TV review: Tales of Television Centre | Silk

TALES OF TELEVISION CENTRE

Thursday, BBC 4, 9pm

SILK

Tuesday, BBC1, 9pm

STARLINGS

Tomorrow, Sky 1, 8pm

The erstwhile Swap Shop nabob is just one of the many familiar faces who crop up in TALES OF TELEVISION CENTRE, a wonderful film devoted to the iconic landmark which the BBC, in their infinite corporate wisdom, have put up for sale after more than forty years of loyal service.

Yes, yes, it’s important to decentralise our national broadcaster and all that, but I still find it hard to believe that this very British wonderland is being put out to pasture. Home to the best studios and production staff in the business, its impact on our cultural heritage is incalculable. It’s a national institution, subsidised by the public for decades, a permanent fixture in our lives. It isn’t just synonymous with television in Britain, it is British television.

And now it’ll probably be turned into flats. The futuristic doughnut that brought us Morecambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies, Fawlty Towers, Top Of The Pops, Doctor Who, Blue Peter and so much more too bountiful to mention: soon to be little more than just another grey block on the property market. It’s terribly sad.

But all we can do now is thank it for the memories, which is the raison d’etre of former Blue Peter editor Richard Marson’s allowably sentimental and self-indulgent tribute. Clearly a labour of love, it heaves at the seams with rare studio footage and gossipy anecdotes from the likes of David Attenborough, Esther Rantzen, Nerys Hughes (“I think Frankie Howerd fancied my husband.”), Terry Wogan, Jo, Leela and Tegan from Doctor Who, and half of Pan’s People, as well as from legendary backstage figures such as Biddy Baxter and Clive Doig.

It captures the incessant activity and impossible excitement of life in TV Centre - “a cross between showbusiness and a KGB interrogation centre,” quoth Jools Holland, fondly – where bumping into Royalty, Prime Ministers and Eric and Ernie in the lift was a daily possibility, where Roy Castle might be found conducting a record-breaking tap dance with 500 young hoofers, and where, at the behest of BBC Managing Director Huw Wheldon, Brian Blessed once shimmied up that famous central statue of Helios to pop a condom on its old chap.

It also devotes segments to everything from the infamous BBC canteen to the booze-sodden Club Bar, dangerously located next to the Comedy Department, where, according to Penelope Keith, “the rule of thumb if you’d done a good show was if you could be in the bar by nine.”

If, like me, you love television then you’ll doubtless be moist-eyed by the end of this bittersweet celebration. Like dear old TVC itself, it’s a thing of rambling beauty.

I enjoyed, with reservations, the first series of Peter Moffat’s snappy legal drama SILK, but it returns this week with its daftest excesses shoved to the fore. Although occasionally guilty of resorting to unlikely eleventh hour twists, the best episodes rang with an apparent air of authenticity – Moffat, of course, is a former barrister. But the storyline in episode one is a load of implausible bunkum in which idealistic Queen’s Counsel Martha Costello (the excellent Maxine Peake) defends a gangland heavy with learning difficulties against an horrific murder charge.

It’s an interesting area to explore, but its intentions are stymied by an unconvincing performance from the actor playing – to all intents and purposes – Lenny from Of Mice and Men, and Costello’s inexplicable behaviour in the courtroom. I appreciate the point that her overwhelming desire to do the right thing often clouds her judgement, but a distracted coffee barista could mount a more logical case than she does here.

It’s not a documentary, I know, but it’s not good drama either. It also doesn’t help that Moffat has exaggerated the character of scheming chief clerk, Billy, to the point where he now resembles a pantomime villain on a Gay Pride float. Likewise, the new characters played by Frances Barber and scowlin’ Phil Davis are about as subtle as a gavel to the thorax. Fortunately, next week’s episode is an improvement, so it’s hopefully just a blip. An off-puttingly muddled episode to return with, though.

The latest result of Sky’s renewed commitment to original content – not that they ever had much of a record to renew – STARLINGS is a determinedly gentle and cloying comedy drama written by and starring Steve Edge (Phoenix Nights) and Matt King (Super Hans from Peep Show)

Centred around a close-knit extended family cooped up under the same roof in rural Derbyshire, it arrives with the writer’s avowed intent of being unencumbered by bleakness or cynicism. That’s a theoretically legitimate ambition, but the problem with Starlings is that, in its eagerness to warm the cockles, it achieves a dawdling consistency of utter blandness. It feels like an interminable home insurance ad, replete with winsome acoustic guitar backing. Still, nice scenery.

Closing thought for the day: no one will ever feel an iota of sentiment for the building in which Sky Television is based. That must count for something.

PAUL WHITELAW

TV review: Tales of Television Centre | Silk | Starlings