ONE DAY
Netflix
Fifteen years after it became the book you saw being devoured on every train and plane, and 13 years after it became a disappointingly meh movie starring Anne Hathaway, David Nicholls’s blockbusting novel One Day belatedly gets to live its best life, on the telly.
Nicholls’s strength is characters and dialogue. He honed his craft as a screenwriter (Cold Feet, among others) before turning to prose which, as a result, always feels believable. One Day’s tricksy plot device – the story of a friendship that starts at uni on graduation day, 15 July 1988, and unfolds every 15 July over the next 20 years – is memorable but creates its own constraints; a lot of the big stuff necessarily happens off-page and off-screen. However, you’ll find no plot spoilers here; it’s conceivable there are still a few people left on the planet who haven’t previously enjoyed Emma and Dexter’s relationship.
One reason the movie failed to pack the novel’s emotional punch was that shoehorning 20 years into 108 minutes meant you ended up watching CVs rather than lives. But over 14 30-minute episodes, it’s hard not to invest in Em and Dex – and root for them. Now, with room to breathe, the dialogue sparkles and crackles throughout. ‘Sniff his head!’ demands Em’s bestie, Tilly (Amber Grappy), referring to her newborn son. ‘Like the back of a watch strap,’ Em responds. Meanwhile, other supporting characters such as Dex’s partner Sylvie (Eleanor Tomlinson), Em’s boyfriend Ian (Jonny Weldon) and Dex’s dad Stephen (Tim McInnerney) all escape sketchiness and are properly 3D.
ONE DAY: A lifetime with these lovers is the perfect Valentine’s tearjerker, reviews KATHRYN FLETT
However, it’s the central performances that matter. Emma Morley wasn’t conceived as an Anglo-Indian Millennial; having graduated in 1988, she was presumably born in 1966/67, making her Gen X. But, 15 years on, Ambika Mod (This Is Going To Hurt) makes Emma her own. Maturing convincingly from spiky student idealist to adult pragmatist without losing her sense of humour, her Emma is a delightful foil/sparring partner/love interest/friend. Meanwhile, charming, handsome Dexter’s youthful love-to-loathsomeness is captured with breezy brilliance by Leo Woodall (above, with Mod), whose seductive performance as lovable rogue Jack effectively stole the second season of The White Lotus.
His ability to embody Dex’s slow-burning ascent to emotional complexity is more of a surprise; while the acting chops he shows during one heart-rending soliloquy ensures he’ll escape the inevitable burden of being this year’s global heart-throb.
If I had one criticism it’s about the characters: when was Dex ever likeable enough as a youngster for Emma to love him as much as she did? And would Emma’s comparatively dull young adulthood ever have been enough to retain Dex’s attention? But these are minor quibbles. If you’ve not seen it, you could time it so you watch the last episodes on Valentine’s Day. In which case, stock up on tissues (and wine) and prepare to fall in love with this treat of a tearjerker.
Fun… but Sue’s no Simon Reeve
SUE PERKINS: LOST IN ALASKA
Fridays, Channel 5
Should you watch Lost In Alaska expecting Sue Perkins to channel her inner Simon Reeve in the biggest and third least populous state in the USA, then here’s a no-surprise spoiler: she doesn’t. Says Sue, after bear survival training, ‘I was scared by a grown man wearing fur fabric. This doesn’t bode well for the wilderness.’
If you’re a fan of Ms Perkins’s ever-ready wit and empathy then the former Bake Off presenter’s visceral aversion to, for example, hunters shooting and fisherfolk fishing, may have you shouting, ‘I hear you!’ If not, then her heart-on-her-sleeve urban wokery may jar. Let’s face it, even an easy-going, Perkins-friendly Alaska is a long way from soggy bottoms in a sun-dappled home counties tent.
Will Sue resist embarking on her own reality TV-style emotional journey, or can she embody True Detective and summon Jodie Foster-style reserves of Alaskan pragmatism? Can her journey turn mystical – with more beers than bears? As she admits, ‘it’s not just food that’s supersized here, it’s experience’.
Not to be confused with Junior MasterChef, the Young MasterChef (BBC iPlayer) competitors are 18-25, barely younger than guest star Tom Booton was when he became head chef at The Grill at The Dorchester – 26. Finalists Famara, Sheryl and Lewis overcame nerves and the odd catastrophe, revealing they all had what it took. Picking a winner was a tough call for judges Poppy O’Toole and Big Has; all three dished up (as Famara observed) ‘passion on a plate’. Entering a struggling industry, I wish them all the best.
Still waiting for a twist…
Cush Jumbo (The Good Wife) is DS June Lenker with Peter Capaldi (The Thick Of It) as her nemesis in Criminal Record
I’m halfway through Criminal Record (Apple TV+). Cush Jumbo (The Good Wife, above) is DS June Lenker with Peter Capaldi (The Thick Of It) as her nemesis, DCI Daniel Hegarty. Both are working – in seemingly different directions – on a cold-case murder. At the time of writing I’m waiting for any kind of unpredictable plot twist. I assume actors of this calibre wouldn’t have bothered to turn up if there wasn’t one, so I’ll keep going.
