Happy Valley will never be as good as American dramas like White Lotus – here’s why
ALL hail broadsheet newspapers.
Where would we be without their finger-wagging lectures, pictures of houses no mortal could ever afford to buy and bombshell observations about popular television?
Like this zinger, about BBC1’s masterpiece Happy Valley, delivered from on high at the weekend.
“Every single bloke in it,” said the thunderstruck writer, “is a wrong ’un.”
To which there is only one possible response. No s**t.
Of Happy Valley’s three main male characters, Tommy Lee Royce is a psychopathic murderer and rapist, Rob Hepworth is a controlling wife-beater and Faisal, the drug-pushing rolling-pin killer, has a long list of other crimes, that include playing Vikram in Benidorm.
The rest? In the immortal words of Sergeant Catherine Cawood, they’re a collection of “d***heads”, “little s**ts”, “b*****ds”, but mainly “t**ts”.
Jaw-dropper
So, no, my broadsheet Sherlock, as tabloid cohorts have been pointing out since day one of Happy Valley, they are not the sort of positive role models the BBC would demand if the gender roles were reversed.
What was really remarkable about this article, which ran for the best part of 1,000 words, was that the writer didn’t get beyond the cosmic significance of her initial jaw-dropper to point out that men, particularly the straight white ones, are pigeon-holed in exactly the same way in almost every single domestic drama, from the soaps upwards.
The massive irony here being, the only thing all this self-loathing and misandry guarantees is that the female characters are automatically reduced to the role of long-suffering eye-rollers at best, or a corpse-in-the-wood at worst.
It’s one reason why, much as I love Happy Valley, I still wouldn’t mention it in the same breath as top American dramas like The White Lotus.
Another is the hit-and-miss continuity which you couldn’t help but notice right at the end of Sunday night’s episode, when a blanket suddenly appeared draped around the shoulders of fugitive Tommy Lee Royce, and then vanished into thin air again, just at the crucial moment he told son Ryan: “I do love you, you know.
“You’re all I’ve got. All I’ve ever had.”
Unlike all those other domestic dramas, like ITV’s dreadful Maternal, which never gets beyond its own student prejudices though, Happy Valley has a brilliant storyline and script with heart, soul and a sense of humour, as it so beautifully demonstrated when PC Gorkem Tekeli volunteered for the fictitious role of Alien Life Form Liaison Officer and then, to the dismay of Cawood, put in a formal bullying complaint after he discovered it was a wind- up.
This is all down to writer Sally Wainwright, whose words have wrenched sublime performances out of everyone, from Ishia Bennison, who plays slow-on-the-uptake Joyce on front desk, to Rhys Connah, who’s probably got the hardest job of the lot as the conflicted, pain-in-the-a**e grandson Ryan.
The glue that holds everything together though is Sarah Lancashire as Cawood, who may have had her spleen medically removed but it doesn’t stop her venting it on every other character, regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation, with this week’s main recipient being her ex’s new partner Ros, who was told: “You’re just a p***ed-up, lightweight, empty-headed . . . noo-noo.”
She hates weakness in anyone.
That’s why everyone can identify with her and it’s a character and a performance for the ages which has got millions of us speculating about Happy Valley’s final ever episode.
My own correspondence seems to suggest you don’t believe Catherine will ever make it to the Himalayas (the Land Rover shots are just too poignant) and it’ll be left to Ryan to kill his father, thereby severing the symbolic links to toxic masculinity and blah blah blah.
But I’m all agog for Sunday, not just to see where Happy Valley takes us but to find out what other great TV mysteries the broadsheets will unlock.
Alex Scott appears on television a lot?
Tipping Point contestants are a bit on the dim side?
Bear Grylls s**ts in the woods? Who knows what they’ll discover.
(Happy Valley, BBC1, Sunday, 9pm.)
Great sporting insights
KEVIN PIETERSEN: “He’s moving about but notice how still he is.”
Peter Crouch: “There are a few unexpected names you’d expect to see in the next round.”
Robbie Savage: “He’s a fingertip away from getting a boot on that.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
Lookalike of the week
THIS week’s winner is ex-Aberdeen manager Jim Goodwin and Burt Reynolds in Boogie Nights. Sent in by Stu Clarke.
With thanks to those who offered reassurance after the recent Darvel setback.
The names of those who sent less sympathetic, livestock-themed messages have also been taken, Garry Ollason, from Oban.
TV GOLD
THE fascinating game of cat and mouse that played out with the Russians in the east Mediterranean on BBC1’s brilliant fly-on-the-wall series The Warship: Tour Of Duty.
BBC2’s landmark series Putin Vs The West.
Helena Bonham-Carter having the time of her life playing Noele Gordon on ITVX drama Nolly.
The sweet perfection of Patsy Palmer going a**e over t*t on Dancing On Ice at the exact moment the soundtrack launched into the chorus of Defying Gravity.
And Would I Lie To You’s MVP Lee Mack attempting to persuade David Mitchell’s team he’d bought a Highland cow: “You know, the ones that look like Mick Hucknall in a Viking helmet.”
Telly quiz
What was Winterwatch’s Iolo Williams referring to when he said: “I’ve got my hour slotted in for Sunday and my fat balls and peanuts are at the ready”?
A) The Big Garden Birdwatch.
B) The omnibus edition of Pobol Y Cwm.
C) Auditions for series 11 of Naked Attraction.
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
THE Chase, Bradley Walsh: “Where were the two pygmy hippopotami, given to the Queen in 1961 by President Tubman of Liberia, sent to live?”
Joslyn: “The Norfolk Broads.”
Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: “How many football teams compete against each other in the FA Cup Final?” Liv: “40.”
And Bradley Walsh: “The TV series Dalgliesh is based on the work of which author?”
Natalie: “Kenny Dalglish.”
MEMORISE the following three questions, then repeat them at every minor celebrity or member of the ITV payroll you encounter.
“Have you ever met or worked with people who made you think, ‘I can’t believe I’m here’?”
“You’re going on tour?”
“What’s the weirdest place you’ve been recognised?”
Congratulations. You’re now fully qualified to provide holiday cover for The John Bishop Show.
FROST/Nixon encounter of the week was on This Morning, where Phil and Holly interviewed a cosmetic inflation called Dolly Mix, who’s artificially pumped her knockers up to 1,010 CCs and appeared under the legend: “I left my family to be a full-time bimbo.”
Holly: “You don’t have any contact with your family, why is that?”
Dolly: “They don’t approve.”
Bafta’s in the post. Ta
Game over
MOST cruelly misleading introduction of the year so far?
The John Bishop Show, host: “She’s a brilliant comedian who’s had literally a phenomenal couple of years and brings joy wherever she goes . . . ”
Yes, yes? “Please welcome . . . ” Uhuh . . . “Judi Love.”
Tilt. Game over.
ONE TWO THREE POOR
THERE is an unedifying ritual the Love Island boys perform every day in their wind-blown ITV2 compound.
Each morning, they’ll gather by the pool, form a circle, join hands in the middle and then chant: “One, two, three. ON JOB!”
It’s meant to give the impression, I think, there is industry and endeavour behind Ron, Kai and Tom’s attempts to grovel and lie their way into the affections of Olivia, Samie and Lana, who always seem to fall for the cajoling smarm-buckets anyway.
As grating as it is though, it’s not the most annoying thing about this joyless series.
Nor would it even make the list of top ten irritations which is currently topped by the “sunglasses in bed” routine and the horribly entitled and reckless way many of the Love Islanders trash their day jobs almost as soon as they enter the house, in the apparent belief they’re already too famous to contemplate the idea of working for a living.
Witness estate agent Samie, who’d been there less than 20 minutes when she said, “I do all the boring paperwork, so it’s nothing exciting”, and Ellie, who works in corporate business development, but insists, “I’m not a corporate girl”.
You’d hope, then, once their former colleagues have seen this footage, they welcome them all back fondly in March, then form a little circle, join hands and chant: “One, two, three. NO JOB.”
Holden tight
AMANDA & Alan’s Italian Job. Subject: Celebrity crushes, Amanda: “I’ve been laughed into bed before.”
Yes, but how does that explain Les Dennis?
Random TV irritations
BBC2 seriously trying to turn the Eurovision handover procedure into the World Cup finals draw, with Rylan dressed like a Sunday mag psychic.
ITV’s John Bishop constantly overstepping the political propaganda line, as he knows he hasn’t got it in him to make a prime-time audience laugh.
And Channel 4 offering us a cheap, nasty, feeble sitcom mocking fundamentalist Christians called Everyone Else Burns, because it’s just too cowardly, hypocritical and woke to risk a more topical one about fundamentalist Muslims.