Why a Scottish acting villain can’t quite lift Netflix’s attempt at swords and sorcery

The very Scottish Peter Mullan perches on a hilltop that itself looks very Scottish, although a quick check reveals it to be Wales.

Peter Mullan as Father Carden

In the words of Ultravox’s Midge Ure, he’s “mystic and soulful” and he’s dressed in a hooded cape.

The new Scottish Widows commercial, perhaps? 
With the craggy actor forever cast as right bad yins a diversity pick for campaign model?

Not quite. This is Cursed and Mullan is a right bad yin once again: the leader of a murderous medieval crew trashing villages and stringing up anyone who looks a bit witchy.

Netflix’s sword and sorcery drama has shot to the top of its most-watched, presumably propelled there by bereft Game of Thrones devotees lamenting the end of their reason for being.

They may be disappointed with the lack of nudity on display here and the fact that, over the episodes I’ve seen, the three-headed babies number just one.

There’s plenty of casual barbarism, though, even if Mullan’s men have been equipped with oddly titchy axes. Their weaponry looks especially puny after the heroine of the piece, ye olde stroppy teenager Nimue, starts wielding her mighty blade.

Presumably this is Excalibur as Nimue will one day become the “Lady of the Lake”, passing it on to our own Prince Edward, organiser of It’s a Royal Knockout. Now, I don’t know why I said that: I of course mean King Arthur.

Nimue is played by Katherine Langford with considerable sonsiness and spunk and her interpretation of the Glasgow Kiss, when the recipient is expecting traditional lips action, must surely have impressed Mullan.

I’m not sure that Cursed impresses me but then, if you haven’t worked this out already, I was never part of the Thrones throng. As a boy I didn’t read Lord of the Rings nor found it necessary to play Dungeons and Dragons because, you see, I always had girlfriends.

What, you think I need some fantasy in my life? I regard that as a vile insult and hereby challenge you to a duel. But be warned: a sword or mace or trebuchet constructed from wire coat-hangers under Valerie Singleton’s guidance will always be trumped by my Johnny Seven gun.

The David Tennant-Michael Sheen Covid comedy Staged (BBC1) concludes with the lockdown luvvies still bitching and bickering about the single most crucial question thrown up by the pandemic: who should get top billing for their play?

During his latest hissyfit Sheen threatens to quit the production until Dame Judi Dench bursts into the Zoom call to supply the housebound actors with home truths about the profession, asking them: “Do you realise how tiresome it is to be everyone’s first choice for everything?” Oh yes, says Sheen. “No, you don’t,” barks Dench. “Do the f*****g job. Stop f*****g about!”

Staged has been great for allowing its leads to send themselves up, with Sheen possibly more in need of the opportunity than Tennant. You wonder which other actors – precious, mannered – could have benefited from the virus-restricted format. You wonder, too, what the benefit of brevity and 15-minute episodes shot in front-rooms could bring to other shows, especially now that we’re all trying to put our over-consumption – of boxsets, viewed in one sitting, as well as everything else – behind us.

By the way, regarding Tennant’s front-room, I covet that Peter Blake pop art. If you’ve grown tired of staring at it these past three months, Dave, I’ll gladly take it off your hands.

Tennant continues to star in There She Goes (BBC2), filmed when he could book a haircut though he was rocking that drab grey hoodie even then. The Beeb have struck a rich vein of comedies and dramas partly or wholly about parenthood – Motherland, Mum, The A Word, Cuckoo – and this is another, based round a couple’s struggles with their disabled daughter.

It’s billed as a comedy and there are plenty of laughs, but while many are easy to enjoy, such as those at the expense of the perfect parents who irritate mum Emily (Jessica Hynes), there’s also her references to the “devil child” and Damien from The Exorcist.

Should we still be laughing? We have sympathy for Emily, this week just wanting one night off from thinking about Rosie and drawing the picture the girl always requests, so she can be at the pub quiz organised by Simon (Tennant).

His coping mechanism is to make jokes all the time but she seems eternally sad. I’m maybe not painting the show in the best light but it’s good: blunt and spiky if that’s not a contraction in terms; unsentimental and unwilling to portray the parents as heroes; and very funny such as when Rosie, in love with the idea of Christmas, drags Simon round a garden centre for a tree despite it being only February.