On the box

Published on Saturday 27 September 2008 14:59

TV Preview

LIPSTICK JUNGLE

Living Monday, 10pm

LOSING IT: GRIFF RHYS JONES ON ANGER

BBC2 Tuesday, 9pm

PLACE OF EXECUTION

STV Tuesday, 9pm

SOMETHING told me I was not among the target audience for Lipstick Jungle, the new series from Candace (Sex And The City) Bushnell. It could have been the commercial beforehand for anti-wrinkle cream, endorsed by Andie MacDowell, or the Eva Longoria ad for lipstick, or the Penelope Cruz puff for foundation. But on balance I think it was probably Linda Evangelista lending her name to L'Oreal's Collagen Replumper.

We should pause here to ponder the Evangelista name, and what an impressive one it is. Or is it? On Harry Hill's old radio show, when a new character introduced himself as Napper Evangelista, Harry asked: "Any relation to Linda?", and Napper said: "Sorry, who?" Of course, I'm only repeating that gag to buy time and waste words because I feel under-qualified to discuss Lipstick Jungle.

Did this drama advance the cause of 21st-century wumminkind? Or was it more about the glass slipper than the glass ceiling? And if so, who designed the slipper – Manolo Blahnik? After one episode, I can only make guesses. But it should be pointed out that no one has made grand claims that the show is rewriting the rules in the battle of the sexes, least of all Bushnell herself. If you remember that, enjoyment is still possible.

Brooke Shields, Kim Raver and Lindsay Price play the central characters – respectively, movie producer Wendy, magazine editor Nico and Victory, a fashion designer. They're older than the SATC crew, possibly fortysomethings, impossibly glamorous, and, as before, very New York. At one point the three friends were in Central Park, when Nico reasoned: "If you start a family, you're distracted. If you don't, there's something wrong with you, you're unnatural, you hate men and you're hiding testicles under your skirt." At the time they were at a fast-food stall, buying chestnuts.

You don't need a full set of working chestnuts to be able to discern that Wendy has kids and Nico is contemplating them and although Victory isn't in a relationship, the fashionista is soon allowing herself to be fussed over by a squillionaire. Professionally, she's not doing as well as the others, although Nico fears being usurped at the mag because of her ticking biological clock and Wendy can't get DiCaprio to commit to her big-budget Galileo. And while this pair may appear to have more going for them personally, the truth is that Wendy's house-husband resents her glamorous career and Nico's man is always lost in books. He doesn't even notice when she hitches up her dress – to reveal a phone number felt-penned on her thigh by a young admirer – so she goes and gets the toyboy.

Lipstick Jungle may lack the sassy wit of SATC, but then so did SATC after the initial headrush. The new show seems slightly more real, never more so than when the girls group-hug and this advice is proffered: "You're not a loser, you're an extraordinary person. You're funny, scary-smart, intense, gorgeous and larger-than-life." I mean, that's all of us, right?

In last year's Mountain, Griff Rhys Jones climbed to the summit of a majestic peak and declared: "The top is a true vantage point." As a stunning statement of the blindingly obvious, this confirmed GRJ's ranking among documentary-makers: right down in the valley bog. But I think he's just excelled himself. In Losing It: Griff Rhys Jones On Anger, he had a theory he was anxious to share. "My hunch is that stress triggers anxiety," he said. (Gosh, Griff, are you sure?) "This is true of all of us," he continued, "to a greater or lesser extent." (Wow, you're really putting your head above the behavioural psychology parapet now.) "But we express anxiety in different ways."

One of the ways of expressing anxiety is to hop over to the TV – you're wearing your big slipper, of course – and kick in the screen. That usually stops a GRJ documentary there and then. This one featured the usual GRJ trademarks: the theatrical voice extending the promise of stunning insight which rarely arrives; the alarming habit of standing too close to his interviewees, almost on their toes; the uncontrollable giggling at his own essential GRJ-ness. But I stuck with it (the concluding part is this week) because so much was made of Griff's foul temper that I fully expected him to be revealed as the angriest man in showbiz.

His wife and kids confirmed he was "crotchety" but struggled to come up with examples. His make-up artist from 20 years ago said: "Sometimes you'd be quite off with someone." (Note the use of the words "sometimes" and "quite"). The rest of time GRJ collected random expert opinion on this angry old world, some of it pretty woolly, and seemed to forget that documentaries benefit from having a developing argument. Finally, we got our proof that a more apt name would be Gruff Rage Jones: he once booted a hole in a door. Crikey, I hope he doesn't read this review or I'm for it.

Place Of Execution emerged as a highly promising thriller after some distinctly unpromising opening credits (Exec producer: Robson Green). It's based on the novel by Val McDermid, but the bloodlusting hordes who can't get enough of Green in Wire In The Blood at the moment will have been disappointed by the first (of three) parts, where TV journalist Juliet Stevenson's investigation into the disappearance of a schoolgirl on the North Yorkshire Moors in 1963 seemed to be scuppered by the detective in charge of the inquiry pulling out of her film.

The case propelled the cop towards a highly-decorated career; the journo is under pressure to prove that her best stories are not behind her. The drama flits between the present and a well-evoked '63, with Del Shannon on the soundtrack warbling about "my little runaway". And among its many mysteries is why we don't see enough of Stevenson on the box, or indeed Greg Wise, who's excellent as the missing girl's creepy step-father.