SARAH VINE’S My TV Week: Outcasts in Paradise

TEN POUND POM

SUNDAYS, 21:00, BBC1 AND iPLAYER

This is the type of program that the BBC does really well. It’s not especially fancy or clever, and it certainly doesn’t tax the imagination unduly. But it’s a solid idea, beautifully rendered and very well executed, and at the end of the day, perfectly enjoyable to watch.

That said, there is more than an element of soft power at work here. This is a show about impoverished post-war families who travel halfway around the world by sea in search of a better life, drawn by the prospect of jobs, stability and happier times.

Of good, ordinary people who, through no fault of their own, are forced to flee their homes and who, instead of finding compassion and sympathy, are treated as pariahs and second-class citizens. What could the BBC be trying to tell us?

In the current context of the government’s own immigration problems, it’s not very subtle and feels rather clunky in places; however, it is interesting to think that the shoe is on the other foot.

And it’s also a reminder that Britain hasn’t always been a place people would risk their lives to get to. In fact, my own family left this country in the 1970s, looking for something more than power outages, strikes, and three-day weeks.

It was at my mother’s urging that my parents made the leap, and here too is a woman who, fed up and determined to aim for something better, sets the family on a new path.

Faye Marsay plays Annie Roberts, married to Terry (Warren Brown) in Manchester in the 1950s, a war veteran whose experiences find her eating up her salary along with what few prospects they and their two sons have in life.

For just £10 they can leave their dirty existence in post-war England and travel to Australia, the land of the sea, sun and surf. That is the dream, in any case, and they buy it. Except, of course, when they get there, it’s not exactly as advertised.

Their new home is a shack in an immigrant camp, the locals are more than a little nutty, and they all seem to enjoy rubbing their noses in humiliation.

The only people who seem to have it worse than the Poms, including Kate, a nurse with a secret, played by Michelle Keegan, are the Aborigines, whose plight is watched closely in all its horror by Terry.

While taking a job digging ditches, he is alternately attacked and then befriended by local bully Dean (played with wonderfully psychotic menace by David Field), who introduces him to the less wholesome aspects of life in Australia.

Unlike other period shows like Call The Midwife, the nostalgia here is far from rosy. There are many harsh realities at stake. But the main problem is that by trying to layer the story with so many contemporary sensibilities, it loses a degree of authenticity.

In particular, the characters of Annie and Terry don’t really fit the period: they both feel too modern in their attitudes, emissaries of a more awakened future. Or maybe just the BBC’s diversity department.

Smart and naughty… my kind of thing

COLIN OF ACCOUNTS

BBC iPLAYER

I started watching Colin From Accounts on the recommendation of a friend and was immediately hooked.

It’s set in Sydney (a very different Australia than the one portrayed in Ten Pound Poms), a city of urban, gender-free, craft-beer millennials.

Drinking tequila for breakfast, Ashley (Harriet Dyer), a 29-year-old medical student, is on her way to work when her path crosses paths with Gordon (Patrick Brammall), a forty-something hipster aspiring brewer.

He stops his car to let her cross and she shows her gratitude by showing her chest to him. Chaos ensues and he runs over a dog.

Dyer and Brammall are married in real life and wrote the show together. It’s witty, irreverent, and pleasingly dark in parts, bringing out the Mickey in its characters and their many pretensions while endearing them to the viewer. Funny, smart and mischievous. Just my kind of thing.

There is no euphoria for the wife of an addict

MATT WILLIS: ADDICTION AND ME

BBC iPLAYER

Most celebrity couple documentaries tend to be little more than lengthy reels for your vanity. But this was different, a candid look at the nature of addiction and the way addicts affect those around them.

Matt Willis and his wife Emma were 2000s celebrity royals. She was an impressive (still is) TV host; he was a member of the pop band Busted. He seemed to have his head screwed up; he, on the contrary, was derailed.

When they got married, he was only three days away from his first stint in rehab. Eighteen years and three children later, they are still together, but sadly, they still live with the specter of their addictions.

Apparently, it was about his quest to discover the reasons why he seeks oblivion in drink and drugs.

But what stood out was the toll her troubles have taken on Emma. Seeing this, I felt that ultimately he was aware enough of her own weakness to find a way out, especially since he has the support of his wife.

She, on the other hand, seemed to have no one to take care of her. This is often the case with addicts: all attention is focused on them and their disease, and not on those who live with them. Like Emma, ​​they get none of the high points, but all the low points.