Shown over four consecutive nights last week, and set amid chalky Devon harbours, this adaptation of Cleeves’s book of the same name by Kelly Jones features happily married gay detective Matthew Venn (played by Ben Aldridge), who is dragged back to his roots, first by the death of his father, then by a man found dead on the beach. I’ll be sticking around, not least for Walken’s Transylvanian mini-break of a face incongruously bobbing around the Bristol environs.Ĭrime novelist Ann Cleeves appears to have colonised British crime drama with Vera, starring Brenda Blethyn, BBC One’s Shetland, with Douglas Henshall, and now The Long Call. The second episode, though, is a significant (funnier, tighter) improvement. Merchant has forged his own path since working with Ricky Gervais, but in the Outlaws opener, too many genres are crudely bolted together: comedy, crime, heartwarming drama, a bizarre segue into gangland Top Boy territory. When another (unconnected) sex worker theme pops up in the second episode (both are available), it starts feeling borderline creepy. While some jokes worked, others didn’t: one about “working harder than a prostitute with two mattresses” was Jeremy Clarkson-worthy (and no, making it come out of Walken’s mouth doesn’t make it any funnier). I’d wondered if Walken’s Hollywood star power would swamp things, but in the overstuffed opener his rogue barely gets a look-in. Rani, “studious Asian good girl” turned shoplifter, played by Rhianne Barreto, observes: “Everyone’s a type: rightwing blowhard, leftwing militant, celebutante, shifty old timer.” There’s also Merchant as a dweeb solicitor, and Jessica Gunning as an officious overseer, who is inevitably reminiscent of Gareth from The Office, with an added soupçon of civic authority.Ĭhristopher Walken in The Outlaws. The premise is that seven small-fry lawbreakers are thrown together to renovate a building as community service in Bristol. What next: Joe Pesci chugging in Birmingham’s Bullring? New BBC One six-part dramedy The Outlaws, starring, co-written and directed by Bristolian Stephen Merchant ( The Office Extras Hello Ladies), certainly hasn’t stinted on casting: Dolly Wells, Clare Perkins, Eleanor Tomlinson, Darren Boyd, Gamba Cole, with Claes Bang and Richard E Grant to come. It’s not every day you get to see Christopher Walken ambling about a community project in Bristol. I’m not convinced that Colin in Black and White is as interesting or trailblazing as its subject, but it works as a starter bundle of complex race issues for young sports fans. Sometimes, the half-hour episodes get too choppy and busy, and as time goes on, Kaepernick bangs on repetitively about his teen preference for football over a lucrative future in baseball (memo to Mr Kaepernick: give audiences credit for understanding the first time).
It’s a bold approach, with myriad diversions: hip-hop, historical black figures, Trump’s microphone-chewing rants, where his face turns a fetching shade of boiling Lucozade. “I was in for a rude awakening.” I’ll be sticking around, not least for Walken’s Transylvanian mini-break of a face bobbing around the Bristol environs “I assumed privilege was mine,” muses Kaepernick. A commanding, suited figure, he covers everything from “aggressive” black hairstyles to societal devaluation of black beauty to white privilege – “the audacity of whiteness” – that young Colin gradually realises he doesn’t possess, whether being gawped at in hotel lobbies or driving his father’s car. What could all get a bit “Wonder Years: Locker Room Edition” is shot through with Kaepernick himself gatecrashing the episodes to make Ted Talk-style observations about structural racism. Colin (well played by Jaden Michael), who is obsessed with becoming a quarterback, is the adopted mixed-race son of loving, albeit racially naive white parents: Nick Offerman without the Parks and Recreation tache, alongside Mary-Louise Parker in mom jeans.
#Colin and the thumpies episodes series
Netflix’s new six-part series Colin in Black and White, co-created by Ava DuVernay ( Selma When They See Us) and written by Michael Starrbury ( When They See Us), is an ambitious blend of biography, sitcom and polemic that focuses on Kaepernick’s high-school years in Turlock, California.
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