This article was originally published in The Courier on 12 August 2017.
TRUST ME: Tuesday, BBC One
PAUL O’GRADY’S
HOLLYWOOD: Saturday,
Channel 4
Jodie
Whittaker, in case you haven’t heard, was recently announced as the first
female Doctor in Doctor Who. This
news passed without much fanfare or reaction, so don’t be concerned if you
missed it.
In
the new medical drama/psychological thriller TRUST ME, she plays a disgruntled NHS nurse who fakes her
qualifications and poses as… a doctor. Nobody involved in this production,
perhaps not even Whittaker herself, could’ve foreseen how jarring it is
whenever she or anyone else refers to her job title in the show.
However,
they might be pleased by the extra attention Trust Me will receive from millions of Doctor Who fans keen to see Whittaker in action before this year’s
Christmas special. How does she move and talk? Will we pick up any hints of how
she might play the Doctor?
The
added interest is understandable, but of course we won’t. She’s an actress, a perfectly good one,
playing an entirely different role. In Trust
Me she’s an ordinary human woman, albeit one who does an extraordinary
thing.
And
that’s the problem with this curious drama – the course she takes is so morally
wrong and potentially catastrophic, it’s hard to believe that a diligent,
decent nurse would ever do such a thing.
Writer
Dan Sefton, who’s a qualified doctor, struggled to give her enough plausible
motivation. She complains to her trust about gross negligence of patients on
her ward. They don’t want to know, so they suspend her.
She’s
understandably upset by this injustice, but would that really trigger the
action she takes? She claims she’s doing it to build a better life for her
daughter, but surely she must know that the girl will be better off without her
mother in prison?
It’s
not enough to say: people do crazy things in times of dire need. We need to
believe in those crazy things. That’s why the intended suspense of whether
she’ll be found out (and she will be) doesn’t work.
Whittaker
is fine in this perplexing role, but the material is too unfocused to do her
justice. I hope the Doctor Who team
giver her something more substantial to work with.
Ever
since cinema began, one of its primary goals has been to make audiences cry. That’s
because people enjoy sobbing at sad, sentimental stories. It’s cathartic.
In
episode one of PAUL O’GRADY’S HOLLYWOOD,
our jovially sardonic host – sitting, as per the rules of programmes about
classic films, in an empty old-fashioned cinema – guided as through some of the
greatest weepies ever made.
This
being Saturday night on Channel 4, the tired and tested clip show format was
out in force. That is: a torrent of brief film clips interrupted by famous
talking heads telling us what they think.
In
fairness, it did include some decent insight from film critics Richard Dyer and
Jonathan Ross, psychologist Philippa Perry, and Celia Johnson’s daughter
talking about her mother’s involvement in Brief
Encounter. Jon Voight and Bernard Cribbins were also welcome as they
actually starred in the films they were talking about (The Champ and The Railway
Children respectively).
But
has anyone of sound mind been seriously champing at the bit to hear Myleene
Klass’ thoughts on Marley and Me? Or
Richard E. Grant on Brief Encounter?
Or some actress from Hollyoaks on
anything?
Who
are these programmes aimed at? Masochistic cineastes?
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