The Tourist, BBC 1 and iPlayer
You have to suspend disbelief sometimes for drama to work.
Writers and producers will take a bit of licence to place characters in particular situations.
However, there are limits and The Tourist is right on it.
That’s not to take from the performance of our own Jamie Dornan, who has been convincing as the man who can’t remember who he is after waking up from a car accident.
It opens with Dornan (we later learn his name is Elliot Stanley) driving a beat-up car across the Australian outback when he is pursued for unknown reasons by an articulated lorry. The chase goes off road but eventually he gives the lorry the slip in a copse of trees.
He drives off laughing nervously but his joy is short-lived and he is smashed by the truck from the side.
It’s wide open, sandy outback but Stanley missed a 40-foot truck coming at him.
But let’s go with it. It’s cold January outside and there’s some pace and tension about this thing.
Elliott has no clue who he is when he wakes up in a remote hospital bed. No wallet, no documents, no luggage and no phone.
He does have a very striking accent which places him as being from a very small part of the world, but stop it now you’re just being awkward.
The only clue, retrieved from the pocket of the jeans he was wearing when he was brought to hospital, is a piece of paper detailing a meeting he is due to attend the following day.
Bashed up but resilient, Elliot heads off to a nearby single-street town where he sits down at Table 5 as the only customer in the allotted diner at the correct time.
A waitress, whom we later learn was previously in a relationship with him, spills a drink on him and walks him across the road to show him to the toilets in the local bar (the diner’s are out of order), when a bomb goes off at Table 5.
And off we go on a voyage of discovery with the six-part Tourist to learn incremental details about the life and complications of Elliot Stanley.
We got the first two episodes on BBC 1 last weekend, with third instalment on tomorrow, but all episodes are available to view on the iPlayer.
As with almost all modern television drama, it’s competently acted, written and produced and will no doubt keep you entertained, if you suspend your faculties.
******
Inside Dubai: Playground of the Rich, BBC 2, Monday
You need a good laugh in early January, and they come aplenty in this look at the world of the super-rich in the Dubai sun.
It’s difficult to know which is more ridiculous. Dubai resident Abu Sabah spending £6.5 million on a car number plate or standing in front of his Rolls Royce with its single-digit plate ‘5’ to boast to the television cameras.
It seems car registration plate number ‘1’ cannot be bought as it belongs to the ruler of Dubai, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
Sabah wasn’t shy. He also had his name, in huge lettering, above the front door of his house.
Dubai seems to be that kind of place.
Obviously, there are many others who have made the Middle-Eastern emirate their home without the need to shout about their wealth, just as the Housewives of Dallas aren’t typical of the average Texan.
This genre of ‘behind the keyhole’ television has been standard fare for decades. Perhaps the real question is why it’s the BBC and not Channel 5 making it.
