TV Pick of the Week: Twenty Twenty Six - review by Yvette Huddleston
Twenty Twenty Six BBC iPlayer, review by Yvette Huddleston
The estimable Ian Fletcher is back! Hurrah. Hugh Bonneville, the master of eternal perplexity, is on form as always for this latest iteration of John Norton’s long-running satire of all things bureaucratic. It began with Twenty Twelve (in 2011) –which poked sly fun at the preparations for the London Olympics, and where we first met Fletcher as head of deliverance, then continued with the fabulous BBC send-up WIA with Fletcher as the corporation’s head of values.
This time round Fletcher is “in Miami, somewhere in Florida”, as David Tennant’s exquisitely on the nose, and perfectly pitched, narration informs us, recently appointed as director of integrity at a global soccer organisation (which as Tennant points out “we can’t name for legal reasons”), preparing for an international competition. It will be Fletcher’s job to ensure that all goes smoothly. In a nice running joke the words FIFA and Cup are bleeped out as Fletcher and his new team go about their business with the usual mishaps and mild calamities.
The characters, as previously, as broad-brush stereotypes but this time they are from around the world, so the in-built British awkwardness is somewhat diluted. Fletcher’s team includes Gabriela De La Rosa (Jimena Larraguivel) a former top player in the women’s game in Mexico; Eric Van Depuytrens (Alexis Michalik) from HQ in Geneva who is supposedly there only as a ‘conduit’ but whose main function it seems is to demonstrate his superiority over everyone else by having his PA bring him (and only him) a special coffee during every meeting; belligerent New York lawyer Nick Castellano (Paulo Costanzo), Canadian logistics ‘expert’ Owen Mitchell (Stephen Kunken) and sustainability and climate strategy guru Sarah Campbell (Chelsey Crisp), plus another Brit the brilliantly named Phil Plank (Nick Blood), a former player in the lower English leagues. And then Fletcher’s hapless PA from WIA Will Humphries (Hugh Skinner) turns up and quickly begins causing the usual mayhem.
While not quite up to the high standard of previous series (could it be that this form of mockumentary has had its day?), this is nevertheless very entertaining, as long as you don’t expect quite as many big laughs as before. That’s partly to do with the way in which the satire this time round seems to be a little unclear of its intended target – is it football (aka soccer), FIFA, big business or Americans?