Cherry Healey v Louis Theroux - who is the best?

Cherry Healey is an English television presenter, best known for her BBC documentaries which look at various aspects of modern life and culture. Louis Theroux has been around the block a lot longer, starring in documentaries about the weird and the wonderful since the late 1990's. I really like both presenters. Cherry is honest, genuine, insightful and brings an attractive personality to her programmes. She is more direct in her documentary approach than Louis, the later skillfully manipulating his subjects to reveal their often bizarre or shocking behaviour and beliefs to the viewer. Both try to remain as non-judgemental as possible, with perhaps Louis often taking a more philosophical or liberal stance. I like Louis' laid back and personable approach. He seems to find ways of winning the confidence of his subjects, often amid very unusual circumstances. Louis' documentaries are more extreme in their subject matter than Cherry's, and he has spent time with and interviewed the likes of porn stars and extreme religious organisations. Cherry deals with issues more mainstream and perhaps relevant to the viewer, but still manages to provide entertainment as well as insight. I don't prefer one presenter over another, I think they bring different qualites and strengths to different types and styles of documentary.

A Monk Swimming by Malachy McCourt

‘A Monk Swimming’ contains the candid memoirs of wild Irish rover of NYC, Malachy McCourt, younger bro of the must published Frank McCourt, of ‘Angela’s Ashes’ fame. Malachy focuses mostly on his formative years in the Big Apple, which include his extensive exploration of the cities bars and pubs, his fleeting foray into the world of acting, travels around the world and an unhappy and unsuccessful marriage. The main strengths of the book are its honesty, clarity of detail and that McCourt writes well, bringing to life the various colourful characters and all the highs and lows that come with the combination of copious amounts of alcohol and an erratic temperament. Indeed, at times McCourt’s constant drinking and womanizing are in danger of becoming tiresome to the reader, but McCourt has a certain charm of prose that keeps each chapter in his adventures interesting and strangely compelling. McCourt wrote ‘A Monk Swimming’ when he was approaching his seventies, no mean feat for a man who should have died years ago with a failed liver or a frazzled brain due to several years of a hard drinking lifestyle. His poor upbringing in Limerick and his Irish Catholic roots are two threads that runs through the memoirs, both of which he regards with some bitterness and distain. A better family background and a kindlier experience of Catholicism would probably have produced a much more stable and happy man and a very different type of memoir. Apparently Malachy wrote a sequel to ‘A Monk Swimming’, hopefully with less drinking and his character mellowing with age. Irreverent, entertaining and written with gusto. 7/10

BBC's version of Birdsong

An tv adaptation of Sebastian Faulks modern classic ‘Birdsong’ was always going to be a big ask but the BBC has a very good track record in period dramas, ‘Bleak House’ being the most outstanding example to date.  The tv series of Birdsong jumps back and forth, focusing on the main protagonist Stephen Wraysford at two crucial points in his life: a love affair he has in Amiens, a small town in Northern France, in 1910, and his experience of the western front six years later during the Great War. The novel does not use this non-linear unfolding of events but it works well on tv, allowing the viewer to understand the relationship between past and present in Stephen’s life. The acting all round is very impressive, particulary Eddie Redmayne and Clemence Poesy who manage to capture the passion and fragility of Stephen and Isabelle’s affair with conviction and tenderness. It might be a period drama but the director chooses to show the sex scenes in a fairly juicy way, so don’t be expecting Jane Austen’s subtle undertones of sexuality. A lot of the budget must have been invested in the costumes and sets as they do very well to contrast the opulence and comfort of Amiens 1910 with the grim horror of the trenches 1916. The music plays its part well, both seductive and poignant when required, and helps to flesh out the emotions of the characters or scene at a given point in time. BBC's Birdsong does not reach the greatness of Faulk’s novel but there are many things to like about this tv adaptation and I should think that most fans of the book will not be disappointed. 8/10