CHRISTOPHER STEVEENS gives his review of the weekend’s television: What is the sweet love story that lies beneath every drug gang shooting in America? Be smart!










I don’t know you

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Michael Crawford: Mothers do what’s best

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Our local high school boys are found smoking in parks and benches. They arrive at night on their bikes dressed in jogging pants and hoodies.

Every once in a while, a patrol vehicle circles the teens for a couple of minutes and then they vanish. They keep their profile low, ignore dog walkers, and don’t draw attention by lurking or singing loudly.

Because the South London dealers infiltrate my neck of the forest, it must be poor. I don’t know you (BBC1) possess spectacular, flamboyant dress sense.

Roger Jean Nsengiyumva is a drunken drug baron Jamil and walks the Woolwich estates dressed in white trousers, white jackets, and large quilted white coats that fall to his ankles.

Roger Jean Nsengiyumva (left) plays cocky drug baron Jamil alongside Samuel Adewunmi (right) as Hero in You Don't Know Me

Roger Jean Nsengiyumva (left) plays cocky drug baron Jamil alongside Samuel Adewunmi (right) as Hero in You Don’t Know Me

It looks exactly like Naomi Campbell wearing it to Antarctica with Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

Maybe that is what the dope-peddlers in metropolitan areas are wearing these days. Or maybe Tom Edge, the British writer who adapted Imran Mahmood’s novel for the Beeb, has copied the classic American TV drama The Wire — in which stars, including Idris Elba and Michael K. Williams, played splendidly attired drugs moguls.

A young man on trial at the murder of Jamil, a dandyish merchant, tells You Don’t Know Me a well-constructed story about a missing girl.

Samuel Adewunmi is Hero.

Hero is an executive in sales at a high-end dealership. A girl named Kyra (Sophie Wilde), he meets on the bus and invites her to dinner. He makes spaghetti carbonara that is so delicious, she agrees to move in with him.

Kyra is a mystery. Hero knows nothing about her except that she enjoys reading — and I’m not convinced about that, because the novels she chooses to display are Great Expectations and The Great Gatsby . . . The kind of books that a fourteen-year old would choose to be well-read.

Signature of the weekend 

Piers Morgan gave his last edition of Life Stories on ITV before handing it over to Kate Garraway, his guest. Kate Garraway is certain to surpass Jonathan Ross’s dull and uncharismatic video chat with Elton John. 

We don’t know much about her other than that. She has no job, no parents, no friends, no personality. Hero almost believes she’s a fake girlfriend. He’s more shocked than he ought to be when he returns from work and finds her not on the couch he left. Kyra vanished. Hero discovers her prostitute work and the episode ended with Hero walking out of his vehicle to confront Hero, who had a gun in his hand.

You Don’t Know Me so far is not convincing.

I do not believe there is a sweet love story behind every drugs gang shooting — however comforting it might be to believe that. Adewunmi, Hero is warm and gentle. I look forward to the second part of tonight to learn more about what happened to him.

Michael Crawford is the Shy West End’s top star, as profiled in this 90-minute biography Michael Crawford: Mothers do what’s best (C5), also came across as hugely likeable — if a bit of a diva, as his friend and colleague Arlene Phillips assured us he could be.

Numerous celebrities, from Bill Kenwright and Andrew Lloyd Webber to Michele Dotrice (sittingcom actor) paid tribute.

Barbra Sreisand, who appeared opposite Crawford, a 27 year-old actress in Hello, Dolly!, did not appear. However, it is possible that she still hasn’t learned Zoom.

There are many excerpts from musicals like Phantom and Barnum, and plenty of clips of the jaw-dropping scenes in Some Mothers that more than make up for her absence.

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