THOUGH I've always liked the fact I share a birthday with Bob Woodward, I cannot claim that the Watergate-busting journalist influenced my choice of career. I was more inspired by Charles Shaar Murray of the New Musical Express dropping LSD with the
Rolling Stones, by Clive James' celebration of "schlock from the glop-hopper" in his Observer telly review, by The Scotsman's great football reporter John Rafferty – and by Jimmy Olsen, excitable, bow-tied cub reporter on Clark Kent's Daily Planet in the Superman comics.
Watching Taking The Flak, however, another significant byline sprang to mind, that of Ross Benson. Just the name, accompanied by a matinee-idol photo, implied this mid-market "war corr" led a debonair life even while dodging mortar shells. When he died, the obituaries seemed to confirm it. Under fire from Russian helicopter gunships as he huddled for shelter with the mujahideen in Afghanistan, he turned to his photographer and sighed: "On the whole, you know, I'd rather be in Annabel's." In another hellhole, Exocet-like cunning enabled him to locate the only bathroom in the meeja-designated flophouse and, before the smelly rival hacks could stop him, he'd used up all the hot water.
I thought of Benson during the first episode of the far-from-schlocky Taking The Flak when Martin Jarvis' David Bradburn pulled rank to nab a hotel room with its own tub because he "sweats a lot". Turns out, though, that Bradburn may owe more to John Simpson, this new satire having been co-written by his former partner, Tira Shubart.
The setting is the fictitious central African republic of Karibu, "another front in the new Cold War", according to the local BBC stringer. This was Harry Chambers, a man who thought his moment had arrived. "It wouldn't take much to make a difference here," he said in his piece-to-camera, "a visit by Angelina Jolie or Fern Cotton… perhaps even a simple one-off drama by Richard Curtis". Chambers was dreaming of "my very own live two-way with Huw on 'the Ten'". But then chief foreign editor Bradburn pitched up to pinch his story. He'd just been "bigfooted". Now he'd be lucky to get "20 seconds on BBC World".
Hopefully, all you non-journo types got that "the Ten" is the 10pm news, as well as the other broadcasting references. If not, there's other stuff to enjoy, not least all the sex, or attempted sex, that happens on these jollys – sorry, vital and dangerous news assignments. Only the frumpy World Service reporter appears not to be getting any. Of her frantically fornicating colleagues she wailed: "What are they doing, collecting Affair Miles?"
If anything, there's even more of a frenzy surrounding receipts. With perfect timing, here's a BBC show with a running gag about Corporation employees trying to expense absolutely everything, including the most primitive of taxis and the most humble of beaded souvenirs. The most adorned character is Samantha Cunningham-Fleming, a posh ninny involved in aid work. In the opener's best line she was told: "If you don't tell me where my reporters are I'll break every bead in your body."
This was Jane Thomason, the producer, played by Doon Mackichan. Since Shubart was once a producer, we're obviously going to wonder how much of her job was taken up with organising receipts and baths. Thomason's key task is ensuring the buffoonish Bradburn looks good and, when required, adopts his serious face. We must assume that Simpson has rather less need of fluffers when he reports from the world's trouble-spots; either way he's given Taking The Flak his blessing, so he must have a sense of humour.
A highly promising beginning, then, with fine performances from Jarvis, Mackichan and Lucy Chalkley as Cunningham-Fleming, who's helping child soldiers: "When they qualify they'll run market-stalls, just like in Camden yah."
The week's other new comedy, Getting On, had no shortage of laughs, but they were of the kind that seconds later made you sad and angry. Before entering the gags game, Jo Brand worked as a psychiatric nurse. Hospitals have changed a lot since then, and she thought there might be something in this. The show is set on a geriatric ward where, never mind the patients, the staff are virtually paralysed by political correctness, form-filling and relentless jargon. Of course, they may well have been incompetent to start with.
When Brand's nurse couldn't understand a patient, she had to be told by the doctor that 80 different languages were spoken in Pakistan and Pakistani wasn't one of them. But she was soon questioning the doc's judgment regarding another elderly woman: "Do we tranquilise someone because they're talking a bit loud?"
A discarded copy of Take A Break magazine raised an assisted-suicide alert and a stray poo was deemed worthy of the phrase "critical instant". The nurse filled out a form about it, but nowhere near thoroughly enough. Then someone removed the deposit from the ward without telling the doc, who promptly went ballistic. Her research on behalf of the Bristol Stool Chart was of paramount importance.
Maybe Brand spotted the comedy potential of the Bristol Stool Chart the moment she heard about it. Perhaps, too, she'd always wanted to play a character known only as Kim, then have the surname revealed in the end-titles (Wilde). But she got terrific help in the opener from Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine, her writers and co-stars, and I should also praise the director, Peter Capaldi, who turned everyone a funny shade of green and moved his camera around queasily. We were at the mercy of the NHS, no doubt about it. And the repeated jokes about parking issues were the clincher.
Bangladesh rode out the global economic meltdown thanks to a banking system run entirely for the customers with no executive bonuses. Could Grameen micro-banking work here? Sally Magnusson's intriguing documentary Scotland's Brand New Bank suggested disadvantaged areas like Glasgow's Sighthill may be too in thrall to the benefits culture – but one woman with dreams of opening her own cafe wanted to give it a go. "I brown my mince quite poshly compared to other folk," she declared with pride.
