be Bloomin' Well Dead?"

A lot can happen in a 30 minute sit-com, and Derry Girls is no exception. The comedy performances, writing and production is spot-on, slo-mo and steadycam shots of mundane action backed with awesome 90's choons (and Whigfield). I like it, maybe you will too. Notable episodes are #3 and #4, when our gang chase the dead-ringer of Erin's dog, Toto, into church and to witness a miracle involving Our Sacred Lady investigated by a dashing Priest, and when the Children of Chernobyl visit Derry, which could take them out of the frying pan and into a different frying pan. Great cast, some pretty decent character-driven humour (including the older generations) and an interesting take on the setting and period make for a great formula, not too burdened by PC or a political agenda.