TV: Merlin - The Virgin Daughters - Losing It: Griff Thys Jones on Anger

Published on Thursday 18 September 2008 12:02

IF THE BBC'S LATEST SATURDAY night fantasy entertainment was described as a mathematical formula, it would be: Merlin > (Harry Potter + Smallville) x Doctor Who > Robin Hood.

Merlin Saturday, BBC1, 7:30pm

The Virgin Daughters Thursday, Channel 4, 9pm

Losing It: Griff Rhys Jones on Anger Tuesday, BBC2, 9pm

In other words, it's the King Arthur legend focusing on the magic adventuring before all that messy love-triangle stuff, heavily influenced by Russell T Davies's reinvention of Who. It even comes from BBC Wales, who have this sort of production sewn up these days, and is better than the leaden and silly Sherwood Forest romp.

The usual story based on Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (and the more modern The Once and Future King) is gently laid aside, in favour of a coming of age tale aimed at a young audience. Here, Prince Arthur and Merlin are teenage contemporaries (no white-bearded wizard ageing backwards here) living in Camelot and destined to, like, team up and save the world and stuff. The prince is a cocky playboy, or the medieval equivalent, while Merlin is a young servant hiding his burgeoning magical powers.

The two lads don't initially get on, leading to this exchange: "I've been trained since birth to kill!" "How long have you been training to be a prat?" "You can't speak like that to me!" To which Merlin does not, unfortunately, reply, "No, you're right, this is completely out of period, I should have called you a varlet or a whoreson knave."

If the show is a hit, children's history essays may become cluttered with misconceptions about the medieval period, like the surprisingly high number of black courtiers (even the young Guinevere is mixed race) and general literacy, or the early appearance of trousers.

Yet it would be churlish to quibble too much over details with a production that does show signs of care, especially as the King Arthur legend is hardly historically provable anyway, and besides, there's a bloody great talking dragon in it.

More importantly, there's a decent cast taking it seriously, as they should be, since the children watching deserve even daft material to be played straight. Anthony Head plays against his Buffy role of Giles as the stern King Uther, who has banned all magic in the land – the big meanie. Richard Wilson twinkles manfully in an unfortunate bobbed blond wig as Merlin's mentor and Torchwood's Eve Myles drops by for an effectively spooky scene. But it's young Colin Morgan as Merlin who has to carry the programme and he manages to balance teenage angst with an appealing charm.

No angst allowed at the Father-Daughter Purity Ball, a creepy do in Colorado, where young girls dolled up like brides promise their dads not to have sex, or even kiss a boy, until their actual wedding day.

Cutting Edge documentary The Virgin Daughters is by Jane Treays, best known for her Painted Babies films about junior beauty pageants, and it gives the same sense of a closed world where those within believe in it all so wholeheartedly that they can't see how it comes across to anyone else – and don't care. You could call it the Sarah Palin constituency and the film comes complete with a Bristol figure who tells how she kept up the pretence until she got pregnant.

Their ideas about encouraging their girls not to waste all their time on romance and to respect themselves are fine, mind you. But it comes wrapped up in a strange authoritarian culture whereby Randy Wilson, who created the ball, has his children kneel before him to receive his weekly fatherly blessing and well-drilled girls dopily explain that having a boyfriend before marriage would be breaking the Biblical commandment against adultery – in advance.

Talking about Losing It (or not), Griff Rhys Jones on Anger is a documentary spun off from another documentary. Last year, the actor and presenter appeared in Three Men in Another Boat – itself a "sequel" to a programme in which he, Dara O'Briain and Rory McGrath messed around on a river. In Another Boat they took part in a yacht race, during which the cameras captured Rhys Jones throwing a humdinger of a temper tantrum, shouting the odds at his fellow sailors. It was an appalling display, particularly since Rhys Jones has always appeared to be a nice, genial fellow.

So a public apology was due, doubling as a handy new concept for a programme, investigating the source of his own regular rage fits and why so many people can't control their anger. It's self-indulgent TV, with Rhys Jones expounding at length about his flaw, but there are some good bits, like last year's Big Brother contestant Chanelle being completely unrepentant about her screaming matches and almost getting into a fight with Griff when he tries to question her. Perhaps his next spin-off will be a show called Celebrity Arguments.