Boiling Point (BBC One) | iPlayer
Partygate (Channel 4) | channel4.com
Beckham (Netflix)
Bargain (Paramount Plus)
So there I am watching Boiling Point, the new four-part BBC One restaurant-set drama based on the acclaimed 2021 film of the same name, and I’m thinking: where’s the grub?
Of course, there’s food: chef-y fussing with charred chicory; spats among sweltering saucepans (“Can you boil an egg?”). There’s also wine, splattered all over a customer (“He looks like he’s been fucking shot!”). But it’s not like Disney+’s The Bear, which drags you soul-deep into food porn and insists that you believe. Boiling Point doesn’t seem too bothered about food, as a metaphor for human redemption, or anything else. It’s a stressed-out snatched butty on-the-go of a workplace drama, purely interested in people.
The series opens with a long, unbroken camera take that winks to the original film (the writer – James Cummings – and director – Philip Barantini – are the same). Set months later, head chef Andy Jones (Stephen Graham), last seen crumpling from a heart attack, sits morosely drinking at home. Carly (Vinette Robinson) runs her own restaurant (concept: northern fare with a high-end twist) surrounded by new and familiar faces, including resident gob Bolton (Shaun Fagan), “den mum” Emily (Hannah Walters), and new guy Johnny (Stephen Odubola), nervily trying to hide his inexperience. Carly’s life is a cluster of bursting boils: overwork; debt; a mother played with witchy negativity by Cathy Tyson (“It’s always an important night”), but she’s just one story spiralling up from this dysfunctional restaurant family.
Plot-wise, Boiling Point needs to simmer down. It tries to do too much, producing a sprawling tasting menu of issues: alcoholism, veiled sexuality, poverty, mental health, harassment and more. That said, later on, a seemingly superfluous plot, involving an illicit night-drive, becomes so tense you have to remind yourself to breathe. If Graham is no longer an anchoring star presence (he’s more of a lurker here), Boiling Point still manages to crank up the dramatic temperature.
Over on Channel 4, Joseph Bullman’s Partygate is a one-off docudrama about the Tory flouting of their own lockdown rules that helped prompt the downfall of Boris Johnson. Here, dramatised, time-lined and effectively factchecked (mainly by the Sue Gray report), somehow the events feel even more shocking.
Certainly, Partygate trashes the notion of weary public servants selflessly consuming warm plonk and Twiglets at their desks to keep up team morale. As party follows party, an ugly picture emerges of entitled bacchanalia (“What happens in No 10 stays in No 10”). Spads Annabel and Grace (Ophelia Lovibond and Georgie Henley) – not based on real people – drag suitcases of booze; throngs of braying buffoons bellow along to Total Eclipse of the Heart; there is vomiting, fighting, white powder, and a security guard (Phil Daniels) is mocked when he tries to intervene. As Grace wrestles with her conscience, Annabel explains that lockdown rules “are not meant for us”.
Disgusting as it is, it’s also grimly fascinating – all that power and privilege, and this is how they party? It’s like Studio 54 for the hopelessly naff. While the audience’s view of Johnson (voiced by Jon Culshaw) is restricted to sporadic shots of his back, his influence is felt in the toadying groupie cult (led by more fictional spads, played by Hugh Skinner and Tom Durant Pritchard) chanting his name (“Boris! Boris!”) as if he’s the true-blue Christ. It’s all juxtaposed with footage and real-life stories from the pandemic: terminally ill children saying goodbye to relatives over Zoom; socially distanced funerals; ordinary people hit with extortionate fines.
Partygate isn’t subtle (it aired on the eve of Rishi Sunak’s speech at the Conservative party conference), and, at times, the mesh of reality and fiction is strained. But in its immersive horror, it performs a valuable public service: sometimes you have to see something to really believe it.
Beckham, the new four-part Netflix football docuseries about David “Goldenballs”, is directed by Fisher Stevens (the actor who played Hugo in Succession, who is also a documentarian). The result is as compelling as it is uneven.
We hear about how Beckham (pushed by a devoted, obsessive father) became the Manchester United and England player. His emergence as British sport’s first sarong-clad metrosexual mega-star, married to “Posh” Spice Girl Victoria. The appalling national abuse he received for being sent off during the 1998 World Cup for kicking Argentina player Diego Simeone. His “tiring” need for order (Beckham has previously spoken about his OCD, and, here, scrubs kitchen tops zealously). There’s also his ever-fascinating quasi-father/son relationship with former Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson. Ferguson (on bizarrely affable form) features here, as well as an impressive array of former teammates, including Roy Keane, Gary Neville and Eric Cantona.
There’s too much about Beckham playing for LA Galaxy and generally becoming the “Messiah of American football”. Conversely, there’s zilch about his lucrative stint as an ambassador for the last World Cup in Qatar, seemingly unperturbed by Qatar’s human rights/LGBTQ+ record.
Moreover, some pre-launch excitement about the Beckhams discussing his 2004 affair for the first time turns out to be a damp squib. Victoria, who’s interviewed throughout, mainly submerged in squashy upmarket upholstery, stiffly concedes it was their “hardest period”. Beckham tearfully talks of “horrible stories”, but not much more. Interestingly, both Beckhams refer to the questioning as “therapy”. Part-probe, part-hagiography, Beckham is certainly the strangest documentary I’ve seen in a while.
If you’re after something more bracing, try Woo-Sung Jeon’s six-part Bargain (Paramount Plus), the first Korean drama to win best screenplay at the annual Canneseries TV festival.
Based on Lee Chung-hyun’s film short, it begins with a man (Jin Seon-kyu) and a teenager (Jeon Jong-seo) bargaining over the price of her virginity in a hotel outside Seoul, and manages to get darker and more apocalyptic from there. The first three episodes (spoiler alert) encompass everything from organ trafficking to explosions to human meat grinders. Tune in if you like K-drama that’s a Squid Game/Parasite diatribe against capitalism, laced with the blackest of humour, tinged with existential despair for humankind.
Star ratings (out of five)
Boiling Point ★★★★
Partygate ★★★★
Beckham ★★★
Bargain ★★★★
What else I’m watching
Union with David Olusoga
(BBC Two)
Historian David Olusoga’s new series is a fascinating deep-dive into the UK’s long, knotty history, starting with James VI of Scotland’s 1603 accession to the English throne.
Payback
(ITV1)
Executive-produced by Jed Mercurio (Line of Duty), an exciting Edinburgh-set drama about a woman (Morven Christie) who discovers her recently attacked husband had dealings with a crime lord. Sharply observed, focusing on financial crime, with a strong cast that includes Peter Mullan and Prasanna Puwanarajah.
The Abercrombie Guys: The Dark Side Of Cool
(BBC One)
This Panorama documentary looks into the alleged sexual exploitation of aspiring male models by, among others, former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries. A disquieting watch that raises many questions.
