The week in TV: Miriam: Death of a Reality Star; The Tattooist of Auschwitz; A Man in Full; Shardlake; Michael Palin in Nigeria – review
Miriam: Death of a Reality Star (Channel 4) | channel4.com
The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Sky Atlantic)
A Man in Full (Netflix)
Shardlake (Disney+)
Michael Palin in Nigeria (Channel 5) | My5
Five years ago Mike Thalassitis, a 26-year-old semi-professional footballer and one-time Love Island contestant, became the estimated 38th reality TV participant around the world to have taken their own life. The 37th, a month before, was 38-year-old Miriam Rivera, who was the subject of last week’s three-part Channel 4 documentary, Miriam: Death of a Reality Star.
The reason it was Rivera, among this unfortunate group, who was selected for three-hours of hand-wringing television was the same as why, as a 23-year-old woman, she was hired for the 2004 Sky One series There’s Something About Miriam: because she was a transgender woman.
In the Sky series, six rather laddish young men were picked from hundreds of applicants to compete at an Ibizan villa for Rivera’s affections, a romantic week on a yacht and £10,000. The novelty twist was that they didn’t know that she was transgender, or, as the Sky narrator indelicately put it, that she was “as much Eve as Steve” – Rivera never underwent surgical reassignment.
In the feverish post-Big Brother atmosphere in TV back then, when no “entertainment” concept was deemed too tasteless or exploitative, this self-evident car crash duly received a green light. Keen to make a name for herself and encouraged by her “friend and creative director”, Rivera gladly signed up.
Reality TV is a phrase that has bled meaning from the word ‘reality’, but let’s face it, reality itself hasn’t helped
She grew up in Mexico, where her father tried to exorcise the girl out of her, then moved to the US to find success. Compared by the same friend to Princess Diana and Marilyn Monroe, she thought fame offered the answer. She modelled, worked as a stripper, then in porn, and was in an all-trans girl band, but the Sky series was her big opportunity.
To no sane observer’s surprise, it was a disaster. The young men sued the production company, Rivera was pilloried in the press, and the series, with its excruciating denouement, was later disowned by all concerned. Or nearly all. One of the original production team, Jo Juson, who might have been sent from central casting for the role of “brash TV exec”, insisted the big reveal was entirely ethical.
Rivera briefly tried her luck in other reality TV shows, but fame or notoriety quickly vanished, she got married, became involved in sex work and finally, her death took place in suspicious circumstances; some suspect she was murdered.
Who was to blame for this unhappy story? The documentary suggested various culprits: transphobic societal attitudes, Rivera’s father, and the Sky series. All no doubt played a part, but so too did her hunger for recognition.
That, of course, is what reality TV feeds off. The only contribution of Remy Blumenfeld, the producer behind There’s Something About Miriam, to Channel 4’s documentary was a carefully worded written statement. But in an earlier interview he attempted to shift responsibility for the show’s problems on to the young contestants, nobly regretting that the men felt “that somehow their masculinity had been called into question because they’d been attracted to a woman who was trans”. It was such a slippery and cleverly disingenuous lament that it suggested a special talent for self-justification that must surely come in handy in the ruthless world of formatted reality.
Reality TV is a phrase that has bled meaning from the word “reality”, but let’s face it, reality itself hasn’t helped. How, for example, can you depict the reality of Auschwitz? If you came anywhere close, it would be unwatchable. And if you were to make it watchable, you’d betray the experience of the survivors, never mind the 1.1 million who were killed in that earthly hell. Then again, many people nowadays believe the Holocaust was no different, morally or in practice, to the terrible suffering seen in Gaza. Its historical uniqueness is in danger of being subsumed by outrage at present-day events.
I don’t think The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Sky Atlantic) will do much to arrest that process. Based on Heather Morris’s bestselling novel that has been criticised for significant inaccuracies, which in turn was based on Auschwitz survivor Lale Sokolov’s aged memories, it’s full of well-fed-looking prisoners in bad pyjamas speaking English, regardless of their assorted nationalities. Yes, it’s a love story, but while love may conquer all, it can’t in this instance capture the horror of the conditions in which it flowered, much less rise above it.
There are few actors who are more fun to see getting their teeth into a part than Jeff Daniels. He’s well cast in A Man in Full (Netflix), a toothsome six-part adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s literary blockbuster. Wolfe is better suited to episodic TV than cinema. There’s space to explore his multi-character satirical universe, rather than stuff a corpse into a suitcase, which was the effect of 1990’s film of The Bonfire of the Vanities.
It’s set in Atlanta, where the wealthy have kitchen islands the size of Ibiza, and second wives are half the age of their predecessors. The opener jettisons the novel’s rumoured racially charged rape and gets straight down to the financial troubles of Charlie Croker (Daniels), a big dick-swinging mogul whose huge debts the bank has just called in. The dialogue bristles and the acting is top-notch. If it keeps this level up for the next five episodes, it will be essential viewing.
Wolfe died six years ago, so he comfortably missed out on seeing a decent reworking of his fiction. Poor CJ Sansom waited 20 years as various adaptations were discussed of his much-loved series of novels featuring Tudor detective Matthew Shardlake. And then he died just five days before the premiere of Shardlake (Disney+).
This new series goes a long way to doing the books justice. Arthur Hughes as Shardlake maintains a satisfyingly ambiguous expression in which lofty contempt vies with deep sympathy. It’s full of murderous intrigue and shadowy goings-on in a mysterious monastery that Thomas Cromwell (Sean Bean on fine form) wants to close down.
In keeping with nearly all modern dramas of the period, there’s also a familiar sense of the gloomy mire in which middle ages life was lived. In Michael Palin in Nigeria (Channel 5), the former Python and intrepid octogenarian found a country that was full of youth and dynamism, and vast differences in wealth, culture and security. It was a dizzying tale of rapid modernisation, with all its material advances and dislocating changes. Along the way, he travelled down a lot of roads that didn’t feature much road, but no end of mud. The constitutionally genial Palin was, as ever, untroubled. After all, he almost has a copyright on the stuff.
Star ratings (out of five)
Miriam: Death of a Reality Star ★★★
The Tattooist of Auschwitz ★★`
A Man in Full ★★★★
Shardlake ★★★★
Michael Palin in Nigeria ★★★★
What else I’m watching
The Madrid Open
(Sky Sports)
Nothing spells a sunny spring quite as evocatively as the tennis clay court season. Last week there was not only Rafael Nadal’s emotional farewell, but also the caustic wit of Russian ace Daniil Medvedev. When the umpire said that roof closure was not his, but “their” decision, Medvedev shot back: “Who are they? The Illuminati?”
Baby Reindeer
(Netflix)
Well, not watching. I tried an episode, recognised its intensity and originality, but felt enormously relieved when the credits rolled.
Red Eye
(ITV1)
Last week I described this flight-bound drama as “slightly bonkers”. I’d like to take back the “slightly”.
