Dead Set: Part 5

 "This makes you the winner of this year's Big Brother".

That quote up there... yeah, it's an empty prize, but aren't they always, zombie apocalypse or no? Blimey, this is far more Hobbesian than I remembered. Utterly, splendidly bleak.

The dark catalyst of a character is, of course, Patrick- a toxic boss and an utter wanker, a liability in normal ligfe but absolutely impossible in a situation of base under siege. This isn't a message of conformity or that individualism is bad; the group are diverse, different and act as a democracy. But the Patricks of this world have no time for the collective. Here, his pointless escape will open the gate and risk everyone. He has to die, as decent people must realise. It's horrible.

Worse, we have Joplin- weak, pretentious, not as clever as he thinks, the perfect pause. And so things degenerate into utter hopelessness. Kelly's heroic last stand consists of just an immediate short scream. We end with a landscape of only zombies and cameras. Metaphor much?

Wow. Zombie apocalypse? Thatcher's children stand no chance. Simply superb.

Dead Set: Part 4

 "I mean, don't forget, this place used to be like a church to them."

Things are hotting up. The Big Brother house is under siege by zombies who are quite blatantly lampshaded as cheerfully blatant metaphors for consumers of celebrity culture. This cheerfully winks at us, knowing that it isn't very clever. But so much else here is.

At last Pippa and Patrick get out to the others, and Patrick- surely based on real producers Charlie Brooker may have encountered: he says, after killing zombie Davina, "I hired her. I can do what I want." And his effect on the group is immrediate, profoundly obnoxious, alienating and clearly making no friends, which may not be very clever in the long run. Yet he's ruthless, makes the hard choices, and you can see how he got where he is.

Meanwhile, we have Riq, the decent romantic, and Alex, the hardened cynic who, in the end, sacrifices her life for romance hoped for vicariously. The characterisation, darkly witty humour and encroaching sense of threat are approaching perfection.

Dead Set: Part 3

 "I'm only on the front cover of Heat!"

These episodes following the first are only twenty minutes long and the whole thing isn't obviously structured in an episodic way. Was it originally planned as a TV film? Never mind, this is good stuff, mixing typical zombie tropes with good characterisation and social commentary.

Thus we get to see the scary, pointless, power tripping behaviour of the police once society has collapsed, interesting to see on the day when a scathing report into the Met is published. Concepts like looting are now meaningless. We hear, via the radio, that France is swiftly following the UK to zombie apocalypse.

Yet there's still time for Joplin to show himself a perv and a coward as well as a pseud. For Patrick to poo his pants, yet indeed. And for the pathetic laddishness of Marky to be contrasted with the loving joy of Riq discovering Kelly is alive. Humanity is often pathetiuc, yet there is hope. This is very, very good and, oddly, far less bleak than Brooker's later Black Mirror despite the premise.

Dead Set: Part 2

 "Does this mean we're not on telly any more?"

After all the Big Brother fun of the first episode we were always going to slip into more of a standard zombie story. Hence the characterisatyion as everyone adjusts to the fact civilisation is over... and we have the tension of knowing that Angel will die and become a zombie.

We get more of Riq, and are introduced to the magnificently blunt Alex. I love her. Meanwhile, the gloriously rude Patrick and the delightfully stupoid Pippa keep up the comic relief. They're both doomed. The fun bit is working out who else is, Angel aside. Marky? His sense of guilt for pretty much killing Angel is palpable.

It's the 2000s: zombies were in the zeitgeist. But this is Charlie Brooker and, much though the metaphor of poular telly consumerisn has to break down a bit from now on, this is still brilliant.

Dead Set: Part 1

 "Please do not swear!"

Long before Black Mirror, in 2008, when Charlie Brooker was still giving us his excellent Screen Wipe on BBC4, we had this, what is at first glance a high concept bit of fun about the Big Brother house during the zombie apocapypse. But it's so much more than that and, indeed, so much more fun than that.

I first watched this as it aired. Watching it today reveals starkly how long ago 2008 feels- the "edgy" vibe, the toxic workplaces and bad bosses, the pre-#MeToo mores, Heat magazine, the phones, trashy pop culture on mass market telly as opposed to the online ghettos to which it is now rightly consigned. Reality TV is well made, and there's an art to it, but in the same way that there's an art to Sun journalists managing to present the news in words of one syllable. It's genuine talent, wasted.

And the zombies are the most bleeding obvious of metaphors. They first attack the screaming crowd after a Big Brother eviction. Are the ensuing ravenous zombie hordes really much different from what they replaced? There's a glorious shot of a dead eyed zombie watching the feed from the Big Brother house. It says it all.

The script is wonderful. Charlie Brooker gives us a fun and real-seeming set of housemates and, in Jaime Winstone's Kelly, a star we can identify with: a runner, probably an unpaid, exploited intern, The satire of the TV industry and its working is splendid too, from a writer who knows his stuff. And, of course, zombie Davina McCall. Need I say more?

First class stuff.

Babs

"Queer as a nine bob note!"

I've always been fond of old British comedy, from Carry On to Round the Horne to Beyond the Fringe to Monty Python, and a biopic of Barbara Windsor of exactly the kind that used to be on BBC4 is very much my thing, especially with Tony Jordan writing, and this doesn't disappoint. Anyway, I've always liked Babs, dodgy opinions about the Kray twins (who were scum) notwithstanding.

It's a cleverly written teleplay, which feels at times almost to be written for theatre in its use of space as figures from the past (mainly her Dad) visit Barbara in an empty auditorium. But we start in 1993, with Babs at a low, pre-EastEnders ebb in her career, and the whole thing is a structured examination of Babs' life, loves and daddy issues. Samantha Spiro and Jaime Winstone are both superb, and we even get a few appearances from the lady herself. Plus we get Harry from The Black Adder as a divorce judge, so all's good.

The personal stuff is beautifully written, and both parents come across as very human. The script does a nice little balancing act in not shying away from Mr Deeks' habit of sodding off when things get tough or from the fact that there was at least a degree of spousal abuse. It's not hard to see her serial relationships as a search for the father figure of her early childhood.

But I particularly loved the parts with Zoe Wanamaker as the eccentric genius Joan Littlewood, whom I respect hugely, as Babs gets to grips with her eccentric ways of working. The Kenneth Williams scene with the ever-wonderful Robin Sebastian is also a joy. As, indeed, is the whole thing. Not to be missed.

Kidulthood (2006)

"You can put it in my arse as well. It hurts, but I don't mind."

This is an extraordinary debut from Noel Clarke as a writer and, which is sort of the point, a bloody good film. Doesn't half make me feel old, though, and I'm only 38.

Are teenagers really like this in London, with the bullying, the drugs, the incomprehensible slang, the relentlessly hard gang mentality, and the horrifying level of bullying? I'm 38, and I feel old. I don't live in London, fortunately, but I'm still terrified about the bullying my daughter could experience when she starts school.

It's a brilliantly directed film, with some wonderful touches, and a superb script is brought to life by a largely unknown cast, although Cornell John and Alison Newman are both familiar faces from Eastenders. It deals with bullying, gang culture, teen suicide, teen pregnancy, and, in a subtle way, racism, although this seems to be one issue which is actually shown to be less of a problem than one might expect. Most depressing, perhaps, is the universally subservient attitude the girls have towards the boys: it's as if feminism never happened.

All this builds towards a tragic and dramatic ending which leaves us wanting more. This isn't necessarily the sort of film is usually watch, and I only watched it because it was written by Noel Clarke of off of that Doctor Who, but I enjoyed it immensely.