TV Review: LABOUR: THE SUMMER THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING + THE SEARCH FOR A MIRACLE CURE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 25th November 2017.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/category/lifestyle/entertainment/tv-film/

LABOUR: THE SUMMER THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING: Monday, BBC Two

THE SEARCH FOR A MIRACLE CURE: Thursday, Channel 4

When Theresa May called a snap election earlier this year, she did so under the wildly mistaken belief that Labour would be completely wiped out.

From her perspective, the tactic made sense. Labour under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn was in turmoil. Their approval ratings were at an all-time low. Corbyn may have gained support from a new mass membership who’d signed up to push him into Number 10, but the Parliamentary Labour Party had no faith in him whatsoever.

They wanted him out. These idiotic Blairite back-stabbers, these self-serving enemies of traditional left-wing values, actually wanted their own party to lose an election. With tacitly gleeful precision, David Modell’s terrific documentary LABOUR: THE SUMMER THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING skewered the lunacy of this situation.

As we now know, the Tories failed to achieve their expected landslide victory. Corbyn defied a barrage of increasingly desperate media smear campaigns while riding a wave of evangelical public support and a sizeable increase in young voters. He may have lost the election by a relatively slim margin, but he transformed Labour into a credible opposition.

His opponents, like a smug upper-class villain in an episode of Columbo, fatally underestimated this scruffy interloper.

When four campaigning Labour MPs agreed to let Modell film them in action, little did they realise that he’d chronicle the destruction of their centrist ideals.

The only exception was Sarah Champion, a Corbyn supporter who was eventually forced to resign from the shadow cabinet when she made the blundering error of trying to present a nuanced argument about British Pakistani child sex traffickers in the toxically sensationalist Sun newspaper.

The other contributors, Stephen “Son of Neil” Kinnock, Ruth “Vote for me and I promise to get rid of him” Cadbury and Lucy “Oh my God!” Powell, weren’t remotely on board with Team Jezza. Framed through a prism of ironic hindsight, their blinkered hubris was a wonder to behold.

Modell’s camera lingered on the bemused face of Kinnock Jr on election night, as it dawned on him that Corbyn wasn’t going anywhere. It was hilarious.

However, the greatest scene by far – and I bet Modell couldn’t believe his luck when he caught it – involved a hapless Kinnock receiving tersely astute media lessons from his wife Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the former Danish PM. In the space of two compelling minutes, she displayed more political savvy than her clueless husband has ever managed during his career. “Why are you doing this now?” she sighed, when Kinnock was about to waffle desperately on live TV. “You don’t know anything.”

Other highlights included Cadbury embarrassing herself in front of Labour volunteers and angry voters, plus Corbyn taking to the dry ice-shrouded stage of a Momentum rally as the crowd chanted his name to the tune of Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes. He looked like an unassuming Social Studies teacher enduring a job-swap with Bono.

This subtly irreverent documentary exposed the blinkered arrogance of careerist politicians, the increasing impotency of tabloid scaremongering, and the joyous detonation of Theresa May’s “strong and stable” PR bunkum. Her disastrous campaign made Corbyn’s relative triumph taste even sweeter.

By sheer coincidence, Modell debuted another documentary last week. In THE SEARCH FOR A MIRACLE CURE he swapped politics for pioneering stem cell research.

Multiple Sclerosis has always been thought incurable, but a medical unit in Israel have recently developed a radical new medical treatment.

Modell followed MS patient Mark Lewis, the combative media lawyer who helped to destroy the News of the World, as he travelled to Israel for a potentially life-changing trial.

An excruciating scene of him receiving painful spinal injections was followed by the startling revelation that, just two hours later, he could achieve more mobility than he’d experienced in years. Sadly, the effects gradually wore off. The power of placebos? Lewis, who wasn’t used to being defeated, refused to accept the reality of his situation.

Those Israeli doctors haven’t discovered a cure for MS, but they have made promising steps towards stabilising its degenerative effects. Despite its pervading sadness, this nuanced film was dappled with hope. Hats off to David Modell.