TV review

Published Tuesday 5 August 2008 at 10:25

The BBC rather cheekily borrowed Nino Rota’s score from The Godfather to advertise House of Saddam, a four part serial about the former Iraqi dictator which shares several dramatic similarities with the Oscar-winning Mafia classic.

Common themes include family loyalty, family disloyalty, power struggles, political intrigue, revenge, adultery, betrayal, megalomania and psychopathic violence, all conducted by swarthy men in suits who do a lot of smoking. There, however, all similarity ends since the sheer scale of Saddam’s homicidal tyranny makes Don Corleone look like Horrid Henry.

Saddam was responsible for the deaths of millions, and House Of Saddam goes out of its way to show quite a few of them in as much blood spattered detail as possible. It makes for very difficult viewing, made all the more horrific by Saddam’s coldly manipulative and psychologically inspired use of murder as a weapon of political terror. No sooner does Saddam seize power than he is inviting one half of the Iraqi parliament to execute the other, making them automatically complicit in the coup. A town that harbours a cell of assassins is bulldozed out of existence and its occupants murdered or displaced. Most chilling of all, Saddam kills his closest friend for no other reason than to signal his ruthlessness to anyone still uncommitted or uncowed.

House Of Saddam is not for anyone with a weak stomach or a sensitive disposition, but it is a welcome piece of bold, breathtaking drama in the arid desert of the summer schedules. I had a little difficulty at first with the protagonists speaking accented English, never a satisfying convention, but the strength of the performances quickly dispelled any misgivings. Igal Naor delivers a tour de force as Saddam, powerfully conveying the dictator’s irresistible combination of charisma and calculated cruelty.

It is also refreshing to watch a TV drama that resists the lure of star names, employing a cast of actors totally unfamiliar - to me, at least. House Of Saddam may be hard to watch, but its strangely reassuring to know that Paul Nicholls or Pauline Quirke aren’t going to be putting in appearances anytime soon.

On the theme of hard to watch television, I feel compelled to mention the sitcom Lab Rats. The show is so desperate to amuse, and the cast so patently committed to its cause, that I feel almost guilty for sitting stone faced throughout it.

Father Ted could indulge in moments of surrealism because the series was driven by its own internal logic. Lab Rats, on the other hand, is just silly and has no logic whatsoever. The journey to this week’s comedy climax - girl trapped in giant bee costume - was so contrived as to be agonising.

The Kevin Bishop Show fires off sketches with such machine gun rapidity that it barely allows the viewer time to register a reaction. The cumulative effect is one of punch drunk amusement, tempered by no little annoyance.

There is a marked lack of quality control in the script, with most of the sketches puerile or pathetic. But I was won over by the sheer volume of gags, and the remorselessly cheery energy with which they are performed. Normally I am far too sophisticated to laugh at a TV detective pastiche called Wanking the Dead, but laugh I did.

House of Saddam, BBC2, Wednesday, July 30, 9pm

Lab Rats, BBC2, Thursday, July 31, 9.30pm

The Kevin Bishop Show, C4, Friday, August 1, 10pm