Munster Express Online

People’s attitude to gay, lesbian and transgender and bisexuals is a strong topic at the moment with Eastenders featuring an inter-racial gay storyline where the Muslim parents are the obdurate and unforgiving ones. But it was the RTE1 programme Growing Up Gay, that showed us how little tolerance there can be in Ireland. It was sad to see how a Waterford secondary school fudged the issue of homophobic bullying for articulate teenager Natasha, who was proud to be a lesbian and just wanted to be able to openly proclaim her choices. My heart went out to her openness and honesty of feelings. Her concerned but very supportive parents were a lesson in family values and family love. Full marks to Nuala Jackson at the Manor School who enabled Natasha to complete her exam studies in a tolerant environment.

Glee

Whether you watch it on TV3 or C4, Glee is catching the ratings and is stepping outside of youth programming. Rating charts that still see it as youth and children but it is clearly much more than that as the recent Madonna episode showed. It is also winning Golden Globes and Peabody Awards in America. This is the new FAME with CD releases and downloads increasing. While it doesn’t have the slick packaging of High School Musical, it has lots of human interest and a very clever take on modern television delivery. Covering hits and well known artists catalogues is clever and Madonna knew her audience by allowing Glee rights to her total catalogue. It had at least four Irish chart entries as well as iTunes hits including Gives You Hell, Walking on Sunshine and the massive Don’t Stop Believing.

Choreography is big in Glee with at least five big production numbers per episode and can take up to ten days to produce one programme at a cost of at least $3,000,000 an episode.

Male star Matthew Morrison was cast after a three month search on Broadway where he starred in Hairspray and The Light in the Piazza. Jane Lynch as the head coach of the cheerleaders, Sue Sylvester, is the hated arch-nemesis of Glee Club.

My favourite is Jayma Mays as Emma who fancies Will Schuester (Morrisson) even though he has a wife of five years, Terri.

Africa Walks

Julia Bradbury can take me for a walk anytime and now she is delighting BBC4 viewers with a beautiful trek along the Garden Route in South Africa Walks. She has such an interesting easy to like personality that endeared her to many with her informative Lake District fell walks. The sights are superb with inshore whale appearances, lush vegetation and green grassy golf courses above caves that hide the secrets of the first people. Allegedly we are derived from about six hundred species of Homo sapiens that can be traced back to this South African paradise. Bradbury has a happy infectious liking for her journeys and it makes wonderful enthusiastic viewing.

Grim Daughters

It was hard work to take in the three episodes of the BBC1 drama Five Daughters, with its sad grim story of five prostitutes hooked on a drugs dependency that put their lives at risk. Based on a true story from Ipswich in 2006, it relentlessly ground out a slow dance with death and hopelessness. The matter of face images of a policeman making emotionless statements with his face blank and his ears sticking out in the back lighting, or the slow shots of a car kerb crawling as the misfortunate girls stepped out for business.

The story managed to tell a lot about these girls and their concerned parents and friends. What shocked me was the way these girlish went out despite warnings and fears of death to sell their bodies to feed their own or partners drug habit. The inevitability was numbing.