KEY POINTS:
The only reason I bothered to watch The English Harem on TV One last night was that it was written by New Zealander Anthony McCarten.
It was a waste of time. The Sunday night slot on that channel has long been a dumping ground for poor-quality British dramas, but never has two hours seemed so dreary, so long. The English Harem was dire on so many levels it's a mystery it ever got made.
It centred around dreamy Cockney supermarket-checkout girl Trace (Martine McCutcheon, from the fine Eastenders acting academy), who for some inexplicable reason constantly drifted into a fantasy world where the shoplifting customers morphed into Arabian princes.
She got sacked for her poor security skills and wafted back to her home on the 20th floor of a London working-class estate, where her two droopy parents worried that she kept her room padlocked.
Trace got herself dolled-up and stalked a restaurant called Taste of Persia because it was in keeping with her fantasies. Taste of Persia was run by a much older, suave Iranian man, Sam (played by the usually meticulous Art Malik), who, it transpired, had two common-law wives and four children. Enter more fantasy shots, of Sam dressed as an Arab riding a horse through the desert, stopping to sweep Trace off her feet, etc. Never mind the fact that an Iranian is not an Arab.
Trace bought a book on Islam and a CD of Islamic music - call it shallow immersion - and dumped her crude boyfriend after catching him shagging one of her best mates. He couldn't take being dumped for a person he called Saddam Hussein (another racial stereotype, just in case we hadn't noticed the message).
As the gloopy eye contact between Sam and Trace intensified, real time slowed to a crawl as the two wives colluded to bring them together for reasons so inexplicable I can't try to fathom them, let alone explain.
Sam, who described himself as both a religious United Nations and the playboy of Kensington, told Trace he didn't sleep with either of his wives, then took her out for dinner and murmured sweet nothings like, "We must furnish the soul with luxuries."
"You've got a lovely way of putting fings," cooed Trace, adding that she'd drunk so much he'd have to carry her out in a bucket. Against anything resembling good sense, or reality, Sam the sophisticate was charmed.
Hey presto, they got married, and Trace's thick father dobbed them in to social welfare, who took away the kids. Another tenuous event - but I was way beyond caring at this stage.
McCarten couldn't leave ill alone. Trace's ex beat up Sam - a scene clumsily illustrated with scenes from the Crusades, as if this was some continuance of the ancient Christian vs Muslim rivalry.
How to round off this mess? Sam died, Trace's father ended up in bed with two old birds, emulating what they thought was the sharing-caring Muslim way, and then, to add the final curdle to this stinking concoction, Sam's younger brother turned up - in military uniform, therefore part of Iran's iron-fisted regime - offering to take over the harem. The three women tittered and giggled.
I hope all concerned were embarrassed about getting mixed up in this tedious, unfocused, offensive mess. Its producer claimed The English Harem dealt with issues of social integration and understanding of interracial customs.
I think not. It just showed that when a hamfisted team makes a programme that muddles religious and ethnic stereotypes with ridiculous acting, they not only produce boring TV, they make you really annoyed as well. McCarten deserves a smack on the hand.
