TV review: Religious horror is an unholy mess

Published on Thursday 13 November 2008 19:04

Apparitions, BBC1 Rich Kid Poor Kid, Channel 4

HERE'S a fun game to play while watching Apparitions: just how many people can one programme manage to offend? First, fans of Mother Teresa, as the late nun was dragged into a vague backstory about being tormented by demons on her deathbed, though Martin Shaw's priestly hero is also pushing for her canonisation.

Scientists and atheists were the next targets, as a little girl insisted her father must be possessed too because he read Richard Dawkins books. Then wine lovers, as a young seminarian was tempted by Satan into succumbing – with suitably tense music – into having a glass of house red!

As he was also gay, there was an extraordinarily homophobic storyline, with his sexuality equated to his previous leprosy (cured by either the Devil, or God via Mother Teresa). In despair, presumably on the grounds that he might as well be hung for a sheep as a Lambrusco, he then went to a sauna in search of some action – but before anything happened, and as the Devil was being exorcised elsewhere, he was gruesomely flayed alive.

Call me a Doubting Thomas, but what the hell was this about? Though written by Joe Ahearne, who has a great track record of This Life, Ultraviolet and some of the new Doctor Who's best episodes, this was a deeply odd drama which could only be watched mouth-open. Clearly it aims to belatedly tap into the Da Vinci Code craze (and, of course, The Exorcist). But accounts of its star Martin Shaw having tired of playing judges, cops and doctors and pushing for this series instead, suggest that Apparitions is the result of the BBC desperately trying to keep a major star on board at any cost – which has not recently been a great idea for them.

Yet even in the present climate, Apparitions will probably attract fewer complaints than Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, simply because it's so silly. Compared with The Second Coming by Ahearne's former boss Russell T Davies a few years ago – probably the last British drama to take matters of faith seriously – it doesn't have much intellectual weight. Davies's devils represented the worst of humanity; Apparitions' are just horror movie monsters who flinch from crucifixes and dribble at the mouth.

"I'm embarrassed," smirks the possessed man at one point (Shaun Dooley acting his cloven hooves off). "Yes, laughter and ridicule are its first line of defence," intoned Shaw solemnly. Well, that's one way of trying to deflect bad reviews.

Rich Kid Poor Kid featured 15-year-old Alice, a private schoolgirl and not the world's most sophisticated thinker. "Basically, Labour, like, take from the rich and give to the poor, so the poor can be, like, really lazy and not working," she drawled, adding that people from state schools could "go die for all I care".

After being given space to vent her vacuous whining, she was introduced to Natalie, 17, who lived at the other end of the street, where Alice never went because she'd been terrified into thinking it was full of chavs who would rob her. Natalie was practically a saint worthy of Martin Shaw's attention, living with her depressive mother in a shabby council flat where her little brother slept on the floor, yet taking on responsibility for getting him into school.

Natalie was smart enough to know that by taking part, people would judge her – or rather, her mother – for the way they lived, but brave enough to take part anyway. Through her kindness and tact, Alice was brought round to being less of an idiot. I just wonder what Natalie got out of it.