It’s all blunketted-up

There is a scene in ‘America’s Sweethearts’ where John Cusack holds his head in his hands and chants “I am grateful for the sun. I am grateful for the trees” and so on ad infinitum. The general depression of my temporary unemloyed exile in my parents’ home in mouldy Glasgow (it has not stopped raining in three days) is generally alleviated by reminding myself of the two things that are here and here alone which I am grateful for: I am grateful for my dog and I am grateful for 500-odd channels of digital entertainment that my Dad pays for.

Last night’s launch of More4, with its eye-roll-inducing branding that I suppose the marketing men thought was “risque” “quirky” and “zany,” reaffirmed my thankfulness for digital. For a start, there was a joke on the “Daily Show” (heretoafter remonikered the “Day After Show,” as it is yesterday’s American edition) that, I am sure, I alone among the millions of Britons tuned in ‘got.’ What I was waiting for, however, was the “controversial” (read “quirky,” “risque” and “zany”) comedy drama “A Very Social Secretary.”

Without trying to step on Nick’s toes, he doesn’t seem to have digital, so I am going to attempt a review.

We all know the story: hardline Home Secretary humps honey from the Hamptons, fathers baby of said hussy, fasttracks said baby’s nanny’s passport, then says mean things about Cabinet colleagues in public and is summarily sacked for the latter crime shortly before the election, only to be handed another department the morning after the “historic win” and proceeds to go publicly doolally, making policy pronouncements in Blair’s absence that directly contradict the second-in-command, John ‘where’s my tea?’ Prescott. Watch this space for Blunkett showing up in public in slippers.

What was good about the show was not the storyline, because we knew it. It wasn’t the impressions of major political figures, because Rory Bremner can do better. It wasn’t the script, where the pacing was off, nor the acting, which was wooden, the sets or the music. In fact, none of the things that normally makes telly good were actually that great.

What was good, however, was when you realised how close to life this ‘comedy’ was. Carole Caplin calls Tony “Toblerone,” and applies Cherie’s lipstick for her. Cherie instructs Tony to stop picking up the children’s toys from the floor: “Why?” bleat Toberlone, “because we’ve got a photo shoot later” says Cherie, and Tony empties the lego box back out onto the carpet.

When Tony objects to the affair with Kimberly Quinn by saying “She’s a married woman with close ties to the right-wing press” Blunkett replies “we’ve got close ties to the right-wing press.” When Blunkett insists “it’s not an affair, we’re in love” Robert Lindsay, playing Blair, makes the most marvellous grimace for about ten seconds, then physically shows himself mastering his facial expression into that horrible smile and says “oh David, I’m so happy for you” in a strangled little voice.

Bernard Hill’s Blunkett was, even I admit, a trifle unkind. The constant jerking, the drooly cliched affection for a heartless have-it-all Yank, the way he would ask “Is there someone else in the room?” as Alex Jenning’s superb Alastair Campbell lurked in the background, silently, made him seem more of a fool than a villain. We were told that Tony only kept him around because he had “a hotline to the common man.” His jokes fall leadenly on fake laughter, his taste in food is more baked beans than goats cheese and red onion jam ciabatta, he prefers kagoules to birkin bags and has trouble getting his aides to take his dog out for a piss.

When she chews up Kimberly’s £11,000 Hermes handbag, he says he’ll get Kimbo a new one. “Do you even know how much these things cost?” she shrieks. “How much is it, £800? £900? More?? Good God, over a £1,000 for a handbag! I haven’t lived… It can’t be £1,200???” He’s portrayed as unwordly, uncouth, uncultured and disabled in mind as well as body.

So, pretty bloody accurate portrayal then. Compare and contrast

From last night: “you’re not disabled, you’ve got chronic back pain because you eat too much. Disability means fighting back, overcoming the odds, not sitting around living off handouts. How d’you think I got to be Home Secretary?”

Via Chicken Yoghurt: “If people… re-associate with the world of work, suddenly they come alive again. That will overcome depression and stress a lot more than people sitting at home watching daytime television.”

So when I say I found this show ‘entertaining,’ it is in the same way that I find car crashes entertaining. Very ‘gritty’ ‘real-life’ drama. Or, say, the way reality TV shows where someone’s family falls apart because his wife had an affair with a major politician and bore his child are ‘entertaining.’ Oh wait, that really happened.

Oh, and their Boris Johnson was rubbish. I bet the real one would have done it for a small fee. Probably needs the money. Not everyone can walk in and out of a Cabinet post like it was a magazine publisher’s bedroom you know.