The week in TV: This Way Up; Naomi Osaka; Our NHS: A Hidden History; Schmigadoon!
Naomi #Naomi
This Way Up (Channel 4) | channel4.com
Naomi Osaka (Netflix) | netflix.com
Our NHS: A Hidden History (BBC One) | iPlayer
Schmigadoon! (AppleTV+) | tv.apple.com
It’s easy to see how comic Aisling Bea won a Bafta for writing the first series of the dark comedy This Way Up (which she created and stars in). Her character, an Irish foreign language teacher with a history of mental breakdown, is a masterclass in slow-release naturalism. You feel that you know pretty, witty, low-level screw-up Aine – she starts reminding you of everyone who ever owed you a tenner. So finely tuned is Bea’s characterisation that you root for Aine and laugh with her, even as you keep a wary eye on her skidding and sliding into yet another Very Bad Time.
In common with Fleabag, This Way Up, back for a second series, is essentially a scratchy love story between two sisters. Warm, acid Shona (co-executive producer Sharon Horgan) criticises and frets about Aine; Aine semi-idolises Shona but cheeks her: “Are you all right? You said you wanted to get a fringe earlier and it worried me.” Last series, Shona received a marriage proposal from Vish (Aasif Mandvi) but had an affair with Charlotte (Indira Varma), while Aine started dating a pupil’s father, widower Richard (Tobias Menzies). The new series opens with the sisters sweating in a sauna (“I wish we were Spanish”). When Shona gives her verdict on Richard, it’s with a stiletto-sharpness: “I just hate sad men using their sadness like their dead wives to manipulate women.”
After watching the musical miniseries Schmigadoon!, I now believe that jazz hands can be weaponised
For her part, Aine strives to keep sadness at bay. When (spoiler alert!) she and Richard have sex, he keeps losing his erection and she laughs it off, shouting “Yes we can!” at his groin and gamely attempting a lapdance. By the end of the first three episodes (the whole series is available now on All 4), Richard had gone awol and Aine is struggling, her inner darkness rising up to claim her like dirty water lapping up from a drain. This is the genius of This Way Up – it creeps up on you slowly, subtly, then hits right where it hurts.
The three-part Netflix docuseries Naomi Osaka, directed by Garrett Bradley (Time), followed the young half-Japanese/half-Haitian tennis grand slam titleholder and first Asian to be ranked No 1 one in the world. Osaka is a gifted tennis player, but she’s also achingly vulnerable, prone to depression and bullishly refuses to hide it. In May she refused to participate in French Open press conferences, then withdrew and hasn’t played in a tournament since (although she’s due to represent Japan at the forthcoming Tokyo Olympics).
This series takes a look at Osaka’s uber-intense schedule: matches, practising, interviews, photoshoots, fashion lines … and on and on. When she isn’t agonising about her form, Osaka is scrabbling for self-awareness: “For so long, I’ve tied winning to my worth as a person.” As the documentary unfolds, she’s shown as everything from spirited (donning masks bearing the names of slain people of colour in the wake of George Floyd) to distressed (when her friend and mentor, Kobe Bryant, is killed in a helicopter crash). Too often, though, Osaka seems dead-eyed, exhausted by all the stress and self-criticism. A caged bird pecking at itself.
Gallery: The worst TV episodes of all time (Espresso)
Maybe this will silence those who mocked the tennis player as a spoilt, uncooperative brat. It’s disappointing that Naomi Osaka doesn’t cover – or even mention! – the French Open; with her stand, she opened up a valuable conversation about sport and mental health, recently echoed by the young British player Emma Raducanu withdrawing from Wimbledon. Nonetheless, the programme succeeds in giving insights into the bubbling, spitting pressure cooker that is international tennis. I ended up wondering whether, at 23, Osaka has come to loathe the sport she’s worked so hard to dominate.
In another new documentary, Our NHS: A Hidden History, the historian David Olusoga deftly outlined the symbiotic link between immigration and the NHS, from the postwar period to the present day. “I want to understand the experiences of people who migrated to this country to serve in the NHS,” said Olusoga. “To discover how they were seen by a system that needed them but didn’t always want them.”
The film had a recurring theme: NHS workers were lured from overseas (Ireland, the Caribbean, Pakistan, India) and then treated shabbily. Among other outrages, nurses were all but forced into “Cinderella” specialisms such as psychiatric care and infectious diseases, and subjected to incessant prejudice. One nurse, Alyson Williams, was told: “I don’t want you to touch me – your dirty blackness will rub off.” Meanwhile, doctors encountered hospitals specifying candidates from “British universities”. “Meaning, if you were brown and from abroad, don’t bother applying,” said Dr Raj Menon wearily.
This was a timely slice of social history, elevated by the testimony of people who’d lived through it. The discrimination continues today (ethnic minority doctors are still twice as likely to be referred to the GMC), as does NHS reliance upon overseas recruitment. “Our National Health Service is in that sense international,” said Olusoga quietly, and you hoped that people would finally hear him.
MY EYES! After watching the musical miniseries Schmigadoon!, I now believe that jazz hands can be weaponised. The US six-parter is executive produced by Lorne Michaels and features Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key as a couple struggling in their relationship who end up in the fantasy town of Schmigadoon! (“Where life’s a musical every day”) – with the snag that you can’t leave unless you’re in love. The cast includes Alan Cumming as a closeted mayor and Kristin Chenoweth as a baddie with Joan Crawford cheekbones, with Jane Krakowski due to appear as the countess later on.
Schmigadoon! (as in Brigadoon) is deadly serious about being a musical: it’s all full-on song-and-dance routines, with rustling petticoats, tipped hats, original music from co-creator Cinco Paul and thematic grand larceny from the likes of The Wizard of Oz and The Sound of Music. It becomes a teensy-weensy bit tiring (at one point, a leprechaun appears in a puff of green smoke), but it’s all done with a giggle and a gigantic wink. One for those who miss musical theatre and who find RuPaul’s Drag Race not quite camp enough.
I Think You Should Leave (Netflix) | netflix.com
Second series of Tim Robinson’s (Saturday Night Live) abrasive, discordant sketch show, which is guaranteed to divide opinion. Better Call Saul fans will delight in Bob Odenkirk’s sketch, where white lies proliferate to absurdity.
Secrets of an Isis Smartphone (BBC Three) | iPlayer
A thought-provoking documentary from Mobeen Azhar. It builds a vivid picture of three young British men who left to fight for Isis and died and explores the westernised cultural techniques used to “groom” them.
Pen15 (Sky Comedy) | sky.com
The deranged, wonderful US “school” comedy, featuring aged-down Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle. Despite the latter half of season two being delayed by the pandemic, the show received several Emmy nominations last week and deservedly so: Pen15 gets funnier/deeper all the time.