Strictly’s Hamza is on to another winner with his wildlife ‘journey’: ROLAND WHITE reviews the weekend’s TV
Hamza: Strictly Birds Of Prey
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The Woman In The Wall
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Here’s how any documentary that features spectacular geography will begin. All of them. Pretty much without exception.
First, a magnificent aerial shot of mountains, forests, rivers, or coastline. Coastline is particularly popular. Then comes the voiceover: ‘Today, I will be taking you on a journey.’
If you were given a pound every time somebody on television said they were off on a journey, well, you’d be £2 richer after Hamza: Strictly Birds Of Prey (BBC1). Which is a pity because otherwise this was a treat.
Hamza Yassin is probably best known now for winning last year’s Strictly Come Dancing, but he’s really a wildlife cameraman. He spends his days filming birds of prey, and permanently looks as if he can’t believe his luck.
His enthusiasm is infectious, even though it can’t be easy to stay cheerful when you’re filming the forbidding concrete facade of Ealing hospital in West London.
Hamza Yassin (pictured) is probably best known now for winning last year’s Strictly Come Dancing, but he’s really a wildlife cameraman
This building does such a good impression of a cliff face that peregrine falcons are nesting there. Hamza filmed the male bird, passing a sorry-looking parakeet to his mate in mid-air to take back to the nest for lunch. Please do not try this at home.
Birds of prey always look so distinguished. There was a white-tailed sea eagle, sitting bolt upright in a nest, who looked as haughty as the Dowager Countess of Grantham. You can tell the difference because the eagle has less colourful plumage. And Lady Violet probably isn’t as ruthless when hunting barnacle geese.
Hamza watched in genuine delight as a conservationist climbed up to a golden eagle’s nest and lowered two chicks to the ground — in a Wilson tennis bag — so they could be ringed and measured. The chicks looked rather put out. They had clearly been expecting lunch.
It almost seems unnecessary to mention the high quality of the photography. Nature always seems to put on a show for the cameras. On the Somerset Levels, there was an unusual shot of dragonflies — loads of them — sun-bathing in the reeds.
A lot of Hamza’s favourite birds have been threatened with extinction at some point, but populations are now recovering
They were getting ready for the rigours of a day that probably wouldn’t end well. Once they were airborne, many of them were snapped up for breakfast by hungry hobbies.
A lot of Hamza’s favourite birds have been threatened with extinction at some point, but populations are now recovering. Which is obviously good news. Unless, of course, you happen to be a dragonfly or a barnacle goose.
The Woman In The Wall (BBC1) ended as mysteriously as it began. Dead-eyed Lorna (Ruth Wilson) was reunited in the final scene with the daughter she’s been seeking over six episodes.
But the people responsible for selling children from the orphanage, hatchet-faced Sister Eileen and slippery James Coyle, seem to have escaped justice. It’s true that laid-back Sergeant Aidan Massey suddenly turned into Inspector Taggart and confronted Sister Eileen: ‘I’m coming after you with everything I have. The way I see it, you will be held to account for this.’
Dead-eyed Lorna (Ruth Wilson) was reunited in the final scene with the daughter she’s been seeking over six episodes
The Woman In The Wall was dark and gothic and sometimes impenetrable, but writer Joe Murtagh made the right decision in leaving the goodies frustrated and the baddies free but very, very nervous
The people responsible for selling children from the orphanage, hatchet-faced Sister Eileen and slippery James Coyle, seem to have escaped justice
But the nun didn’t seem that bothered. We can only guess her fate, or wait for a sequel.
The Woman In The Wall was dark and gothic and sometimes impenetrable, but writer Joe Murtagh made the right decision in leaving the goodies frustrated and the baddies free but very, very nervous. After all, isn’t that sometimes how real life works?
Kilthy secret
Robert Rinder looked uncharacteristically terrified in Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond The Lobby (BBC2) after being asked by a grand Ayrshire establishment to put on a kilt and read a Burns poem to a wedding party. He was fitted out properly by a kilt expert, but one mystery remained — did he take her advice to wear nothing underneath?
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