It’s about capital interest

South London - I don't know it terribly well, to be honest, but I understand from the first episode of three-part series Capital the house prices are well out of order.

The BBC UKTV series on Sky begins with a fast-forward through the life of Petunia Howe, an elderly widow who has lived in Pepys Rd since she married as a young woman.

We see her coming home with her new husband in a Morris Minor, coming home with her first child in an Austin, then living through the era of the Rover, before farewelling her husband in a hearse.

Such is life and cars.

Now aged, Mrs Howe (Poppy Pomfrey in Harry Potter), like all the other residents in the street receives a letter boldly stating "We want what you have''.

"I don't think anyone wants what I have,'' she says.

But perhaps they do - Mrs Howe now lives in a house worth more than £1million.

Then we meet banker Roger Yount (Toby Jones from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Hunger Games).

What's he up to in his shiny glass tower with his interest in new homes and things financial?

Eh?

The mystery of the enigmatic letter quickly deepens in what looks like an excellent show adapted from a John Lanchester novel.

The mini-series starts on March 14, at 9.30pm.

Watching Vinyl, the American period drama ode to the rock music industry in the 1970s, makes me realise once and forall how terribly sick I am of the trite, hackneyed narrative of the time.

We all know people took too many drugs back then, we all know they wore awful clothes, we know there were some great bands, and we all know ... everything really.

Vinyl was created by Mick Jagger and Martin Scorsese, and stars Bobby Cannavale as Richie Finestra, a record executive in the 1970s.

The show is running on Monday evenings, on Sky's SoHo.

It seems to be all about lots of shouting and unpleasant behaviour by those in the music industry, but who would expect anything else?

Finestra is shown in various settings across various times - in fact he is inclined to shoot back and forth across the '60s and '70s.

One minute he's staggering coked up through the disco period, the next he's smoking marijuana cigarettes with Andy Warhol in the Factory back in the 1960s, as the Velvet Underground plays in a corner.

It's all very well, but how long can we bear digging through that period for the narrative and soundtrack of our lives?

It's getting dull, the characters in Vinyl do not spark any sort of emotional investment, and I won't watch any more.

Take that, Jagger!

- Charles Loughrey 

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