Is there a helpline for people disturbed out of doing everyday activities by Luther-induced nightmares? I only ask because I found myself alone on the top deck of the 43 bus last week and instead of being grateful for that rare moment of feeling like a public transport VIP, I wondered how likely it might be that a serial killer was waiting underneath the back seat, ready to slither down the aisle and do me in.
I’ve had more “are you watching it?” conversations about Luther’s return than I have since Bodyguard was on. It continues to amaze me that a show can be so duff in so many ways – fundamentally nonsensical, a plot entirely reliant on Luther having convenient sudden feelings about things and that grotesque, dare-you-to-flinch violence – and yet it doesn’t matter one bit, because it’s so entertaining that you barely have time to catch a breath.
There was one crucial element that kept it all together on that wobbly ledge, though, and that was Ruth Wilson’s return as Alice Morgan. When she knocked on Luther’s door with a “wotcha”, I practically punched the air. Her canal “demise” proved that the show was weaker without her, even with the charms of Idris Elba turned up to maximum: it felt slow and mean, and viewers were right to be put out that her almost-psychopath was dispatched of with such little fanfare. (I was half expecting a convoluted, Sherlock-style resolution to how she had drowned and how we had seen the body, but it was a simple transaction, a “let’s forget that happened” moment, after all.) I’m all for Idris and his lovely coat, and his convenient sudden feelings about things, but without Alice, Luther just wasn’t the same.
It is hard to find moments of humour in a crime series where the murders are so gruesome and so punitive – the top deck of the bus joins underneath the bed as places Luther has ruined – but without Alice bringing her cartoonish, peacocking villainy, it would have been too much to bear.
The gloom of Luther’s conscience needed a gleefully reckless counterpart; the London of this show is dark and brutal and awful, but Alice revelled in its dastardliness. She made this fifth series.
And then she goes and does something shocking, even by the standards of a show that will put the fear of god into plumbers for years to come. Alice is one of the all-time great TV baddies, and where it goes from here is anyone’s guess.
Even Gordon Ramsay can turn over a new leaf
What a week for vegans it has been. Now that the meat-and-dairy-free Veganuary pledge is becoming widespread enough to be considered a bona fide money-maker, restaurants, shops and supermarkets are finally offering up a decent range of veggie and vegan dishes, giving risotto a long-deserved rest from its dedicated role as “the only available option”.
Greggs has released a vegan sausage roll (I tried it, would definitely eat it again, 9/10), propping up trolls for another few days of mediocre outrage as a handful of controversy-addicts pretend they care that people have the option to eat meat or not. Even Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant Bread Street Kitchen is jumping aboard the plant-based train (it runs on renewable fuel), offering diners a separate vegan menu and promoting Veganuary on its homepage.
Ramsay is not known as a great supporter of vegetarians, at least when it comes to his sense of humour. He once joked he would “electrocute” his children if they swore off meat, mildly rippling the calm of national treasure Paul McCartney (“It’s not up to me if he talks stupid or not… tell him he’s a lovely boy,” said Macca) and last year joked that he is a member of Peta (“People eating tasty animals”, which prompted Peta to reply: “Oh dear, Gordon. We’ve heard that old line before”).
Any about-turns on vegetarian or vegan options, however mercenary those decisions may be, should only be welcomed. There is little doubt that people need to cut down, at the very least, on meat and dairy for the good of the planet, but there remains a reluctance to hear that simple fact. Having the ability to make the decision to eat less meat and dairy, either permanently or occasionally, and being able to make that decision more easily, is not worth getting upset about.
Has Madonna been enhanced or is this a bum rap?
It’s time once again for this column’s dedicated bimonthly celebration of Madonna. In the first week of attempting to stick to “new year, new me” resolutions, such as cutting down on screen time, I regret to report that I was instead pulled into an internet whirlpool of headlines that featured the words “Madonna”, “butt implant” and “controversy”. A photograph of the singer performing at New York’s historic Stonewall Inn gay bar on New Year’s Eve – she did an acoustic version of Like a Prayer and an Elvis cover – emerged, which led to a storm of online speculation as to whether or not she had altered her derriere.
Over recent months, Madonna, who once seemed encased in an air of untouchable mystery, has embraced Instagram with the level of enthusiasm that I imagine greeted the actual Madonna making a surprise appearance at the Stonewall Inn. So it made sense that she addressed the rumours, well, head on, with a full-face selfie, which neither confirmed it, nor denied it, owing to the framing. “Desperately Seeking No Ones Approval…” she wrote. “And Entitled To Free Agency Over My Body Like Everyone Else! Thank you 2019!” She posted it on 3 January. Clearly, her year is already a good one.