CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night’s TV: Gory bloodbath that would turn even Vlad the Impaler’s stomach
Gangs Of London
Rating: 
DNA Journey
Rating:
How mad it all is. Over on Britain’s mildest broadcaster, the Talking Pictures film channel, ‘trigger warnings’ precede forgotten black-and-white comedies to alert viewers to the dangers of watching scenes of an old-fashioned nature.
Switch across to Sky, though, and you’ll see violence so graphic that in the opening sequence it was literally eye-popping — at least for the Turkish heroin smuggler who met a messy end in an Istanbul launderette. Gangs Of London (Sky Atlantic) is the bloodiest drama ever screened. Some images of evisceration would turn the stomach of Vlad the Impaler.
Warnings are superfluous. If the title doesn’t tell you that this is not a show for delicate dispositions, the recap of the first series certainly would. It started with a blazing body, still alive, thrown screaming from a skyscraper . . . and became progressively more violent.
Sope Dirisu plays Elliot in Gangs of London
Notable moments during the next hour included a man getting impromptu brain surgery with a carving fork, a ghost dripping with gore and a central character plunging from a high balcony to explode on the pavement below.
If that appeals to you, Gangs Of London is unbeatable. The slaughter is exceptionally realistic. But compared to the brooding, emotional impact of Peaky Blinders, the BBC’s own bloodthirsty gangland epic, the characters are shallow and uninteresting.
Sope Dirisu is Elliot, a former soldier turned hitman, who kills because his beloved old dad is being held hostage by a shadowy clique of billionaire puppet-masters. Elliot has an alcohol problem. By contrast, his urbane pal Alex (Paapa Essiedu) really loves his old dad but he has a sister, too. And his weakness is cocaine, not booze. Can you see the difference?
Amid a crowd of two-dimensional thugs, Waleed Zuaiter has no difficulty stealing the show as Koba, an enforcer sent to restore order between the warring tribes. With dyed blond curls and a taste for vintage Mercedes, he looks like a fashion designer whose latest collection is leisurewear for the recently dismembered.
Joker of the night:
A superhero fan, trying to log on to a car auction in Bangers And Cash (Yesterday) to view a custom-built Batmobile, accidentally bid £25,000 . . . and won. He had to plead poverty. Holy bouncing cheques, Batman!
Zuaiter exudes a flamboyant menace that stops just short of full-blown campery. He is much needed because, without him, Gangs Of London can become a series of tedious conversations between men in camel-hair overcoats. The show is hugely popular. When the first series aired, it drew one of Sky’s biggest ever audiences. Blood is big business.Meanwhile, literature students have panic attacks when they discover that Othello kills Desdemona. Surely everyone can see the hypocrisy of this?
Crime in London a century ago was a more trivial affair. Comedian Tom Allen, on a DNA Journey (ITV) with friend Joel Dommett, was alarmed to learn that his great-grandfather Isaac was a professional villain.
Aged 17, shortly before World War I, Isaac was hauled up on a charge of stealing apples. The courts let him off with a warning, but he was back again within weeks, this time accused of forgery. Again, he was shown leniency. Did he reform? No, this hardened criminal went out and stole a saddle. Tom’s ancestor was sentenced to five years.
Tom, whose father died suddenly just before Christmas, seemed so vulnerable throughout that I was glad when Joel laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. We expect to see celebrities get teary on these shows, but Tom was clearly not faking his emotion.
It didn’t help, of course, that, far from being a criminal, a forebear of Joel’s from WWI was a brilliant inventor and philanthropist. Sometimes those DNA results should come with a trigger warning.
Source: Read Full Article
