TV review

Published Friday 14 March 2008 at 15:30 by Harry Venning

The Apprentice lent its rock solid format, plus Sir Alan Sugar, to Sports Relief this week with characteristically entertaining results. Teams of so-called “boys and girls”, with an average age of about 40, had to set up rival Bond Street shops, for one night only, and invite their well-heeled chums to part from their cash. Cue lots of celebrities, lots of hard selling and lots of conspicuous generosity captured on film.

Simon Cowell spent £50k on a Gerald Scarfe cartoon, which seemed good value, David Walliams shelled out £1,000 for a feather boa, which didn’t. Bernie Ecclestone’s billionaire status meant he could afford to double the boys’ entire total, yet mysteriously all his riches don’t stretch to a decent haircut.

Even with Ecclestone’s intervention, the boys still lost by a country mile.

Indeed, squabbling was the only thing the boys surpassed the girls at. The overbearingly arrogant Hardeep Singh Kohli resigned as team leader shortly after his appointment, in protest at being compared to Hitler by inveterate troublemaker Kelvin MacKenzie. Kohli proceeded to re-channel all his energies into undermining the efforts of his hapless successor, the Lib Dem MP Lembit Opek, who, it has to be said, was ripe for undermining. Hesitant, vacillating and totally ineffectual, Opik couldn’t even persuade his Cheeky Girl girlfriend to come and support him. However, Opik came over as a colossus of charisma compared to Nick Hancock, whose presence barely registered. Never had him down as a shy boy.

“Schmucks!” sneered Sir Alan, on discovering the boys’ shop giving away oysters to their customers. ‘Giving’ and ‘away’ are two words that never keep company in Sir Alan’s vocabulary.

According to Laura Mackie, ITV director of drama, The Fixer “is a crime drama as you have never seen it before”. Well, I’m sorry to contradict, Laura, but I saw it about 30 years ago when it was called Callan.

The set up and protagonists are almost identical. The central character is a down at heel assassin employed by the state to do the dirty work the judicial system can’t cope with, he has a petty criminal fixer/assistant with whom he once shared a prison cell, and the whole enterprise is orchestrated by a manipulative and callous supervisor who regards those in his employ as ultimately expendable.

But since the number of people who remember Callan are few and far between, I shall abandon this stroll down memory lane - pausing only to say that Callan had one the best opening credits and theme tune combinations in TV history - and concentrate on the programme in hand, which was actually rather good.

I wasn’t overly keen on the opening voice-over, discarded as soon as it had served its scene-setting purpose, and some of the exposition could have been better disguised, but The Fixer promises to be an efficient and atmospheric thriller with several surprises along its devious way. It also has Peter Mullan as spook overseer Lenny and he is, as always, a class act.

DETAILS

Sports Relief Does the Apprentice - BBC1, Wednesday, March 12, 9pm

The Fixer - ITV, Monday, March 10, 9pm