Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2022-06-01T14:47:12.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: All My Sons at the Old Vic review: Sally Field is outstanding in Arthur Miller's classic ★★★★
items: The Tell-Tale Heart review: Gothic horror with a twist at the National Theatre
items: Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend is now a TV series – but is it any good?
items: I'm Not Running review: David Hare’s new National Theatre play tiptoes around the Labour Party ★★★
items: Black Earth Rising writer Hugo Blick: "The darker things go, the funnier it is"
items: Books 'have played a huge role in my life': actress Emily Mortimer on the power of literature
items: Patrice Evra's reaction to Eni Aluko shows the double standard in football punditry - and how women are raising the bar
items: Life and Death Row: the Mass Execution – a valiant, important attempt to tell an astonishing story
items: Netflix's Kalief Browder documentary: a harrowing, galvanising insight into the injustices of the US prison system
items: Can the England Lionesses win their Euro 2017 semi-final against Holland?
items: When Football Banned Women depicts the glory days of the neglected female game – much needs to be done to restore it
items: 11 reasons to visit Norfolk - from Bono's house to Holkham beach
items: Mind over Marathon reveals an important truth about the stigma of mental illness
items: Goodbye to Girls – what we've learned from Lena Dunham's pioneering drama
items: Good Wife star Alan Cumming reveals his proudest moment: dislodging the Queen
items: Coming soon to Walter Presents: sex, drugs, sex, 1960s Czech politics... and more sex
items: Alan Carr: Jonathan Ross said, "What are you doing, you idiot?"
items: The Jump commentator Eddie the Eagle says producers ignored his safety advice
items: Ian McEwan is having discussions about a film adaptation of new novel Nutshell
items: Room writer Emma Donoghue talks Oscar glory, religion and her new novel The Wonder
items: Reggie Yates in a Texan Jail: an elaborate set-up that doesn't quite deliver
items: Saving Lives at Sea will restore your faith in humanity – but might put you off sandy beaches
items: An ode to Desmond – the Norfolk native with the most luxuriant eyebrows on TV
items: My Baby, Psychosis and Me: an unflinching look at “the most severe illness we see in psychiatry”
items: My Transgender Kid: “All they want is to be loved for themselves and accepted for themselves”

All My Sons at the Old Vic review: Sally Field is outstanding in Arthur Miller's classic ★★★★
type: item
date: 2019-04-25T16:22:25.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Going Out
subject: News
description: Jenna Coleman and Bill Pullman star alongside Sally Field in a flawed but gripping version of Miller's tragic play
encoded: You tend to know what you’re getting with Arthur Miller, and Jeremy Herrin’s rich revival at the Old Vic is no exception. Headlined by two-time Oscar winner Sally Field as the matriarch, Kate Keller, Bill Pullman (The Sinner) is Joe, her factory owner husband, while Colin Morgan (Merlin, Humans) is their veteran son, Chris, and TV royalty Jenna Coleman (Victoria) is Annie, the fiancée of Chris’s brother, Larry, who went missing in combat three years earlier. The return of Annie to her old neighbourhood precipitates a new examination of the family and both their individual and collective values, as we come to understand that the loss of Larry is not, in fact, the Kellers’ defining tragedy. In the hands of Field and her co-stars, what can feel like a dense, almost classical sort of drama is lifted into something altogether more current, and more human. This depth of feeling starts with Max Jones’s set, whose recreation of the Kellers’ idyllic backyard is alive with concrete, evocative detail; when the lights fell to signify night time, somehow the temperature did too. Written and set in 1947, the shadow of war looms large in All My Sons: Joe made his money making airplane parts for the US military; Chris struggles to shake off his time in charge of a company that suffered many casualties; Kate still refuses to believe Larry is dead. Field is outstanding as Kate, who must have at once the sweet civility of an elderly mother and the viciousness of a woman betrayed, while Pullman convinces as a man whose initial geniality eventually gives way to something far more base. Brits Morgan and Coleman occasionally struggle to maintain both emotional intensity and convincing American accents, but they’re impressively committed; Morgan brings a jittery physicality to the conflicted Chris, while Coleman’s Annie possesses real warmth, and tenderness. All four capably convey the disorientation that comes from having old convictions slowly replaced by new, unpalatable truths. Despite…

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The Tell-Tale Heart review: Gothic horror with a twist at the National Theatre
type: item
date: 2018-12-14T12:12:05.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Going Out
subject: News
description: Anthony Nielsen’s new play is full of carnage, comedy and in jokes, says Hannah Shaddock ★★★
encoded: Though this not-so-festive frightener shares its name with the Edgar Allan Poe short story, let’s be clear: this is not an adaptation. Instead Anthony Nielsen’s production (he is both writer and director) riffs gleefully on the themes and motifs of Poe’s gothic tale: madness, guilt, and the act of seeing, and being seen. Tamara Lawrance (who stars in BBC1’s The Long Song, which starts on 18 December) is debut playwright Celeste Allen, who, in the opening scene, turns down a prestigious award. Amid the resulting uproar (“Judi Dench called me a hypocrite”) she retreats to an attic room in Brighton to write her follow-up, where she’s befriended by her frank, eccentric landlady Nora (Imogen Doel), who wears a bulbous mask over one eye. Both are delightful – and very funny – but Lawrance is particularly impressive, by turns swaggeringly sanctimonious and painfully exposed. As she struggles to write she focuses instead on improving Nora, loftily insisting that she won’t be bothered by the appearance of her disfigured eye. But then the mask comes off… It’s the first sharp twist of many – there’s a slight sense of Nielsen’s metafictional, improvisational script spiralling in on itself – but the performances, including that of David Carlyle, who plays two incarnations of a policeman, have enough conviction to ground the action, even as it borders on the farcical. The melodrama is ramped up in a second half full of horror movie tropes, as Francis O’Connor’s spare, evocative set comes eerily alive; the attic’s large windows are an apt canvas for an ever-changing sky, full of clouds and crows one minute and pink dusky light the next. Amid the carnage, there’s comedy, too: Nielsen pokes fun not just at his own work but theatre as a whole, even art itself. These in-jokes get the biggest laughs, such as when Carlyle, as a policeman with theatrical ambitions, delivers his lukewarm verdict on the musical Company (currently playing at the Gielgud Theatre, to rapturous reviews): “Eh,”…

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Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend is now a TV series – but is it any good?
type: item
date: 2018-11-19T12:01:19.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The bestselling novel about two girls growing up in 1950s Naples has been adapted for television
encoded: “We lived in a world in which children and adults were often wounded, blood flowed from the wounds, they festered, and sometimes people died.” That’s how Elena Greco, the narrator of My Brilliant Friend by Italian author Elena Ferrante, describes her childhood in a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of 1950s Naples. It’s an apt description, too, of the world we see on screen in a new Sky Atlantic adaptation of the novel, beginning on Monday 19th November. Meet the cast of Channel 4’s new true crime drama The Interrogation The best true crime series on Netflix Stay up to date with the RadioTimes.com newsletter Ferrante – who uses a pen name to maintain her anonymity, although there were attempts to unmask her in 2016 – was intimately involved in the production, developing the script with director Saverio Costanzo, entirely via email. The result is a mostly successful adaptation, closely aligned to Ferrante’s books, and a uniquely absorbing drama. View oEmbed on the source website This first eight-episode run is based on the first book; three more series are planned, one for each of what are known as Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels. My Brilliant Friend opens with a 60-something Elena Greco discovering that her old friend Lila is missing, having taken all of her belongings and cut herself out of family pictures. Elena, or Lenù, starts to write the story of their friendship to undermine Lila’s self-erasure, sending us back to the scruffy streets where the pair grew up. This reminiscence is not a nostalgic act; Lenù and Lila’s friendship is, from the beginning, fraught and complex. Lenù is clever, self-contained, hesitant; Lila is cleverer, bold, flinty. Their childhood is full of a claustrophobia and menace that is at times overwhelming, only punctuated by blows and brawls. They are passive observers of ever-present violence, and social forces they don’t yet understand: for long stretches, the camera rests on the faces of the young actors – Elisa Del Genio as Lenù and Lud…

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I'm Not Running review: David Hare’s new National Theatre play tiptoes around the Labour Party ★★★
type: item
date: 2018-10-15T10:56:12.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Going Out
subject: News
description: Siân Brooke swaps Sherlock for politics, playing an idealistic MP who may or may not be running for the Labour leadership
encoded: From the outset, I’m Not Running, a new play from David Hare – his 17th for the National Theatre – confuses. Is it political satire? Domestic drama? It attempts both, but neither successfully; it’s somehow both full of stuff and lacking in substance. The play centres on Pauline Gibson (Sherlock’s Siân Brooke), a single-issue, independent MP who may or may not be running to be leader of the Labour Party. It’s set in the present – filling in Pauline’s past through flashbacks – but there’s little reference to the current political reality: there’s no mention of Corbyn, or Brexit. It’s not clear which party is in power. The action, then, feels unmoored, too theoretical: Pauline, in particular, is made of too much theory, all rigid principles, not enough heart. Siân Brooke would love to bring Eurus Holmes back as a consulting detective for Sherlock Sherlock star Siân Brooke joins the cast of Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown to star as Sherlock’s sister in Enola Holmes film series Though clearly intended to be a complex, intellectual, single-minded woman, Pauline is deeply unconvincing, even implausible. Brooke can be captivating, and does her best to find depth in Pauline, but the resulting performance is uneven and affected, especially compared to her co-stars. View oEmbed on the source website Alex Hassell – as Jack Gould, Pauline’s university boyfriend-turned-political rival – finds the humour she sorely lacks, even though he is just as objectionable: entitled, self-regarding, dogmatic. But while Pauline’s most heated moments come when her ideology is challenged, Jack’s come when his feelings have been hurt, which is altogether more human, and more appealing. Joshua McGuire (Lovesick, The Hour) brings ease and warmth to Pauline’s right-hand man Sandy, disdainful and exasperated when facing a baying press pack, equal parts indulgent and firm with Pauline. Amaka Okafor as Jack’s young assistant is also very watchable, despite the sense that h…

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Black Earth Rising writer Hugo Blick: "The darker things go, the funnier it is"
type: item
date: 2018-09-10T09:57:06.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The award-winning screenwriter explains why he's attracted to tragi-comedy – and invites us into his incredible windmill writing room
encoded: An uphill climb faces Hugo Blick when he begins a new project — not least because his office is seven storeys up. Since 2006, the writer has lived in, and worked from, a 19th-century windmill in Kent, with his wife Elinor, three sons — Atticus, 21, Joseph, 19, and Balthazar, 14 — and the ageing family dog, Flashheart (named after the Rik Mayall character in Blackadder; Blick, who trained as an actor, appeared in a 1989 episode of the sitcom). Blick’s office is at the top of the mill, reached through a hatch in the ceiling of the uppermost bedroom, and, yes, more stairs. But the climb is rewarded, with contemplative near-silence, broken only by the wind, and a magnificent view: from his desk he looks out on lush, rolling countryside — on a clear day, you can see France on the horizon. When is Black Earth Rising on TV? Who is in the cast? What is it about? Michaela Coel stars in explosive first trailer for war crimes thriller Black Earth Rising It’s a fitting spot for the 53-year-old, whose dramas range across the globe. His 2014 hit The Honourable Woman centred on the Israel-Palestine conflict, while his latest, Black Earth Rising — starring Harriet Walter, Michaela Coel and John Goodman — travels from London to the Hague to Rwanda in an exploration of the still-resounding aftershocks of the 1994 genocide. View oEmbed on the source website Despite his unusual workspace, Blick’s daily routine is reassuringly normal: “It’s pretty rhythmic, and based around children, getting them up and to school… After that it’s coffee, plenty of coffee, and then it’s a nine-to-five job.” It takes months for Blick, acting as writer, director and producer, to plan a drama, which involves elaborate diagrams on whiteboards and, he says, plenty of reclining on his stylish slate-grey day bed. Then he gives himself six weeks to write each episode. “There are only two real moments of pleasure,” says Blick. “When I finish the last line in the last episode and I say to myself, ‘Ah, that’s bette…

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Books 'have played a huge role in my life': actress Emily Mortimer on the power of literature
type: item
date: 2018-06-29T09:55:27.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Movies
subject: News
subject: Books
description: Emily Mortimer, star of upcoming film The Bookshop alongside Bill Nighy, discusses her love of all things literary
encoded: Emily Mortimer has something to confess. “I’ve been talking so glowingly about the role of books in my life, but my biggest treat is to read crappy, terrible magazines... but then I feel disgusted by myself!” It’s an unlikely revelation from Mortimer, considering her latest role is playing Florence Green in The Bookshop (in cinemas from Friday 29th June). The film is based on the 1978 novel by Penelope Fitzgerald, in which a woman’s decision to open a bookshop stirs up tensions in a coastal town in 1950s England. When is Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald released? "I want my books to be hopeful, because that's what life is like": author and cancer survivor Ruth Hogan on the "up lit" book trend Sign for the free RadioTimes.com newsletter View oEmbed on the source website But Mortimer clearly has much in common with Florence – her admission comes in the midst of an enthusiastic near-sermon about books, which, she says, “have played a huge role in my life... the times when they’ve been more present I think of as the happy times”. If anything, Mortimer’s done a little too much reading; she grew up in a bookish household (her father was Rumpole of the Bailey author John Mortimer) and went on to study English and Russian literature at Oxford. “Reading still sometimes feels a bit like homework,” she says. Watch the trailer for The Bookshop, starring Emily Mortimer and Bill Nighy View oEmbed on the source website Like Florence, Mortimer is emphatic about the power of books: “There’s this moral certainty right now that I find really scary,” she says. “But books are where the grey areas of life are examined, which is so important.” Mortimer calls books “the spoils of your life”, and hers are to be found in the Brooklyn home she shares with her husband, actor Alessandro Nivola, and their two children, Samuel and May. Has she ever pictured her own book on those shelves? After all, she co-wrote Doll & Em, the comedy TV series she devised and starred in with her childho…

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Patrice Evra's reaction to Eni Aluko shows the double standard in football punditry - and how women are raising the bar
type: item
date: 2018-06-19T17:08:57.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Football
subject: News
subject: Sport
subject: TV
description: "Female sports commentators can’t get away with the sort of inarticulate banalities we’re so used to hearing from male pundits"
encoded: Amid all the sporting action over the opening weekend of the World Cup, an off-the-pitch controversy caught the eye: the criticism levelled at at former Manchester United defender Patrice Evra, one of the faces of ITV’s coverage. On Sunday Evra appeared as a pundit alongside ex-Celtic player Henrik Larsson and Eni Aluko, who’s newly signed to Juventus – and responded to Aluko’s incisive evaluation of Costa Rica v Serbia with applause, and wide-eyed disbelief. Click here for a full list of World Cup 2018 fixtures, kick-off times, channels and venues. It seemed to be a genuine attempt at praise, but it was an uncomfortable moment. “She knows more than us!” was his aside to Larsson – which invites the question, why wouldn’t she? Aluko has had a long career in football, just like Evra has, and in 2014 became the first woman to appear as a pundit on Match of the Day – all while studying to earn her legal qualifications, both in the US and the UK. Evra’s response highlighted the strange paradox that women in football must negotiate. For Aluko in that pundit’s chair, expectations manage to be both high – do you know enough? – and woefully low: do you know anything? View oEmbed on the source website Sport on TV 2018 calendar: how to watch the Fifa World Cup, Wimbledon and more The best women’s sport on TV in 2018 Stay up to date with the RadioTimes.com newsletter Surely what’s most unbelievable isn’t that women – specifically, experienced professional female football players – can offer insightful analysis, but that so many male ex-players consistently fail to do so, and yet are continually employed as pundits and commentators. It’s a striking double standard, one that Aluko – and Alex Scott, one of England’s best ever female players, over on the BBC – are no doubt vividly aware of. So of course they’ve prepared, and done their homework, apparently to a level that baffles their male colleagues – because they know that they can’t get away with the sort of inarticulate banali…

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Life and Death Row: the Mass Execution – a valiant, important attempt to tell an astonishing story
type: item
date: 2018-02-18T08:00:39.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The state of Arkansas' attempt to execute eight men in ten days is put under the spotlight by BBC3's award-winning documentary strand
encoded: The Life and Death Row strand is hard to pin down – part true crime, part thought-provoking, almost campaigning documentary, previous series have focused on particular crimes, and the individuals (both victims and perpetrators) involved. The latest instalment, The Mass Execution – a run of four films – takes a look at the legal mechanics of capital punishment in the USA, focusing on the unprecedented move by the state of Arkansas in 2017 to schedule eight executions in ten days in order to beat an expiry date on Midazolam, one of the drugs used in lethal injections. It’s as compelling as ever – there’s real power in its intimate, on-the-ground approach, as the programme-makers gain access to various interested parties: the Arkansas governor, the prisoners, their lawyers and families, relatives of the victims. They also intercut views from ordinary Arkansas residents, who each have their own idea of justice, and whether it is currently being done in their state. And the film-makers do ask difficult questions. When Susan Khani – whose mother, Jane Daniel, was killed in 1992 – discusses the upcoming execution of the man who was convicted of her mother’s murder, she says she hopes that, after 25 years, the man’s death will ”give the family peace”. “Do you think you will get that?” asks a voice off-camera. “Oh yeah!” comes the enthusiastic reply. There’s an intense frustration, though, inherent in the events this series is covering. Many people are up in arms, it tells us, because these executions are being rushed through in order to beat an arbitrary deadline, and will involve a drug that may inflict unnecessary suffering. There are also suggestions that the scheduling is political grandstanding, a statement of intent by Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson. And of course this is something to decry. But as the series unfolds you realise that this is not the US justice system malfunctioning. This is the US justice system at work. I will freely admit to a bias here, but it is…

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Netflix's Kalief Browder documentary: a harrowing, galvanising insight into the injustices of the US prison system
type: item
date: 2017-09-29T10:44:06.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Netflix
subject: On demand
description: The Jay Z-produced series shines a light on the case of Browder, a young black boy from the Bronx, who was wrongly imprisoned and suffered extreme abuse behind bars
encoded: Philando Castile. Eric Garner. Tamir Rice. Freddie Gray. Trayvon Martin. It’s a familiar, grim roll call: black men (and boys; Trayvon was 17, Tamir 12) unjustly killed by US police officers – and then forsaken again when their killers went unpunished. It’s impossible not to think about these names as you watch Time: the Kalief Browder Story, a six-part documentary series now on Netflix about one young man’s nightmarish experience of the US penal system – and not just because the documentary itself spells out the link, including footage of several of these killings. The series – backed by Jay Z and co-created by Nick Sandow, who plays Joe Caputo in Orange is the New Black – shines a light on the many insidious ways its deeply sympathetic subject, Kalief Browder, was failed, and eviscerates the myth of justice for all. Kalief was born in 1993, in the Bronx, New York. The youngest of seven siblings, he was adopted by Venida Browder, a foster carer. He grew up, we learn, to be a good friend, a good brother, talkative, fun, curious. But at 16, in May 2010, he was arrested for stealing a backpack and taken to Rikers Island jail. He was innocent, but it didn’t matter; it was three years before he was free again. The documentary steadily unravels the string of errors that led to Kalief’s extended incarceration: police improperly recorded his arrest, and the victim’s statement; they failed to investigate possible CCTV of the incident; prosecutors failed to disclose that they lost contact with the victim, whose testimony was their only evidence; several judges allowed delays to continue even as it became clear the prosecution had no case. View oEmbed on the source website The most striking aspect of Kalief’s story, though, is not a failure, but a moral triumph. Though he was repeatedly offered a plea deal – by pleading guilty he could have been out within months – he refused every time, insisting on his innocence, and that his case be heard. It was, says one contributor, “th…

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Can the England Lionesses win their Euro 2017 semi-final against Holland?
type: item
date: 2017-08-03T13:28:16.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Football
subject: News
subject: Sport
subject: TV
description: With Jodie Taylor on scorching form and an encouraging head-to-head record with the Dutch, can Mark Sampson's team progress to the final?
encoded: England play Holland in the semi-finals of Euro 2017 with coverage starting at 7:30pm on Channel 4 (kick-off 7:45pm) A record crowd of 27,000 is expected at the FC Twente stadium tonight, as England take on Euro 2017 hosts the Netherlands in a sold-out semi-final, while at home millions more will be tuning in to see the Lionesses in action – 3.3 million watched their quarter-final win over France. It’s because the stakes are high for both teams, so far undefeated at the Euros: the hosts have the home advantage, and the nation expects. They’ll be seeking revenge for the last time the sides met in a Euros semi-final in 2009, when England emerged the victors after a 2–1 extra time win, although they ended the tournament as runners-up. On paper, England have the edge: in 19 encounters with Holland, they’ve only lost three times. In their most recent clash, in November last year, England won 1-0 with a goal from Jodie Taylor, who’s in scorching form at the Euros – in England’s opening match she became only the third English player to score a hat-trick in a major tournament, joining Gary Lineker and Geoff Hurst. But if there’s anything this year’s contest has taught us, it’s that rankings and reputations mean nothing. Favourites have fallen – including defending champions Germany – and underdogs have advanced: Denmark, who have never reached the final of a major tournament, and Austria, who are making their Euros debut, contest tonight’s earlier semi-final. England will fancy their chances against either team – but first they’ve got to beat the Netherlands. The confidence is certainly there after their quarter-final victory, their first win against France since 1974, but they must cope with the absence of key players: goalkeeper Karen Bardsley, who’s kept a clean sheet, is out with a broken leg, while midfielder Jill Scott – who scored the decisive goal against the Netherlands back in 2009 – is suspended after picking up two yellow cards. And they, and we punters, underes…

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When Football Banned Women depicts the glory days of the neglected female game – much needs to be done to restore it
type: item
date: 2017-07-18T14:40:00.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Clare Balding's timely, surprisingly moving documentary highlights the real reason women's football lags behind the men's game
encoded: As a kid, I played football in one form or another for nearly a decade, my long-suffering dad (thanks, Dad) ferrying me all over Norfolk; my proudest achievement to date is being voted Players’ Player by my team-mates, although I accept that it’s probably time to take it off my CV. So watching When Football Banned Women, a timely, surprisingly moving documentary presented by Clare Balding, I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear the responses of the girls of St Helen’s FC when Balding asked what people thought of them playing football. “They think we’re rubbish,” says one. “They think because we’re girls we can’t play football,” says another. But I was surprised, because although those sentiments were all too familiar, I thought things had got better since I first pulled on my football boots. Of course in many ways, they have: the number of British girls playing football continues to increase, prompting a recent announcement from the FA detailing a “Gameplan for Growth”, while this week sees the women’s Euros shown live on Channel 4 for the first time, after the channel outbid former hosts, the BBC. But the attitude the St Helen’s girls describe is a wider problem, which will be more complicated to solve: how women’s football is perceived, especially by men, though by no means exclusively. It’s the view that women are crap at football, or that they shouldn’t be playing it; most often, it’s a bit of both. And here’s why When Football Banned Women is so brilliant: it challenges that view by highlighting the main reason why the women’s game lags behind the men’s – and it’s not because they can’t get their little lady minds around the offside rule. For 50 years, from 1921, women’s football was banned by the FA. This game was restricted to amateur status, meaning it received no money from the FA and no structural support; it couldn’t use FA pitches or coaches or any other resources. Dick Kerr Ladies Squad Balding’s film is also at pains to point out that when women’s foo…

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11 reasons to visit Norfolk - from Bono's house to Holkham beach
type: item
date: 2017-07-17T09:01:00.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: News
subject: Travel
subject: TV
description: Ok, so Bono doesn't really live here but the Duchess of Cambridge does hang out in Holt
encoded: Norfolk's most famous "gentleman farmer" Desmond MacCarthy is back on BBC2 tonight. In Normal for Norfolk, he opens his 17th-century manor house to the cameras, bringing a bit of telly glamour to this much-maligned county. But there’s more to Nelson’s County than lovable posh blokes and bucolic countryside… 1. The great draw of Norfolk is its coastline, which means plenty of beaches, from the never-ending sands of Holkham to the family-friendly Sea Palling. Added excitement comes from the fact that Norfolk’s cliffs are rapidly falling into the sea. What’s a trip to the seaside without minor peril? Holkham dunes and beach 2. Do be considerate of the local wildlife: residents of Hunstanton, Blakeney and Horsey often leave their beach towels out for lounging seals. 3. If all that nature gets a little too much, this writer recommends Splash swimming pool in Sheringham, where every Norfolk child spent every birthday party between the ages of seven and ten. It has a wicked wave machine. 4. Also on the coast: you can catch crabs! The good kind. Locals know to head to Cromer for the best fish and chips, but it’s also The Crucible of crabbing – it hosts the World Pier Crabbing Championships every August bank holiday. 5. Norfolk’s capital Norwich is full of history, and pubs. But that’s enough on that, because the media has a Norwich bias and there’s more to Norfolk than this really lovely cathedral city that has a castle and a Championship football team and not one but two shopping malls. It’s also the only English city to be excommunicated by the Pope, which makes a lot of sense when you go down Prince of Wales Road on a Friday night. 6. Fed up with efficient, modern public transport? You’re in luck! No, I’m not talking about Abellio Greater Anglia – north Norfolk is home to the Bure Valley Railway, where steam trains chug the nine miles from Aylsham to Wroxham. Further north is the Poppy Line, linking Sheringham to classy market town Holt. 7. At Christmas, the Poppy Line t…

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Mind over Marathon reveals an important truth about the stigma of mental illness
type: item
date: 2017-04-27T11:08:03.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: Soaps
subject: Sport
subject: TV
description: "The judgement you fear from others can often be something you’re guilty of, too," writes Hannah Shaddock
encoded: I thought the end – as they crossed the finish line, victorious, overwhelmed, proud – would get me. But in fact I managed just three minutes of the first episode of Mind over Marathon – the BBC1 two-parter following people attempting to overcome mental illness through the simple act of running – before the tears came. Severe mental illness can be an excruciating cross to bear that no one who hasn’t been through it can fully understand. And it is often in the everyday, the mundane, that the struggle is hardest; getting out of bed, leaving the house, going to the supermarket, catching a train – even, as with panic disorders, breathing. You see that in the opening of the programme, as Steve – who has post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety – visibly shakes with fear as he prepares to travel to the training centre to meet the other would-be runners. He makes it, as do the other nine participants in the programme, and for many of them that is itself a victory; it’s also a stark reminder that someone doesn’t have to be unable to function to be suffering. The varied group of aspiring runners look a bit nervous, but pretty ordinary; they perfectly illustrate that mental ill-health is not typical. It can happen to anyone, however intelligent or funny or resilient, and however well and high functioning they seem on the surface. Rhian, who lost her son and her husband just five days apart, appears infinitely capable – but sometimes she struggles simply to feed herself, and can’t run alone because her anxiety is so overwhelming. And that’s why I cried – because I know some of what she and the other runners were feeling. It was because I was watching people speaking openly and publicly about life with mental illness, and sharing feelings and thoughts that I have had. What people often don’t realise when they talk about the “stigma” surrounding mental illness is that it doesn’t always come from other people – as someone with mental health problems, the judgement you fear from …

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Goodbye to Girls – what we've learned from Lena Dunham's pioneering drama
type: item
date: 2017-02-13T07:00:00.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Comedy
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Hannah Horvath and friends return for a final series – but what is the legacy of Girls?
encoded: In the first episode of the final season of Girls – which airs tonight on Sky Atlantic – Hannah (Lena Dunham) pitches herself to an editor of a magazine called Slag Mag (played by Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Chelsea Perretti). “My persona is very, like, witty, yet narcissistic,” she says. “I give zero f***s about anything, yet I have a strong opinion about everything, even topics I’m not informed on.” It’s an obvious nod to the media perception of Dunham as a self-absorbed millennial, outspoken yet ill-informed. And it’s a perfect illustration of the unique nature of Girls, which has become porous, almost interactive, extending beyond the screen in both directions. Reality seeps into the show – in the opener we see Ray reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, because of course Ray would read A Little Life – and sometimes it’s hard to tell the fictional Hannah apart from Dunham, her creator and real-world counterpart. But how could it be otherwise? Girls grew out of Dunham’s own experience of life as a 20-something in New York; criticism aimed at the show – such as that it wasn’t racially diverse – becomes, then, implicit criticisms of Dunham, and her apparently limited reality. Inevitably that commentary shapes the show, but what is most notable about its final series is that actually, despite this constant critical dialogue, not a whole lot has changed. Hannah is pursuing writing professionally, but is still obnoxious and self-absorbed; Marnie’s obvious, painful fragility is sabotaging her music and her relationships; Shoshanna remains fiercely, tightly wound, despite her promising new career; and Jessa continues to do… well, nothing, really, and seems unable to resist the urge to self-destruct. Yes, there has been some character development – Jessa has become less blindly hedonistic, Hannah is learning how to let things go – but mostly, the girls are the same ones we met in that very first season five years ago. Lena Dunham and Riz Ahmed in the final season of Girls An…

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Good Wife star Alan Cumming reveals his proudest moment: dislodging the Queen
type: item
date: 2016-10-10T15:11:00.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Drama
subject: TV
description: The actor was his usual talkative self at the Cheltenham Literature Festival - until one audience question left him lost for words
encoded: Alan Cumming has won both a Tony Award and an Olivier Award, has thrice been nominated for an Emmy for his role in US drama The Good Wife, and is the proud owner of an OBE – but says his greatest achievement is knocking the Queen off the walls of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Cumming’s portrait – painted by Christian Hook, the winner of the second series of Sky Arts Artist of the Year in 2014 – is part of the gallery's permanent collection. Cumming, speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, said of the painting, “It’s the thing I’m most proud of, of all my accolades – my portrait being in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, it’s incredible. And of course what was great was that they took a portrait of the Queen down, to put mine up!” Hook depicted Cumming with the tartan of the Scottish independence campaign around his neck, and during his Cheltenham session the actor – who recently declared “If Donald Trump is the president of [America], we are f***ed!” – happily acknowledged his outspoken reputation. “I’m a human being in the world, and I have opinions – I would be saying these things even if I wasn’t famous, just more people hear them now. If you’re a person whose opinion is sought, if people are interested in you for various things, I don’t see why that should stop when it comes to your political views, or your views on social issues. I get asked about some starlet’s new hairstyle, and yet you won’t ask me about something important. And that really p***es me off!” On the subject of Trump, he blamed “the lack of value put on education in America” for his rise, saying, “There’s a kind of underbelly of people, a whole generation of society that aren’t educated so they don’t analyse things. They hear the same thing enough times and it becomes a fact, and that’s how fascists come to power, basically.” But a member of the Cheltenham audience did manage to leave Cumming lost for words when he revealed himself as Alan McLean, a teacher who knew the a…

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Coming soon to Walter Presents: sex, drugs, sex, 1960s Czech politics... and more sex
type: item
date: 2016-10-10T14:45:00.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The latest raft of dramas to hit Channel 4's foreign-language platform all have one thing in common... plus, Walter on why the US remakes "will be rubbish"
encoded: Sex, sex, and more sex seems to be the theme of the latest raft of shows to hit Channel 4’s on-demand foreign drama platform, Walter Presents – at least if previews shown at the Cheltenham Literature Festival are anything to go by. Walter Iuzzolino, the curator of Walter Presents, introduced clips from Case – an Icelandic crime drama involving teenage drug use and pornography – and The Neighbours, a Dutch series about swinging gone wrong, starring two real-life couples as sexually adventurous neighbours. Other forthcoming additions to the on-demand platform include Norway’s Eyewitness, about two teenage boys in a secret sexual relationship who witness a murder during one of their liaisons, and a second series of Locked Up, the racy Spanish prison drama. “It’s coming,” said Iuzzolino when quizzed on its progress, “and it’s even better!” Also coming soon is Walter’s first Japanese pick, and Burning Bush, a Czech three-parter from Oscar-nominated director Agnieszka Holland. “It’s a political thriller telling the story of Jan Palach, the young student who set himself on fire to protest against the Russian occupation in 1969,” said Iuzzolino. “It seems like a totally grim political premise but actually it’s one of the most beautiful pieces of television I’ve ever seen.” Iuzzolino added that he and his team are looking to expand Walter Presents to include foreign documentaries and factual programmes. He also spoke out against the trend for US remakes, saying, “I think that original is best. I found out last week that The Neighbours has been bought by Amazon for – I know the sum, it was very significant – for an American remake. And Eyewitness has been bought by a USA network for a ten-part run. They’ll be rubbish. They will be – they’ll be well made, they’ll look glossy and glamorous and people will be good-looking but at the end of the day they will lose the specific nature of the cultural hinterland in which they were generated.”

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Alan Carr: Jonathan Ross said, "What are you doing, you idiot?"
type: item
date: 2016-10-10T14:42:00.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The Chatty Man discusses warming up for Jonathan Ross, being gay on TV, Donald Trump - and which of his shows was "s**t"
encoded: Alan Carr lifts the lid on the world of showbiz in his latest book, Alanatomy – but he’s revealed that he was far from convinced that his first presenting gig, as co-host of The Friday Night Project, would be his big break. “People hated it,” he said, during his appearance at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, “and I read the reviews – before I was on the telly I did warm-up for Jonathan Ross, so I turned up at Jonathan Ross’s chat show. And he went, ‘What the hell are you doing here, you have your own show!’ I said, ‘It’s been slagged off, I need to work, I’ve got to earn money.’ He said, ‘You’re on the telly, you don’t need to warm up my show!’ “Of course as soon as we started getting Bafta nominations, everyone loved [The Friday Night Project]. But that’s how little faith I had.” The Friday Night Project wasn’t the only programme Carr was dubious about – Alan Carr’s Celebrity Ding Dong, the 2008 game show that pitched members of the public against celebrities, “was s**t”, said Carr. “I was pushed into it and I didn’t really like it and the ideas weren’t good. It was getting slagged off and it was that weird thing where actually I agreed with the criticism!” Carr also spoke about the scrutiny that comes with being a camp gay man on television: “Militant gays and lesbians slag me off – 'Is Alan really a good role model [for gay people]?' But then are Simon Cowell, David Walliams and Piers Morgan fantastic examples of what straight people are? No! Because TV isn’t real! It attracts a certain kind of person, it does attract the weird and the wonderful – it’s a circus.” “In the gay community, if soldiers come out, and if rugby players come out, they’re brave – yes, they are brave, but also, when you’re very camp or you’re a very butch lesbian or you’re a transgender person, going into the playground may as well be a rugby pitch or a battleground, because in this day and age you could get stabbed… You can’t just pick who you want to be gay just to make it look better.…

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The Jump commentator Eddie the Eagle says producers ignored his safety advice
type: item
date: 2016-10-08T22:04:37.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The Olympic ski jumper says he is "very surprised that they’re going to have another series" and reveals he hasn't been asked back to the show
encoded: Former Olympic ski jumper Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards has said the producers behind Channel 4’s The Jump – which was renewed for a fourth series in July despite concerns about the number of injuries suffered by contestants – ignored his advice on how to make the show safer. Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Edwards – who appeared on the first series of the show in 2014 – said he was initially promised a coaching position similar to that of Tom Daley on diving programme Splash!, but was later relegated to a commentary role, and that his advice on how to teach the celebrities was disregarded. “I kept telling the producers, ‘It’s going to get very difficult, very hairy’ and they said, ‘No it’s all right’ and they’ve carried on and they’ve had so many accidents. I was very surprised that they’re going to have another series.” His comments mark a U-turn in the view he expressed earlier this year when he told the Daily Mail: "I don't think this spate of injuries is solely the fault of the producers." Several celebrities suffered serious injuries during The Jump’s last run in February, including former gymnast Beth Tweddle, who fractured vertebrae in her neck, and Holby City star Tina Hobley, who needed an operation after dislocating her elbow in an accident Channel 4 said was caused by “simple human error”. Edwards said he hasn’t been asked to be a part of the next series of the show, revealing that he was sent “a solicitor’s letter” earlier this year after speaking to a newspaper about ski jump safety. “Obviously the newspapers wanted to talk to me about why [The Jump] was having the accidents and I didn’t mention the show, but I said the reason you have accidents in ski jumping is because of this, this, this and this, and of course they related it to The Jump. So I got a letter from the solicitors saying ‘Don’t talk about The Jump’.” Channel 4 has responded to his comments in a statement: "Eddie has worked on each series of The Jump as a commentator. Eddie h…

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Ian McEwan is having discussions about a film adaptation of new novel Nutshell
type: item
date: 2016-10-08T09:29:26.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Movies
subject: News
description: The author already has On Chesil Beach and The Children Act in production – but how would a movie narrated by a 38-year-old foetus work?
encoded: Author Ian McEwan has seen a string of his novels adapted into big-name Hollywood movies, but he knew his latest book, Nutshell, was unlikely to make the big screen, due to its unusual narrator – a 38-week-old foetus. “I did think,” he said during an appearance at Cheltenham Literature Festival, “when I was halfway through writing it, ‘At least this one I won’t be writing the screenplay for.’” But when an audience member asked, tongue firmly in cheek, whether he’d had any interest from film-makers, McEwan replied, “Well I’m going to confound you when I say yes! I think in these days of CGI anything is now possible. Someone seems to think they can do something, so I’m going to meet them and ask them what’s on their mind.” McEwan also spoke about two more upcoming film adaptations of his works: 2014’s The Children Act, about a judge who must decide whether to override a family’s religious beliefs to provide life-saving treatment to a teenager, and 2007’s On Chesil Beach, his novella about a young couple’s disastrous wedding night. “We’re just about to start filming The Children Act, with Emma Thompson as a judge,” said McEwan, “and more or the less the same day we’re starting On Chesil Beach, with Saoirse Ronan.” Ronan, of course, starred in the film version of McEwan’s Atonement when she was just 13, earning an Oscar nomination for her role as Briony Tallis. McEwan wrote the scripts for both The Children Act and On Chesil Beach – “I didn’t really want to write the screenplays for either, but even more strongly I felt I didn’t want anyone else doing it, so I’ve written them both” – but said he was unlikely to do the same for Nutshell. “Who knows, I might end up doing it, but I rather think I won’t.”

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Room writer Emma Donoghue talks Oscar glory, religion and her new novel The Wonder
type: item
date: 2016-09-26T11:10:00.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Movies
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The film of Room won an Academy Award – now her new novel is being read by Carey Mulligan on Radio 4
encoded: It’s a question that Emma Donoghue has no doubt been asked countless times over the past few months: how does an Oscar nomination change your life? Well, the author says, not much, actually. “I’m reaching more people,” she acknowledges, “but my main job is making things up with words, and that’s much the same as it ever was.” Donoghue’s 2010 novel Room was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and she wrote the screenplay for the 2015 film adaptation, which landed four nominations at this year’s Academy Awards, including one for the screenplay and one for its star, Brie Larson, who won Best Actress. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_Ci-pAL4eE Despite being a writer for 20 years, 46-year-old Donoghue does concede that some things are different since the film’s success: “It’s just non-stop these days, but it’s a good complaint to have. I wouldn’t want to go back to the quiet publication days when nobody calls...” That’s unlikely to happen any time soon. Her latest novel, The Wonder, this week’s Book at Bedtime on Radio 4, is already attracting A-list interest. Lending her voice to the production is fellow Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan – which is a particular coup as Mulligan has kept a low profile since the birth of her first child in September last year. Since 1998, Dublin-born Donoghue has lived in London, Ontario in Canada, with her partner, Christine Roulston, an academic, and their children, Finn, 12, and Una, nine. The Wonder marks her literary return to Ireland, as her first novel set in her native country for almost a decade – but despite her time away, she still feels very much a part of the national conversation: “There’s a huge amount of debating in Ireland – how much is our cultural heritage precious and wonderful and how much is it a cage? And in the last 20 or 30 years we’ve all collectively been examining Ireland’s relationship with the Catholic Church.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGqruz_M-bg That relationship is at the heart of The Wonder, which is …

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Reggie Yates in a Texan Jail: an elaborate set-up that doesn't quite deliver
type: item
date: 2016-07-14T13:27:00.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: "The behind-closed-doors format means that Reggie Yates doesn’t have the freedom (pun intended) he had in his more successful documentaries," says Hannah Shaddock
encoded: “I’m going to jail,” says Reggie Yates in a voiceover at the beginning of his latest BBC3 documentary. “I want to understand the American justice system, but from the inside.” He’s spending five nights in Bexar County jail in Texas, in a cell, in prison uniform, without any of his own possessions. When he is booked in he is handcuffed and shackled like any other prisoner, and when his cell door clicks shut for the first time, his unease is tangible. Reggie makes the most of the setup, immediately getting to know his fellow inmates on the low-risk unit, including 19-year-old Alex. It’s his first day in jail, and as Alex explains why he’s there – he was arrested for possession of a small amount of marijuana that he was using to manage various mental health problems – you see the reality of his situation hit him. He’s lost his job, his home; he can no longer send $200 every week to his stepfather in Mexico, to help pay for his dialysis. He hasn’t told the prison staff about his fragile mental health, because he doesn’t want to be transferred to the psych unit. Later, we get to see this unit, and the one for prisoners on suicide watch, where they lie on benches in a communal room, naked except for blankets; many of them are visibly distressed. Though Reggie’s empathy and mildness is constant, this is one of a few moments in the film that feel uncomfortably voyeuristic. When he speaks to staff about how prisoners with mental health problems are treated, they seem more willing to tell him juicy horror stories than explain how they look after severely ill individuals. There’s no doubt that both the huge numbers of Americans in prisons and the provision of psychiatric care to those prisoners are topics worth scrutiny. And you’ve got to applaud Reggie’s willingness to embark on such an experiment, which does provide a rare insight into what life in US jails is like – and into the many and varied reasons why so many Americans, especially American men, fetch up behind bars. Bu…

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Saving Lives at Sea will restore your faith in humanity – but might put you off sandy beaches
type: item
date: 2016-07-13T14:28:00.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Little fazes the heroic volunteers patrolling Britain's coastline...
encoded: “Our job is just to rescue people who are in distress,” says Danny, an RNLI crewmember. And that’s what is so uplifting about new four-part BBC1 series Saving Lives at Sea – the nonchalantly brave men and women risking their lives to save others don’t even get paid to do that job; they’re volunteers. They may have very different occupations – a GP, an architect, a boat painter, an undertaker, a firefighter, a solicitor, a mechanic, a kitchen designer – but they’re all masters of the understatement: “I wouldn’t call myself brave… I just like to help out,” says Paul, a software consultant. Little fazes or bemuses the utterly professional volunteers. In one rescue in Blackpool, a woman experiencing mental health problems is pulled from the water. “I’m going to Jesus!” she says, once she’s safely aboard the RNLI dinghy. “We told her, you know, we can’t take you to Jesus,” recounts Danny, “but we can certainly take you back to shore.” In another incident, in London, the crew must wrestle with two naked, muddled young men who have jumped into the Thames. “I feel dry!” one cries – yes, because you’re in a boat now with a towel round you, comes the patient reply. The high seas bring high drama, too; helmet cams provide immersive, pulse-quickening footage of the deceptively slight-looking orange dinghies contending with crashing waves, stranded walkers and struggling swimmers – and there is not always a happy ending. But, as is always the case, it’s the human element that proves most fascinating. We hear not just from those who are rescued – looking much neater, and drier, than when we first encounter them – but also from the volunteers, who, inevitably, have plenty of tales to tell. Take Alan, a school caretaker, who’s volunteered for the RNLI in Eastbourne for 15 years. In 2012, he was commended for his actions during one particularly difficult call-out, to Beachy Head. A man had driven his car off the cliff; the beach he landed on had been cut off by the tide. Alan swam i…

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An ode to Desmond – the Norfolk native with the most luxuriant eyebrows on TV
type: item
date: 2016-04-13T20:30:00.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Dazzling. Unkempt. Always on the brink of flying off his face.
encoded: Like this? Share it! It’s easy to scoff at people with plummy accents living in beautiful stately homes in the country, but there’s more to Desmond than his privileged background. The series follows his battle to make the Wiveton Hall estate profitable, and his inventiveness and business nous wouldn’t be out of place on Dragon’s Den – although his tweed jacket might. Desmond doesn’t leave it to the professionals – and why should he? He’s got years of experience on the estate, which he inherited when he was still a teenager. Whether it’s tidying up the kitchen garden or putting the finishing touches to a newly renovated holiday cottage, he’s always there to lend a hand. Just about anything will elicit a “Well done!” from Desmond. Laying some stepping-stones in a front garden? Well done! Found a rogue swarm of bees for Desmond to corral back into the hive? Well done! This must be the secret to keeping his workers happy while they slave over a hot, er, asparagus field. Episode two opens with a shot of Desmond at work in the gardens, with a scything action that would make Ross Poldark proud. He then proceeds to give a scything master class (“It’s rather like carving Serrano ham”) to his gardener that includes a lament about once-great France and an anecdote about family picnics. It’s not all work at Wiveton Hall. Whether it’s throwing a 100th birthday party for his mother Chloë or hosting a hoedown in a barn, Desmond knows how to enjoy himself. As evidenced in the first episode, where he enjoys himself a little too much… Luxuriant, unkempt. Always on the brink of flying off his face. Don't miss Normal for Norfolk – on BBC2 tonight at 10pm

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My Baby, Psychosis and Me: an unflinching look at “the most severe illness we see in psychiatry”
type: item
date: 2016-02-16T13:24:00.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: "This film, and the BBC’s In the Mind season, is an important first step in raising awareness – but there is clearly so much more to be done," says Hannah Shaddock
encoded: “They ARE suffering. They are at the root of where suffering lies, in the head – and that is gruesome to watch.” This is how Dr Alain Gregoire, the psychiatrist in charge of a specialist mother and baby unit in Winchester, describes mental illnesses. And, he says, postpartum psychosis – psychosis that develops in women after childbirth – is “the most severe illness we see in psychiatry”. Dr Gregoire’s unit is the setting of My Baby, Psychosis and Me, a raw, powerful BBC1 film depicting the impact of postpartum psychosis on mothers and their families. It follows two women undergoing treatment at the unit: Hannah, who is admitted three months after the birth of her first child, and Jenny, who developed symptoms just six weeks after having her second baby. Millions have been watching Stacey Branning (Lacey Turner) struggle with the illness on EastEnders; this storyline and the documentary are both part of the BBC’s In the Mind season, which begun yesterday [Monday 15 Feb], and which aims to improve our understanding of mental health. Turner’s portrayal of postpartum psychosis – which causes paranoia, delusions, extremes of emotion, depression, even suicidal thoughts ­– has been widely praised, but to see Hannah and Jenny’s very real suffering is something else entirely. It is difficult to watch at times, so must have been unspeakably difficult for them and their families to experience. For the women to allow themselves to be filmed while in their grip of illness is a remarkably brave thing to do. Because mental health is, if no longer a taboo subject, then certainly an unpopular and challenging one. People struggle to admit that they are suffering, for fear of how others will see them – because they worry they will be misunderstood, rejected, or seen as “mental”, faulty, weak. But the truth could not be more different. Hannah and Jenny want desperately to be better for their babies, for their partners; their strength, the huge effort they are making to be well again, i…

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My Transgender Kid: “All they want is to be loved for themselves and accepted for themselves”
type: item
date: 2015-10-06T13:01:00.000Z
creator: Hannah Shaddock
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Channel 4's Born in the Wrong Body series kicks off with the first of three incredibly honest films about the lives, challenges and bravery of transgender people and their families
encoded: Channel 4’s Born in the Wrong Body series – which gives young transgender people and their families the chance to show what life is like for them – starts with My Transgender Kid, a film about two very different seven-year-olds who have one big thing in common: they both identify as a gender they weren’t born with. Paddy is remarkably articulate and clear when discussing her gender identity. When an off-camera film-maker asks her if she’s always “wanted to be a girl”, her reply is firm: “Actually, I don’t want to be a girl, I am a girl.” George is less vocal but no less determined. Though the programme is ultimately a positive one, both families are upfront about the difficulties of raising a transgender child. Teasing by George’s peers meant he was forced to move schools; when his mum asks him how that made him feel, he draws a picture of a broken heart. Paddy is yet to even dress as a girl at school, in case her peers react negatively; their parents admit that their own worries may be affecting their daughter. But that’s the main virtue of all three of the Born in the Wrong Body films: honesty. In the second programme, three young trans men lay bare the physical and mental toll of transitioning. They make video diaries of their worries and fears, and share images of their surgery; in a world first, one man, Billy, even agrees to have his operation filmed. And they do this because they know that to share their experiences is to help others: for young trans people struggling to feel understood, and unsure what their future looks like, such frank testimony is vital. Because the thread that unites all three films is that acceptance is everything; for all of the young people featured, the happiness they feel when they are able to inhabit a body that finally feels like it belongs to them is emphatic – even more so when they can share that happiness with their friends and loved ones. In this, too, parents of transgender children can find reassurance. Paddy and George’s p…

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