Next In Fashion
Netflix
Baghdad Central
Channel 4, Monday
Rating: 
This week, a new thriller and a competitive reality show seeking a hot new fashion designer that, in its first moments, comes over as a cross between The Great British Sewing Bee and The Apprentice, which is not what we want. ‘I’m not nervous I’m CONFIDENT,’ boasted one contestant at the outset. Uh-oh, I thought. Sewing Bee’s Patrick and Esme would never approve of that kind of behaviour and would throw him out on his ear. Your pleats may be neat and your darts may be crisp, young man, but we do not talk ourselves up here!
However, the show does grow on you as the contestants calm down and you marvel over some gowns, wince over others, pick your favourite people – Minju Kim! Angelo, in his head-to-toe leopard skin! – plus it’s the only series I’m currently addicted to apart from White House Farm, the ITV docudrama about the Bamber killings that is excellent but no one else is talking about. I don’t know why.
Next In Fashion is presented by Tan France, from Queer Eye, who is a TV natural, and Alexa Chung, who is a very influential fashion person, apparently
It was the same with ITV’s Vanity Fair, which was also excellent. You do have to worry about the ITV audience, who can’t cope with anything unless it’s Vera staring into the middle distance or Doc Martin going about grumpily while showing you how to spot the signs of prostate cancer? Although that is quite useful, I admit.
Back to Next In Fashion, which is presented by Tan France, from Queer Eye, who is a TV natural, and Alexa Chung, who is a very influential fashion person, apparently. Maybe she invented navy. And pockets. Here, the 18 contestants are not amateurs. Instead, each has considerable experience in the industry, and may even have dressed Beyoncé, but they’ve yet to become household names. The guest judges are proper famous – Christopher Kane, Tommy Hilfiger – and the stakes are high. Winning isn’t about the honour and an extra scone in the caff. Here it’s about a $250,000 investment and the chance to launch a collection through Neta- Porter. And the first challenge asked the designers to come up with ‘a red-carpet look’ rather than an A-line skirt, say.
Bafflingly, the designers were paired up (Would you pair up MasterChef contestants? Don’t you want to see what each can achieve individually?), but there you are. This is not low-budget, with a ‘haberdashery cupboard’ more the size of John Lewis’s entire haberdashery floor, offering every print, pattern, fabric known to man. I could have just stared at that for an hour quite happily. There are the usual genre elements. The time frame is limited (two days). There is jeopardy. (Will they finish?) And so on.
Alexa Chung is a very influential fashion person, apparently. Maybe she invented navy. And pockets.
The contestants’ stories are threaded throughout but this aspect is never overwhelming or allowed to distract from the task at hand or the craft on show. And sometimes the achievements are incredible. A pink red-carpet gown from Minju Kim working with Angel Chen was so stunningly beautiful I gasped. While, on the other hand, there was the dress that did not allow the wearer to visit the bathroom which, as Tan noted sagely, ‘is a problem’. Actually, he does seem fantastically knowledgeable, and the same with Chung, but then she did invent navy. And pockets. There are ten episodes in all and I’m hooked.
The new thriller is Baghdad Central which, interestingly, is set in post-invasion Iraq in 2003, and it’s told from the Iraqi point of view rather than that of the American or British occupiers. This does brilliantly capture the chaos of a time when a thoroughbred racehorse could suddenly appear at a busy traffic intersection – oh God, that poor horse – but I do wish they’d had The Language Meeting. Why would the main character, an Iraqi ex-police detective, speak English to his daughters and not Arabic? It makes no sense whatsoever, particularly as it’s subtitled elsewhere.
So that was confusing, as was much else. I had to watch the first episode twice to work out who was who, and even now I’m not too sure, but I accept that could just be me. Also, aside from the horse (oh God, the horse; was that really necessary?) there was torture and beatings which, I have to say, is hard enough to watch even when you understand what is going on.
Bertie Carvel in Baghdad Central which, interestingly, is set in post-invasion Iraq in 2003, and it’s told from the Iraqi point of view rather than that of the American or British occupiers
This six-parter stars Waleed Zuaiter as our ex-detective, Muhsin al-Khafaji, whose dissident son has been killed and whose wife has died ‘of cancer. And sanctions’. However, he still has his two daughters: one who is sick and one who has just gone missing. As he searches he is brought into contact with an ex-Scotland Yard officer (a wonderfully sardonic Bertie Carvel), who is dedicated to reestablishing an Iraqi-led police force. Or so he says. Meanwhile, across town, grim happenings concerning a kidnapped American end very grimly indeed. (Couldn’t look.)
If I was struck by anything, it was the humanity and warmth of Zuaiter’s performance, so if I go back, it will be for that. I’ve decided. I will go back. I can’t reasonably complain about your average Vera/Doc Martin audiences and then avoid anything ‘challenging’ myself. Dug myself a hole there.