Alison Rowat reviews the best and worst of the week’s television, from Victoria Beckham’s docuseries to The Celebrity Traitors and Frauds
In 2023, a documentary was made about David Beckham. Now his other half has her own three-parter, titled Victoria Beckham (Netflix). For the rich and famous, his and her sinks just don’t cut it any more.
Directed by Nadia Hallgren, Victoria Beckham covers some parts of its subject’s life in great detail while completely ignoring others.
If you want to know about her childhood, it is all there in family home videos – the singing and dancing, the theatre school, her shyness. The Spice Girls receive attention for a while, then family. But most of the three-hour runtime concentrates on her passion for fashion.
Again and again, the point is made that she has worked damned hard for what she has. There have indeed been some rough times at the hands of the media. “Why women hate Posh” screamed one typical headline.
She touches on her struggles with body image – “When you have an eating disorder, you become very good at lying” – without going into detail. While that is an understandable omission, others are not. Nothing is said, for instance, about the reported rift with son Brooklyn.
It is odd, too, that there are no contemporary interviews with the other Spice Girls. She is candid and teary about her business going millions into the red and having to ask David for help. The man himself floats in and out of scenes, making the occasional comment. “It made me panic,” he admits on hearing about the business being in trouble.
Hallgren makes increasingly desperate attempts to ramp up the drama as the film nears its grand finale – Victoria’s show in Paris Fashion Week. Some of the scenes are pure Zoolander. News of one model’s fall off her bike, resulting in a grazed knee, is treated with all the solemnity due an outbreak of war.
Spoiler alert: the show is a triumph and all is well. As for the gaps in the story, the film and its subject are content to drape something fabulous over them and carry on as though nothing is amiss, but it is.
To the casual viewer, the 19 contestants gathered at Ardross Castle near Inverness for The Celebrity Traitors (BBC One, Wednesday) were taking part in a light-hearted game show, albeit one involving the “murder” of opponents.
But to BBC top brass, this is a key battle in the long war for charter renewal. Lose this struggle after all that bad business with Strictly, and it could be Goodnight Vienna for the licence fee. But no pressure, guys.
“The ultimate psychological game of deception”, as host Claudia Winkleman described it, began with a fleet of luxury cars taking the celebs to the castle. At the first glimpse of the turrets, Scottish actor Mark Bonnar looked like a kid on Christmas morning.
“In my work life, I play duplicitous, dodgy folk, but I’m the complete opposite,” said the star of Guilt.
Aye right. Anyone who watched Bonnar eviscerate his opponents on Celebrity Catchphrase recently will raise an eyebrow at that.
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The first challenge took place in a graveyard, complete with tombstones on which the celebrities’ names were carved. How tasteful.
Buried in the graves were shields that provided immunity from the first murder. A frenzy of digging and clawing at the dirt began. Some took to the task with glee, none more so than singer and activist Charlotte Church. “Charlotte’s in a white dress and she’s in her own grave!” squealed a delighted Claudia.
Church is one to keep an eye on. But then most of them are, which bodes well for the next eight episodes (two per week). Celia Imrie is a game sort, Alan Carr is the funniest, and Nick Mohammed (Ted Lasso) the smartest. Even Jonathan Ross, sneaking back into Auntie’s embrace (all forgiven then, dear?), turns out to be good company.
As seen in the day’s main task, hauling a giant Trojan horse up a hill, the producers have learned the lesson from I’m a Celebrity that watching pampered sorts suffer and make plonkers of themselves can be hilarious if it’s done right (looking at you, Clare “Bossy Boots” Balding).
Joe Wicks, PE teacher to millions during the pandemic, doesn’t have much of a filter. So when he wolfed down junk food one day, he let us know exactly how rough he felt the next.
“I’ve not stopped farting,” he declared in Joe Wicks: Licensed to Kill (Channel 4, Monday).
In the hour-long documentary on ultra-processed foods (UPF) that followed, Wicks told us he was not “p****** around”; consumers in general were “completely f*****” by what he regarded as lax regulation; and he could not believe how much “s***” went into food. At several points he became tearful.
Food is where the personal gets political for Wicks. Having grown up on benefits, he knows the pull of cheap junk food, estimating that it made up “99%” of his childhood diet.
What to do about it, though? After a crash course in UPF by Dr Chris van Tulleken, himself the presenter of several films on the subject, the pair created a protein bar called “Killer”. Crammed with additives but still within legal limits, and with stark warnings on the wrapper, Wicks hoped the bar would put pressure on the government to “take some accountability”.
The pair had a fine old time in the lab. “See if we can give people diarrhoea with one bar,” said the doc. Wicks asked staff at his fitness firm to try the bar, and more than one red flag was raised. How ethical was it to sell something that could be harmful?
After he brought the plan up with his wife her first instinct was to discuss it off camera. To Wicks’s credit he carried on.
A food safety lawyer told him the bar was legally fine, but she wouldn’t eat it and nor would she give it to her children.
Dr Chris sensed a wobble. “Are you getting cold feet?” he asked.
Wicks finally gave the go-ahead. A website was set up, “Britain’s most dangerous health bar” was put on sale and, sure enough, the orders came flying in. As did invitations from the media to talk about the product. The campaign went viral, and then the backlash began. Some called Wicks an idiot, others felt he had no business running such a campaign.
The manufacturers of the protein bars featured got their right of reply, as did the government. It had been a radical move on the part of Wicks and the doc to make the bar, but was it enough? Unaccustomed to unpopularity, he still seemed unsure about the way ahead. Welcome to politics, mate.
If I had a Euro for every time I’ve seen the heist thriller Frauds (STV, Sunday, Monday) described as “Thelma and Louise”, I could fund a reshoot of Ridley Scott’s classic and give it a happier ending (still not over that one).
So yes, there are two female outlaws, Sam and Bert (Jodie Whittaker and Suranne Jones instead of Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis), the action unfolds in a scorchio desert environment (Tenerife, not Utah), and there’s plenty of driving around in an old car.
Beyond that, this enjoyably wild ride is a thoroughly British, slyly funny affair that’s more “oop north” than Oceans Eleven. In the female-led Frauds universe you’re as likely to find jokes about “giant lady bras” as arguments about the best way to pull off a heist.
For that is the life Sam and Bert have chosen. Well, Bert more than Sam. The latter left the con game after Bert was jailed for a ten-stretch. Now she is out and eager to pull off the big one, the heist that will bring in “f*** off” money, but Sam’s not interested, preferring a quiet life with her chickens.
She changes her mind, as you knew she would. There is a lot that’s predictable in Frauds – starting with every character nursing a secret. It helps enormously that Whittaker and Jones make a terrific leading duo, playing off each other like, er, Thelma and Louise. The setting is the third star of the piece. This is Spain away from the tourists, a place of deserts and dust and charming little towns with the shutters firmly closed to prying eyes.
With four episodes to go, the tale is slotting together nicely. Just stay away from those cliff edges, ladies.
