By FRANCES GRANT
The lethal weapons, the torture, the rivalries, double-crossing and blackmail — it's hard to know who leads a more harrowing life: British secret agents or Mancunian hairdressers.
One indication that spying might be the softer option is that the glamorously dangerous Spooks has attracted a surge of applications to join MI5. No mention has been made that hairdressing schools in the greater Manchester region have been beset by keen young things eager to pick up the scissors and tinfoil after watching cut-throat salon drama Cutting It.
The weapons of your average spy are, of course, far more sophisticated and it's generally easier to spot the enemy.
Although the agents have some seriously nasty experiences, such as one getting her head deep fried in a chip vat and the bomb blast in last week's searing first series finale (TV One is now playing the second series), apart from the violence, Spooks is an often rather humdrum and predictable spy drama.
You could spot a mile off that the laptop given to Tom by the IRA bloke was chock-full of Semtex. And you just knew, in the long opening scenes as Tom fortified his house to lure back his seriously jittery girlfriend, that danger was going to come from within and leave the rescuers locked out.
With its split-screen visuals, nail-biting countdowns, cool-headed agents and high-tech wizardry, Spooks appears to borrow rather heavily from its transatlantic forerunner, 24, although it's more willing to shock, and there certainly isn't the same feeling the heroes will always prevail. It also shares the American thriller's simplistic patriotism and terrorist paranoia.
But who knew that the stress of the job and their private lives could give hairdressers such troubled sleep? Every episode of Cutting It kicks off with one of the characters struggling to wake up from a nightmare. Watch further and it's easy to see why.
In the world of Manchester hairdressing salons, the enemy isn't so easy to "disincentivise", as the MI5 agents would call it.
The terrorists come in the form of a perkily blond couple who call each other Tinkerbell and Tigger and own a rival business across the street from that of the show's heroine, Ally, husband Gavin and her two sisters. Tinkerbell specialises in manipulation: revealing nasty secrets while dripping with insincere concern for the victim. Tigger's forte is seduction, managing to sleep with all three sisters in one 24-hour period.
Then there's the sisters' mother from hell, a termagant who sports the most alarming bosom on telly since the days of Ena Sharples. A night out with the parents — Dad's karaoke singing makes our NZ Idol na-na-na guy look like Frank Sinatra — leaves everyone in a state of post-traumatic stress. And that's before certain people get "bladdered" and the family skeletons start coming out of the closet.
Cutting It is dangerous viewing for other reasons, too. Apart from the eye-watering hairstyles, there are the fashion outrages. One of the sister's leopard-spots-meet-tiger-stripes outfits would leave even Bet Lynch's jaw hanging.
Spooks agents may be cool and daring but up in Manchester they display true wartime spirit and an enviable ability to look on the bright side. "So your mum's a liar, your dad's not your dad, your boyfriend's dumped you, life's a pile-up. Could be worse!"
That's the kind of grit needed in a world where the women can be smart bombs, the men indiscriminately deadly. As Tigger says, "most men are brain-dead, penis-driven plonkers with the IQ of a hamster and the morals of a snake". Forget those external threats to the security of the nation, the enemy is within.
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