WOW #15
Taskmaster, Louis Theroux: The Settlers, The Four Seasons
Almost half way through the year and really proud of myself that I am still delivering an almost weekly edition of WOW. The weather was wonderful last week and I made the most of British Springtime in it’s prime enjoying bluebells and azaleas in full bloom with friends as well as treating myself and my dog to a last minute beachy staycay. To top of a pretty perfect week, I took my father to see the spectacular Gregory Porter at the Royal Albert Hall for his 70th birthday. It was a night to remember and real privilege to listen to sensational musicians collaborate and take the lead alongside Porter’s unique vocals in my favourite venue.
But do not fear, I also (somehow) managed to watch some great television to recommend for you including the latest series of the always funny Taskmaster, an important and timely documentary from Louis Theroux and a comedy drama for the ages on Netflix.
Taskmaster
There aren’t many opportunities left on television for comedians to shine, long gone are the days of an abundance of panel shows although the recent success of Last One Laughing might just have given the genre a reason to be hopeful. Where others have fallen, Taskmaster has risen from it’s humble beginnings as an underground hit on Dave to it’s promotion to primetime on Channel 4. Last year came a spin-off in the form of Junior Taskmaster and this autumn it will evolve again with the launch of the first Taskmaster: The Live Experience. Each series features a brand new line-up of familiar as well as fresh faces but never disappoints.
The latest series stars: Ghosts and Horrible Histories performer and writer Matthew Baynton, podcaster Rosie Ramsey striking out on her own, US comedian Jason Mantzoukas will be familiar to fans of Brooklyn 99, rising star of sketch comedy Stevie Martin and the stereotype smashing super funny Fatiha El-Ghorri. The Taskmaster himself Greg Davies returns to his thrown alongside his sidekick, who is in fact the actual behind the scenes mastermind of it all ‘Little’ Alex Horne.
If you’ve not seen it before the concept is as follows. Each episode the comedians are set a bunch of ridiculous tasks by the Taskmaster which they take on individually (or in teams) and are awarded points by Greg on how well he deems them to have performed or completed the tasks. It begins with the prize task where the competitors eager to win his favour must persuade him that their chosen offering is the most worthy of the big five points. At the end of the episode, the winner of that week’s tasks gets to take home all the prizes brought in by the other comedians.
The brilliance of Taskmaster is how the comedians chose to tackle the tasks. They vary from the simplest and silliest of ideas, for example the classic ‘Watermelon task’. So good was this that they repeated it when the show moved to Channel 4. All it involved was asking the comedians to eat as much watermelon as they could in one minute, but what unfolded was hilarious television. This series continues in this rich tradition with a task in the first episode involving peas which I am sure will haunt several of the comedians for many mealtimes to come!
New episodes available to watch every Thursday on Channel 4
Louis Theroux: The Settlers
Louis Theroux in recent years has transformed from obscure documentary maker to pop culture icon. He, like so many now, has a very successful podcast (new series started this week featuring The Last Of Us’s Bella Ramsey which I can’t wait to listen to) and his viral Chicken Shop Date with YouTuber extraordinaire Amelia Dimoldenberg introduced him to a whole new generation of fans. So when the BBC announced his latest documentary would be about the conflict in Israel and Palestine, I was interested to see how he would approach one the most polarising and volatile situations facing global politics right now.
I will focus my thoughts purely on the content within this documentary as I appreciate the situation facing people in Israel and Palestine right now is deeply complex so please forgive me, I mean no offence to anyone if I am ignorant of any of the issues or feelings discussing this may raise. I appreciate programmes like this are not for everyone, but I really would urge you, regardless of what you believe, to watch this hour of television.
As documentaries go, it is a masterclass of the art form. Theroux demonstrates all the skills he has gained from his years of experience meeting people from all over the world, from all different walks of life. He does something which so many of us forget to do these days, he listens. He asks questions from a position of genuine curiosity, any personal opinions he may have remain unsaid and he simply listens to what people on both sides of the conflict have to say. In these unprecedented times of ‘fake news’ and ‘mistruths’ you would be hard-pushed to argue that this is anything other than their real thoughts and feelings, coming straight from the mouths of directly involved.
I think it was also a smart editorial choice to focus in on just one particular part of this deeply complex, decades long conflict which has impacted multiple generations of people living in the region. He doesn’t attempt to investigate all this trauma, instead focuses his attention on the issues surrounding ‘The Settlers’. He travels to the West Bank to meet with both the Israeli and Palestinian people living side by side there. There are moments which are truly terrifying from the moment he finds himself trapped in a Palestinians home with the lasers of snipers tracing across the walls to an innocent conversation with a member of the IDF which rapidly escalates.
Throughout all this Theroux and his crew remain calm and professional in the most extreme of circumstances to produce an unflinching hour of television from an active war zone. I learnt more about this conflict from watching this than I have from any news report or article. It reminds us that at it’s core this is about people, not numbers or statistics, and human beings are a tragically flawed species, who despite so much evolution have yet to learn the biggest lessons from our most desperate moments in history.
Available to watch now on BBC iPlayer
The Four Seasons
I have to admit I hadn’t seen (or heard of) the original film The Four Seasons created by screen legend Alan Alda but after watching this new series on Netflix I will be hunting it down. I almost consumed it all in one go whilst I was away on my staycay, what could be better than watching a show about holidays whilst on holiday?! The episodes are a quaffable 30 minutes long and the eight part series is split into pairs of episodes to cover the, as referenced in the title, four seasons making it very easy to watch.
The four seasons refer to the time in which a group of old friends chose to take four group vacations (holidays to Brits) together. They begin in spring congregating at husband and wife Nick (Steve Carrell) and Anne’s (Kerri Kenney-Silver) lake house where everything is not as it seems. In the summer the gang head to an eco resort in the Caribbean much to the discomfort of several of the group’s members for a number of reasons. In the fall, (our autumn) they visit their children at the university they also all met at for a nostalgia filled parents weekend and the show culminates in a skiing holiday over New Years Eve, cue the literal and metaphorical fireworks.
Tina Fey both stars in and created this show bringing along with her the previously mentioned Steve Carrell and the always fabulous Colman Domingo amongst others in this very entertaining ensemble cast. Alda himself even makes a brief cameo which must be a sign that he approves of the project. The chemistry between the actors is spot-on from the first episode, you really believe they are, to coin the phrase ‘old, married couples’ navigating the empty nest phase of their lives and discovering whether they even like each other anymore.
It is a bittersweet love letter to the importance of relationships. Marital issues are brought to the surface, faced head-on and tackled with both volatility and sensitivity. Friendships are tested as the characters realise that they aren’t all the same people they once were when they first met all those years ago. But this is Tina Fey, so of course it also very funny. I chuckled constantly throughout. Special shoutout to Domingo and his deliciously dramatic Italian husband played by Marco Calvani as my MVPs of the series. Why do I suddenly have the urge to book another holiday?!
All episodes are available to watch now on Netflix