Culture

There aren’t many dramas featuring the rise of the Nazis that could be described as jaunty, but Outrageous is one. Oddly, this seems to be the first ever TV drama about the Mitford sisters – and, faced with the choice between playing it for laughs, going for a big historical soap opera or exploring the increasingly dark politics of the 1930s, the show’s writer Sarah Williams has, perhaps wisely, opted for all three. At times, admittedly, the clash of tones can be jarring, but generally in a way that feels like an authentic reflection of a story that remains irreducibly weird. The show also strikes a neat balance between acknowledging the Mitfords’ charm and never entirely succumbing to it.

In an interview back in 2021, Adam Curtis explained that most political journalists couldn’t understand his films because they aren’t interested in music. Having known a fair few political journalists, I can say with some certainty that he was right. Most politically motivated types are – not to be unkind, but it’s true – total losers. This cuts across left and right, all ideologies and tendencies, from Toryism to anarchism to Islamism and back: whatever you believe, if you believe it too strongly you were probably a weirdo at school. The other kids went out clubbing; you stayed at home, drawing pictures of Lenin or von Mises on your satchel. The other kids were in bands, you were in a reading group.

If, as is said, there are only seven basic narratives in human storytelling, then there should be an addendum. In rock and pop there is only one: the dizzying rise, the imperial period, the fall from grace (either commercial or ethical, sometimes both), and the noble return (historically prefigured with a glossy music mag cover proclaiming: ‘Booze! Fights! Madness! How Rubbish Band went to hell – and came back’). All three were on view in London this past fortnight. Waxahatchee was the one on the way up: this was, Katie Crutchfield announced proudly from the stage, the ensemble’s biggest-ever show. Dua Lipa was the one entering her imperial phase – her first Wembley headline, with a production to match.

Another week, another Wagner production at a summer opera festival. This never used to happen. When John Christie launched Glyndebourne in the 1930s, he hoped to stage the Ring. So he gathered a team of refugee musicians from Germany, who quickly assured him that it was impossible and he should stick to Mozart. The man who changed all that was Martin Graham, the plimsoll-wearing founder of Longborough Festival Opera, who died in April at the age of 83. Graham was irrepressible; a self-taught enthusiast. With no one around to tell him it couldn’t be done, he pushed ahead regardless, staging the Ring cycle twice in as many decades. And now look.

Cul-de-Sac feels like an ersatz sitcom of a kind that’s increasingly common on the fringe. Audiences are eager to see an unpretentious domestic comedy set in a kitchen or a sitting-room where the characters gossip, argue, fall in love, break up and so on. TV broadcasters can’t produce this sort of vernacular entertainment and they treat audiences as atomised members of racial ghettos or social tribes. And they assume that every viewer is an irascible brat who can’t bear to hear uncensored language without having a tantrum. The result is that TV comedy often feels like appeasement rather than entertainment. Theatre producers are keen to fill the gap, and the latest effort by writer-director David Shopland declares its ambitions in its title.

On the face of it, Beth seemed that most old-fashioned of TV genres: the single play. In fact, Monday’s programme was the complete version of a three-parter made for YouTube and excitedly announced as Channel 4’s first-ever digital commission. A less excited interpretation, however, might be that it was Channel 4’s first sign of surrender to the hostile forces of streaming now threatening all of Britain’s terrestrial networks. Either way, it was a peculiar watch that, over the course of its 36 minutes, felt less like a fully fledged drama than notes towards one. In a nervous bid to ensure YouTube viewers were gripped before they could search for something else, it began with a good-looking couple having sex. But not for long.