Disability Now – Paul Darke

March 2000 TV Review

Why is it that the only interesting stuff Channel 4 shows is in the middle of the night - and often on different days each week. Brimstone (C4, 13 Jan.; now a Friday night continuing series) is a fine example. Allowed to return to earth from hell an ex-cop has to catch and return escaped demons from hell in order to have another chance at redemption on earth. Sounds bizarre, well, done as Homicide/NYPD Blue it is. Lots of disability originally (and biblically) used. Adult stuff but worth a view. A bit like Gimme Gimme Gimme (BBC2, 14 Jan., series).

Gimme Gimme Gimme is excellent because it challenges where others only patronise. Scenes start with lines like: 'jokes about the handicapped are always the best'. Such scenes go nowhere and take no prisoners (another group cruelly abused). But, do not watch if easily offended!

The BBC had two big drama series' on over January/February: The Mrs Bradley Mysteries (BBC1, 16, 23, 30 Jan., and 6 Feb.) and Gormenghast (BBC2, 17, 24, 31, Jan., and 7 Feb.). Both used disability in a typically BBC costume drama way: Dickensian in mind set and match. The costumes that Diana Rigg is forced to wear as Mrs Bradley do her no favours and her to-camera asides just made the whole drama seem totally atavistic. To call Mrs Bradley rubbish is to under value is dependence on every social class, disability and sexual cliché imaginable: the bitter lesbian, the circus freak, the asexual stutter, and the limping World War 1 coward are but a few. I liked the show last year: but we all make mistakes.

Gormenghast tried so hard to be witty, clever and original. So hard in fact that it died a death on its feet. The fact that the viewing figures drastically dropped after each episode to a sad few restored my faith in humanity. Gormenghastly, as it became known, had Warren Mitchell in a blanket on crutches, Steerpike developing a Phantom of the Operaesque facial disfigurement and the saint-like Spike Milligan playing Dea'th in a wheelchair. Original: Not! It was unfortunate to see Fiona Shaw - she is beautiful, you know - reprise her role as Christy Brown's doctor in My Left Foot to perfection.

From The Edge (Tuesday evenings on BBC2 - start 18 January - for ten weeks) returned with its usual mix of stories made in conflicting styles. One piece in particular took my fancy as it has some obese chap, who looked remarkably like me in fact (see the hirsute blob at the top of this column), babbling incoherently about the dangers of genetics. Tom Shakespeare, recently profiled in DN, was excellent. The man, calling himself Dr D - obvious a hypocrite - had the audacity to attack people who work within the establishment (like Scope). Sad, to see someone, so fat, with so much potential waste it.

500 Words