Catch Up: Top TV to watch this March
Claire Sawers checks out some new TV offerings to get you through March, featuring top Storrie-telling, bonkers Irish capers, American ‘royalty’ and memories from Macca
Ashley Storrie’s first TV show Dinosaur (BBC iPlayer) returns for season two, where the Glasgow writer and stand-up stars again as palaeontologist Nina. Work has taken her on a muddy field expedition to the Isle Of Wight but she must decide between extending her dig there or returning to her old Kelvingrove Museum job. A potential love triangle is also developing between her doting, barista boyfriend Lee (Lorn Macdonald) and brash, amorous American colleague Clayton (Hyoie O’Grady). A lot of the show’s charm hinges on Nina’s relentless awkwardness, such as angsty speculation about her beau’s lack of texts or losing the plot when her favourite sandwich shop cruelly discontinues tuna melts. Storrie’s warm writing reminds us of the everyday rankles that autism can bring and a couple of sweet easter eggs are dropped in for her mum, Janey Godley, who died just before season one secured the public vote and screenwriter awards at the Scottish Baftas.
Over the North Channel, the creator of Derry Girls brings us a murder-mystery comedy caper with How To Get To Heaven From Belfast (Netflix). When the fourth member of a childhood girl gang dies mysteriously, her now middle-aged friends Saoirse, Robyn and Dara must investigate. Roísín Gallagher, Sinéad Keenan and Caoilfhionn Dunne are excellent as the perimenopausal sleuthers, temporarily ditching their responsibilities (including a gaslighting toddler, an unappealing marriage and a cantankerous mother) to cavort around Donegal, Belfast and Portugal. Saoirse’s career as a TV crime writer comes in handy, although an attractive young guard keeps distracting her while helping brainstorm the case. There are spit-out-your-Nambarrie funny moments, particularly whenever Keenan or Ardal O’Hanlon deliver a line: Lisa McGee’s writing plus their facial gymnastics equal comedy gold. The plot is a bampot mix of Scooby-Doo-style antics soundtracked by noughties bangers. Highly nuts, absurd lols.
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Prolific producer Ryan Murphy presents his new anthology: Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette (Disney+). When one of the world’s most eligible bachelors began a whirlwind courtship with Calvin Klein’s chief publicist, the paparazzi went totally loco. Bessette was the US equivalent of Lady Di in fashion influencer terms and although JFK Jr’s mother Jackie Onassis died before meeting her future daughter-in-law, Bessette followed in her minimalist chic footsteps. The golden couple would die in a plane crash in 1999, another tragic incident continuing the Kennedy Curse. This glossy show has the two-pronged appeal of deep 90s nostalgia and Cinderella romance, with our Prince Charming doing his wooing on sailboats around Martha’s Vineyard or biking round Manhattan. John-John is well written as the handsome playboy seeking real connection outside Camelot; an impossible fantasy given his profile and Bessette as his star-crossed, camera-shy lover.
Man On The Run (Prime Video) covers Paul McCartney’s life, roughly between John Lennon quitting the Beatles in 1969 and his former bandmate’s assassination in 1980. A brotherly love-hate friendship is a throughline for the documentary, where McCartney strives to find his creative feet after the Fab Four. Disappearing at first to a remote farm on the Mull Of Kintyre, via world tours with Wings and a Japanese jail cell, Macca is seen as both family man and compulsive creator. He rejects the word workaholic at one point, saying work always feels like play. With quotes from his wife, daughters and showbiz pals including Chrissie Hynde, Mick Jagger and the Campbeltown Pipe Band, we see how this Liverpudlian navigated a few creative bum notes and legal headaches to keep pushing for both personal peace and musical greatness. Great archive footage (but there’s nowhere near enough about the glorious ‘Temporary Secretary’).
Sawers also saw…
Cumhachd Hitler: Hitler’s Power on BBC iPlayer: ‘Chilling, timely Gaelic documentary’; Dr Strangelove on Now: ‘Kubrick stage adaptation with Steve Coogan’; Storyville: The Darkest Web on BBC iPlayer: ‘Worrying online paedophile investigation’.