Wimbledon (BBC One/Two) | iPlayer
Euro 2024 BBC One/ITV1
GF Newman Remembers… Law and Order (BBC Four) | iPlayer
Law and Order (BBC Four) | iPlayer
The Turkish Detective (BBC Two) | iPlayer
Spent (BBC Two) | iPlayer
Sunny AppleTV+
Amid the relentless rain and near permanent closure of the main courts’ roofs, it was the BBC’s pronunciation unit that managed to add a touch of Mediterranean sunshine to Wimbledon’s grey proceedings. Out went last year’s men’s singles winner, Alcaraz, and in his place came Al Carath, a more authentically Castilian rendering of the Spaniard’s name.
Apprised of the recommended change, Clare Balding, Tim Henman and Andrew Castle all competed for linguistic accuracy, sometimes favouring more of a “zh” closing digraph, at others leaning towards the classical “th”, and then alternating between the two in the dental fricative equivalent of a forehand and backhand rally.
It seems, however, that neither John McEnroe nor Nick Kyrgios got the memo, as they stuck doggedly with the old pronunciation – think Alcatraz with a silent “t” – in their commentary. McEnroe, of course, has long beaten his own idiosyncratic path, nominally speaking, referring, for example, to the sport’s most successful male player as Joe Kovic, as though he were a New York detective, or sometimes to Joke O’Vitch, perhaps an experimental Irish comedian.
Kyrgios was always unlikely to adopt BBC recommendations. While he can be an astute pundit, often his shtick seems to confirm Martin Amis’s contention that “characters” in tennis are synonymous with “a seven-letter duosyllable starting with an ‘a’ and ending with an ‘e’”.
First he accused Castle, who can sometimes seem more interested in celebrity-spotting than insightful sporting analysis, of being “disrespectful” to top players, which represented a new low in pot and kettle relations. Then he turned up courtside wearing the kind of puffer jacket more usually seen on Arctic explorers, as if to highlight how cold an English summer can be. Even McEnroe sounded offended by his dress sense.
Yet it’s been a thoroughly BBC Wimbledon, with its emotional climax, Andy Murray’s latest goodbye, bringing Sue Barker out of retirement to mark Britain’s greatest sportsperson of the 21st century’s still as yet unconfirmed retirement.
The legends love-in threatened a kind of retiring recursion with the alarming prospect of Cliff Richard returning to mark Barker’s return to mark Murray’s exit (if he really is quitting – the guy’s had more comebacks than Sinatra), which in turn would necessitate the rehabilitation of John “never going to be a looker” Inverdale, whose return would certainly call for the presence of Des Lynam, and so on, ad infinitum, back to the beginning of the BBC if not of time itself.
I doubt that the pronunciation unit has paid a visit to the BBC’s Euro 2024 studio. Where would they start – with Georgia’s Khvicha Kvaratskhelia? And how would they ever end? In a pre-match analysis for the Spain v France game on Wednesday, Alan Shearer avoided mentioning Kolo Muani and Aurélien Tchouaméni by name, and the various pundits appear to have been granted a certain degree of verbal free interpretation.
But the studio, atop a terrace majestically overlooking the Brandenburg Gate, might have heard from the denunciation unit. Early in the tournament, BBC pundits, led by presenter Gary Lineker, laid into the English team for some dull performances. But after criticism from within the England camp, all changed during the scarcely less enervating quarter-final against Switzerland, wherein Micah Richards unironically used the word “brilliant”.
It was as if they’d all been instructed to remember their patriotic duty, and they responded accordingly as though their continuing employment depended on it – which it may well do. But the England team were not fooled, and saved their best performance for ITV in the semi-final against the Netherlands. The moment to savour was the now obligatory cutaway of Gary Neville and Ian Wright jumping around at the winning goal, and in the background, as still as a statue, Roy Keane, resolutely determined not to show even the tiniest flicker of joy.
I can still vividly recall the sacrilegious thrill as a teenager of watching GF Newman’s Law and Order. Such was the controversy surrounding this 1978 dramatisation of endemic corruption within the British criminal justice system that, as Newman recalled in GF Newman Remembers… Law and Order on BBC Four, there was an early day motion in parliament to prosecute the writer for sedition.
The production was so true to life that preview audiences thought it was a fly-on-the-wall documentary, but it was the matter-of-fact way it dealt with police rule-bending and criminality that was the revelation. It didn’t make a lecturing fuss about it, but treated it as a given from which the drama organically emerged.
While Newman insists that police corruption remains the same, he noted that police dramas are almost universally morality-tale procedurals or out-and-out fantasy. The Turkish Detective, based on Barbara Nadel’s bestselling novels, is a mixture of both, veering between the social commentary of a potential “honour killing” plot and a police investigation that makes Death in Paradise seem like a forensic study of criminology.
It’s set in Istanbul, with an eccentric inspector Ikmen (Haluk Bilginer) and stiff detective Suleyman (Ethan Kai) who has somehow transferred from the Met. Suleyman looks constantly bemused, as perhaps you would be if your colleagues spoke Turkish but you conducted your interviews with locals in English, and they all spoke back to you – faultlessly – in the same language.
The Turkish Detective harbours no ambition other than to entertain, in the tradition, say, of Agatha Christie. Istanbul provides a handsome backdrop but the whole thing could have been made anywhere, because its true location is nowhere, a place comfortingly removed from anything resembling real life.
Also on BBC Two, Spent, which is written by and stars Michelle de Swarte as an international model fallen on hard times, back home in Brixton, is interested in life closer to how it’s actually lived. Explaining the material indulgences that have led to her bankruptcy, she says: “You’ve got to spend the poverty out of your system.”
There are some good lines and ideas here, and De Swarte sparkles with watchability, but some of the situations feel overfamiliar, the humour not quite as sharp as it needs to be, and the minor characters a little caricatured. There is genuine talent, though, and perhaps it will reveal its full dimensions as the series unfolds.
The most original and tonally arresting show of the week was Sunny, a slightly futuristic Apple TV+ tale set in Japan. Rashida Jones plays a woman who, after her husband and son are presumed dead in a plane crash, is given a robot, programmed by the missing spouse, to help deal with her grief. It’s dark and funny and quietly sinister. And everyone is fitted with instant translation ear pods. No need for any in The Turkish Detective, but surely the pronunciation unit would love to have them at Wimbledon.
Star ratings (out of five)
Wimbledon ★★★★
Euro 2024 ★★★
GF Newman Remembers… Law and Order ★★★★
Law and Order ★★★★★
Turkish Detective ★★
Spent ★★★
Sunny ★★★★★
What else I’m watching
High Country
(BBC One)
Another series in the Mystery Road model – Indigenous Australian cop uncovering bottomless depths of dirty dealings in the vast continental interior. Everyone’s a suspect, but my tip: usually it’s the white owner of the big house who’s the master villain.
The Night Caller
(Channel 5)
Imagine Taxi Driver relocated to Liverpool, and De Niro’s character recast as an embittered old former science teacher. Nor can I.
The 7 Up Collection
(ITVX)
Michael Apted’s nine-series study of growing up from childhood to retirement. Arguably the finest long-term documentary ever made.
