This week in TV: Derry Girls and This Time with Alan Partridge

Derry Girls, Season 2

Critically acclaimed Derry Girls from Lisa McGee is back on Channel 4 for a second season. The show follows a gang of four teenage girls and one boy navigating the classic challenges of adolescence (parents, boys, underage drinking) set against the backdrop of The Troubles.

It is 1994, just before the first IRA ceasefire, in Derry where we meet the gang in season 2 episode 1. They’re off on a peace-building exercise between their Catholic school and the local Protestant boys school, but the Derry girls are more interested in awkwardly flirting with the equally awkward teenage boys than bridging the sectarian divide.

At its core this comedy works without the backdrop of the Troubles. You’re reminded of the context in small cutaway scenes of heavily armed guards patrolling the city. The horror of the sectarian violence is present, but largely cast to the sidelines.

The Protestant-Catholic divide is a perfect vehicle for the comedy, but it is just a vehicle. In one memorable scene the Protestant boys and Catholic girls are asked by a well-meaning priest to suggest the things that they have in common, rather than dwell on what divides them. The exercise breaks down and suggestions include: “Catholics have more freckles,” “Protestants hate ABBA,” “Catholics get a kick out of statues,” “Protestants keep their toasters in cupboards.” It’s clever writing from McGee for a host of reasons, but best of all it is very, very funny.

Derry Girls is really a coming of age tale, looking at teenagers trying to fit in and attempting to mask their differences. Or trying to understand what it means to be cool, or if that matters at all.

The context of the Troubles is there but it feels slightly removed. The writers and performances (strong across the board) have managed to achieve good natured and heartwarming comedy despite the lingering tension in the darkest of circumstances.

Watch it on Channel 4 on Tuesday at 9.15pm. 

This Time With Alan Partridge, Ep. 3

Alan Partridge’s latest outfit – magazine show This Time – has garnered critical acclaim and some criticism since its release late February. Episode 3, funny as it was, was a little heavy handed with the jokes, making for uncomfortable viewing at times.

Thanks to the news of This Time’s co-host’s death, Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) has now bagged himself a permanent hosting gig. The comedy shines in Partridge’s awkward pieces to camera, and classic aphorisms reminiscent of Coogan’s earliest work with the character (“back of the net!”). But the star of the show is Partridge’s co-host Jennie Gresham (played by Susanna Fielding.)

Gresham is your typical day time TV host: Pretty, sleek, saccharine. But the behind the scenes interactions between Gresham and Partridge reveal her to be the more pernicious character altogether. The camera cuts to her helping Alan Partridge with his diction (“you’re too sibilant”), reaching levels of patronising that almost make you feel sympathy for the otherwise contemptuous Partridge.

The documentary segments on This Time presented by Partridge pastiche the likes of the One Show or Good Morning Britain with admirable nuance. Partridge’s bit on corporal punishment in which he presents a manual on how best to carry out physical punishment is memorable. But, the gags become tedious simply by coming in too thick and too fast. The best bits are lost on the audience because we’re given no respite.

The BBC should be praised for its self-aware self-caricature, and despite the follies of episode 3 This Time with Alan Partridge has its moments.

Watch on BBC on Monday at 9.30pm.