KATHRYN FLETT’S Crime in the Aussie Alps

HIGH COUNTRY

Saturdays, BBC1 

Rating:

Brits often think they know the so-called (by the Australians) ‘Lucky Country’, but unless they’ve actually visited they probably only ‘know’ Neighbours’ fictional Ramsay Street in Melbourne, or Home And Away’s equally fictional Summer Bay in New South Wales. However, more remote parts of the country-continent are now starting to be exploited dramatically for TV.

Set in the fictional rural town of Broken Ridge (in the comically named – by European standards – Australian ‘Alps’ in the state of Victoria), BBC1’s latest Aussie import introduces us to detective Andie Whitford (Leah Purcell), partner Helen (Sara Wiseman) and daughter Kirra, who have recently moved from the city.

Part police procedural – people are mysteriously disappearing, enter no-nonsense cop – with hints of indigenous people’s mysticism as seen in True Detective’s recent Night Country, this is an example of the burgeoning ‘Outback Noir’ genre.

Set in the fictional rural town of Broken Ridge, High Country introduces us to detective Andie Whitford (pictured), played by Leah Purcell 

Andie, who is of indigenous heritage, embarks on an emotional journey that is shaped by her having grown up not knowing her ‘mob’, while Helen and Kirra have their own problems. 

Feeling out of her depth, Andie ponders the fate of a man who has abandoned his car in the ‘mountains’: ‘Whatever personal crap he was dealing with, he made his family the victims of it. And so have I.’ ‘Well, at least you haven’t buried us in the back yard,’ says Helen. ‘Yet,’ responds Andie.

Just as Brits think they ‘know’ Australia, they think they ‘know’ Aussies, too. Occasional linguistic misunderstandings aside (different takes on what constitutes a ‘thong’, for example), we share a quirky (un-American) brand of humour. It’s why the brilliant Colin From Accounts landed so well in the UK. 

However, best we don’t take the mickey out of their ‘mountains’: Australia’s highest ‘Alp’ is Mount Bogong at 6,516ft, Europe’s highest Alp, Mont Blanc, is 15,774ft. Yet as the camera sweeps across the awesome terrain’s ‘peaks’, the ‘High Country’ misnomer is clear: it’s a wilderness-forest of daunting scale and density – ‘Tree Country’. It’s a miracle more Aussies don’t disappear, quite frankly.

Meanwhile, the vast, empty, perilous continent has enormous cultural differences to ours. Not least the fact that, exactly like America, its colonisers displaced (and effectively replaced) the indigenous population. 

UK writer Kathryn Flett (pictured) gave Aussie import High Country a four-star rating 

Although I was born in the UK, my parents were both Australian, and though Pa was a townie, Mum grew up on 80,000 acres – 125sq miles. Mum’s family owned their land for eight generations, until 20th-century divorce settlements did for it. Fittingly, really, it was after all land that had once ‘belonged’ to others, who themselves effectively ‘disappeared’.

My son is heading off for a gap year or two Down Under soon. As well as getting in touch with his own colonial ‘roots’, he’ll find out that having a handle on the Lucky Country’s crazy scale is absolutely essential, too. 

Watching the very engaging, well-written, full-of-characters-to-care-about High Country is effectively a crash-course in Antipodean Studies.

Gladiator it certainly isn’t! 

THOSE ABOUT TO DIE

Amazon Prime 

Rating:

Anthony Hopkins plays Emperor Vespasian (pictured) in Those About To Die, directed by Roland Emmerich – who  directed Independence Day

Amazon’s new swords-and-sandals epic series, directed by movie blockbuster specialist Roland (Independence Day) Emmerich, is based on the same non-fiction book (by Daniel P Mannix) that inspired Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, yet it couldn’t be more different. 

Light on subtlety, heavy on CGI, we’re in 79 AD, and ‘Rome, once the beacon of civilisation, is now a cesspit of corruption and decay’ (intones Sonorous Voiceoverous).

There are familiar faces among the cast of (apparently) thousands, with big signing Anthony Hopkins furrowing his brow and dialling in his turn as the Emperor Vespasian. 

Elsewhere, British nearly-stars JoJo Macari, Iwan Rheon, Moe Hashim and Tom Hughes fight a script apparently written by AI.

‘That man is deciding who will be sent to Rome as gladiators and who will be sent to the tin mines of Crete.’

‘What is the tin mines?’ [sic]

‘A death sentence.’

Ooh-er! Then, just two episodes in, I had a niggling sense that in 79 AD something pretty big happened, somewhere in Italy. No spoilers, though Google backed up my hunch – suffice to say it’s best if the gladiator heroes-in-waiting and their heroines avoid holidaying anywhere near Naples…

Something suspect here

Suspect on Channel 4 stars Anne-Marie Duff as psychologist Susannah (pictured)

Not having watched Suspect’s first series (Ch4), I dived in to the second, seduced by the cast. However, I managed just a couple of episodes of this frankly deranged thriller before deciding life’s too short. 

Implausibly plotted, the dark, badly written adaptation of a Danish hit picks up straight after its first series: psychologist Susannah (Anne-Marie Duff) is back to work three weeks after the death of her daughter, helping a random stranger (Dominic Cooper) who knocks on her door to… quit smoking. But is that what he really wants? 

Don’t be fooled by the (bafflingly) star-studded cast, including Tamsin Greig, Ben Miller, Eddie Marsan and Gina McKee – it’s one to avoid.

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