TV REVIEW: White Teeth Channel 4, Tuesday Ask Anna RTÉ1, Thursday NYPD Green RTÉ1, Thursday.
Watching Channel 4's adaptation of White Teeth, the first thing that hits you is the cast. If you have read the novel, you will have been unnerved. These are characters plucked from your imagination.
For many readers, the actor Om Puri will have already been mentally filed under Samad Iqbal. He had already shone as a culturally indignant Pakistani in East Is East, so it was never necessary to hold an open audition to fill this role of the culturally indignant Indian waiter. Phil Davies, meanwhile, scrubs down wonderfully as shambling, downtrodden Archie Jones; a man, as Samad puts it, who has "picked the wrong life from the cloakroom of existence". And Sarah Ozeke - in her first professional role - is exquisite as Clara, whose toothless smile charms Archie.
Zadie Smith's tale of two families entwined by confused ethnicity, religious zeal, buried secrets and a genetically modified mouse posed certain structural difficulties, but did not hide its filmic qualities. Simon Burke's adaptation makes the necessary sacrifices for adaptation. It toys with the plot - most notably in its treatment of Archie and Samad's crucial war experience. Where in the novel it is a tantalising sub-plot sewn into the fabric of the story, here it is given a quick once over during a wedding speech.
It also neutered the comedy of Archie's suicide attempt. This was the opening sequence in which Smith's talent announces itself with flourish. Here it is dumped in the need to sew together a story that insists on nipping back and forth across time.
There are advantages. The novel was prone to rambling, to clumsy philosophising, to brief but unnecessary detours. The drama bypasses much of this, trimming to the core of both story and characters. And yet, there is something unfulfilling about it. The feeling that when we have scratched below the extravagantly realised wardrobe and overt kitsch, we'll discover that drama has been subverted by cartoon. It is expertly realised at times, but is maybe a little too distracted by style and less interested in the soul of the book. It is tightly structured, but there is little pause for breath. The plot moves swiftly, and when it needs a rest the soundtrack takes the baton.
Somewhere out there, Marc Bolan's estate has just grown a few more acres. It even looks too familiar. The 1970s - that most instantly, absurdly visual of decades - has had filmmakers hacking away at its foliage for a couple of years now. East Is East did it most successfully - as it did the grinding together of English and Asian cultures - and triggered a clatter of sitcoms, cheap films and stylised adverts. East Is East was advertised during a break in White Teeth, a synergy of the "If You Liked That, You'll Love This . . ." principle.
White Teeth was an adaptation waiting to be written. It always felt as if it was written with an awareness of its visual possibilities instinctive to those born in the late 20th century. And yet, while entertaining on its own merits, the sparkle does not squeeze through the end credits. As a novel, White Teeth was an imperfect diamond. The television dramatisation has cut away at it, but may have cut too far.
Ask Anna is an agony aunt programme in which people ask Anna Nolan a question about their lives and she - with the aid of only a well-briefed research team - tries to solve it for them. The one question she doesn't answer is how those at home can obtain the jobs of those who appear on her programme. When the recession really hits, these people will be the first hunched against the dole wall.
This week, she introduced us to a "Life Coach". Her name was Pemo Theodore, and she was Australian.
This makes a certain amount of sense given that Australians are always keen to point out that they figured out the good life long before anybody else. There was no job description given for being a Life Coach, although she did stress that it is important to celebrate "the wonderfulness of you". You can wait until you've finished your breakfast before you do that. Next came a Suzie Coen, "style guru and fast-talking shopper", and finally Morag Prunty, a "top-selling novelist and Girlie-Girl".
Being a "Girlie-Girl", it would appear, means living life as if it's a continuous pyjama-party. Feather boas and salsa music feature strongly. "Girlie-Girl" is also a code word for men to switch over to another channel.
This week's subject, Carol O'Connor, was of an increasingly prevalent species too. A person who recognises a widening fracture in her psychological make-up and decides that the only solution is to reveal it on national television. She hadn't had a date in two years and was afraid of rejection.
Anna and her crack squad of girlie-girls eventually brought her solace, even if at times the approach was similar to those dads who teach their sons to swim by puncturing their armbands and throwing them into a swimming pool. At one point she was sent down to cruise the floor of a pub and target men for a date. "Hi," she would yell above the crowd and jet-engine music. "Hi," the man would shout back.
This seemed to be going well. "Would you like to go on a date with me? Next Thursday night?" she would scream back. The men could not have looked more bewildered if she had opened her mouth and belched the national anthem while removing her bra with her tongue. Have a woman ask an Irish man on a date, and he looks around for a hidden camera. In this case, of course, his instinct would have been perfectly correct.
Anna Nolan handles the show with such nonchalance that there are times she forgets to bring her charisma along. Nolan was one of the original batch of Big Brother contestants. Of all this century's pseudo-jobs, being a reality TV star is one of the more common. However, presenting a programme on television, as she is discovering, makes a few more demands on one's personality than taking a shower on television.
The sharpest thing about NYPD Green is its title. It is not so much a title as a high-concept pitch. Given the history of the Irish in the New York Police Department, it would be a good idea to trace the history of these guys while examining the current batch.
That's not the idea that actually appears on screen, just the better one that the title suggests. Instead, this is pretty much a standard cop fly-on-the-street show, the kind of thing Sky One built its ratings on, and which you find filling gaps in the late-night schedules when Jerry Springer needs a toilet break. It is all this, only with a shamrock tattooed on its shoulder.
The "Green" of the title turns out to be but a light spray, a hue added to an idea that would never otherwise have escaped the notepad. There is an Irish-born cop who's been working with the DEA for 18 years. Another one who thanks God that he's a Catholic. Another drugs cop is called Danny Murphy. There is no context, no history. No sense of how the Irish built the NYPD, and little of how their background truly affects their work. Just a couple of anecdotes, and then back on to the streets.
By the first ad break on Tuesday night, the tattoo was already blue and fading. The action veers between procedural and routine. Danny, for instance, spends his days chasing down marijuana smokers on the streets of Brooklyn. Marijuana smokers display the reactions of a tortoise in December, so pretty quickly Danny's people carrier is laden down with disgruntled spliff smokers. Justice triumphs. Drama whimpers away. There was one scuffle, but the action here belonged to his partner Vinny Currulli. To be born with a name like that means being born to be a cop. Currulli, an Italian, spent as much time on screen as any of the Irish. Perhaps the title is incomplete and should be NYPD Green, White and Red.
There are moments when it hints at what it could be. When the Irish first poured into New York, one cop told us, nobody wanted them. They did the jobs nobody else would do. They were, he said, "kind oflike the Mexicans are today".
It touched on a subject that may ultimately evade the programme. In modern New York, the Irish still hold sway among the older officers, but the Latinos are coming to dominate the younger ranks. An Irish cop explained it thus to writer Tom Wolfe last year: "We still recruit Irish cops, but half of them are from the suburbs. These days, if you want a real old-fashioned Irish cop, you hire a Puerto Rican."
Obviously, I would never say any of this to these guys' faces. They are big, each and every one. Walrus necks and shoulders like sofas. They wear bullet-proof vests, and they carry guns. Sometimes, when the cameras aren't around, they're forced to draw them. They retire after 20 years and die well before office workers. They are fully qualified Mannish Men.
tvreview@irish-times.ie