John Byrne checks out the returning Veep and newcomer Silicon Valley, as well as two very different documentary series, one about Dublin's Shelbourne Hotel and the other about gifted British kids
Reviewed: Veep (Wednesday, Sky Atlantic); Silicon Valley (Wednesday, Sky Atlantic); The Shelbourne (, RTÉ One); Child Genius (Sunday, Channel 4)
Right, let's get the fun bits out of the way before I get on to the far more serious topic of pushy parents and their hideous ways. Veep (Wednesday, Sky Atlantic) returned for a third season and it's now official that I want to have Julia Louis-Dreyfuss's babies.
As someone who regards Seinfeld as a much better invention than the wheel (I know it has practical purposes but it's just not funny), I've been a fan of JLD since she first played the mocking, judgemental, self-absorbed and absolutely captivating Elaine Bennis all of 25 years ago. In Veep, she's even better. This woman is a comic genius.
As US Vice-President Selena Meyer, she's also the glue that keeps this ensemble show together. She is surrounded by an excellent cast that includes Arrested Development's Tony Hale, who plays the Veep's personal aide, and Anna Chlumsky, who plays the chief of staff. That's a role similar to the one she had in In the Loop, the Armando Iannucci film that links Veep and its British counterpart, The Thick of It.
In the season three opener, Meyer is promoting her book with public signings and, as someone with zero empathy and almost no social skills, she hates it.
But the good news finally arrives when the President announces that he won't be running again for the White House. Cue bedlam as Meyer prepares to go for the big one, there's intense jockeying for position amongst the Veep's staff, and viewers are guaranteed a season-long laugh at the awful people who wield power in this wicked world of theirs.
Power of a different kind is on display in a new comedy from HBO. Silicon Valley (Wednesday, Sky Atlantic) is the latest from Mike Judge, the guy behind animation hits Beavis and Butt-head and King of the Hill.
This time around he’s gone for real-life actors and his focus is, as the title implies, the South Bay portion of San Francisco known as Silicon Valley, where many of the world's largest technology corporations are based. This place is like a hi-tech Hollywood, and Judge’s show is definitely more like Entourage with geeks, rather than the new Big Bang Theory.
Warning: strong language is used in this clip
Cynical and smart, it ploughs through the phoney altruism of these supposedly ‘cool’ tech companies, while shining a light on the greed and egocentric power-tripping of their zillionaire CEOs. The central plank of Silicon Valley is the rather naïve Richard Hendriks (played by Thomas Middleditch).
A shy, reclusive programmer working at a large Internet company called Hooli, he develops a music app called Pied Piper, which contains a data compression algorithm potentially worth billions. Suddenly, he goes from ridiculed nobody to a Man of Importance.
I've often pointed out that pilots can be terribly misleading, but there was plenty in Silicon Valley to suggest that the laughs have only just begun on this latest effort from HBO.
I'm not a great fan of fly-on-the-wall documentaries, but having spent an inordinate amount of time over the years hanging round the place for interviews, I wasn't going to miss The Shelbourne (Thursday, RTÉ One). Now in much better shape after a major makeover, this is a timely venture, although I doubt if too many viewers could afford the eye-popping nightly rates. Maybe that's the thinking behind the series: ordinary folk will never stay here, so let's have them experience it by proxy.
Like any good hotel, The Shelbourne is run with military precision, and its staff - particularly the head chef - appear to really enjoy their jobs, which is essential for any business dealing with the public. Those smiles need to be genuine; that enthusiasm has to be authentic.
There was a revealing part about the level of guests there, ranging from the obvious American tourists, to the even more obvious likes of New York-based Irish actor Gabriel Byrne, who gets a mention.
For example, Irish-American dance man Michael Flatley and his missus were due to arrive and it was decided that the gift left in their room wasn't up to their status. Within a few minutes a bottle of champagne and a welcoming card (with a hand-written greeting) were rustled up and loking like they were always there waiting the Flatleys to arrive.
The attention to detail in the hotel was stunning and a great credit to the staff, while head doorman Declan O’Brien caught the eye and really ought to have his own TV show.
"It’s not exactly the Serengeti but there was a guy the other evening who tried to take a swan into the bar," he explained while looking deadpan to the camera. "I had to stop him. He stuck a Michael Kors handbag on the swan, but I knew it was a swan."
We'll be back for more.
Far less appealing was another documentary series, Child Genius (Sunday, Channel 4). It follows children taking part in British Mensa’s Child Genius of the Year competition, and is back for a second run. Over the course of an hour it effortlessly drains every last vestige of hope you may have had left for the future of humanity.
Like Competitive Dad in The Fast Show only much, much worse and devoid of any humour or sense of irony, many of the appalling parents interviewed offered jaw-dropping sound bites about their highly pressurised offspring.
One mother spoke about using 'conversational hypnosis' to help encourage her child to greatness. Another mother, who's also her son's manager, referred to 'Curtis's brand'. Curtis is nine. A devestated eight-year-old, on the verge of tears after disappointing his clearly annoyed parents with his performance in the competition, was told, to camera: 'Maybe you're not as good as we thought.'
Imagine anyone saying that, to their own child, and in front of a TV camera crew? Give me Honey Boo Boo any time.
John Byrne
