Streets of Gold: Mumbai
Silent Witness
There is a household like them on each avenue, the aggressive neighbours who at all times must go one higher than everybody else.
A posher automobile, a noisier barbecue social gathering . . . a much bigger skyscraper. It’s actually irritating.
My coronary heart goes out to Indian billionaire Jimmy Mistry, who in all probability feels cheated of all satisfaction in his 22-storey residence and company HQ, Della Tower in Mumbai — primarily based on the legendary splendours of historic Persia’s palace of Persepolis.
From his penthouse, Jimmy defined in Streets Of Gold: Mumbai (BBC2), he can look down on the roof of the common-or-garden household home the place he grew up. Unfortunately, he may also see super-rich neighbour Mukesh Ambani’s 27-storey monstrosity, Antilia, constructed at a rumoured price of as much as £1.5 billion.
With three helipads, parking for the Ambanis’ 168 luxurious automobiles, and a ‘snow room’ the place actual snowflakes swirl, Antilia appears to be like worryingly like a tower of Jenga blocks about to topple. It is residence to only 5 individuals . . . and their 600 live-in workers.
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS: Streets of Gold: Mumbai is a three-part sequence, which reveals what life is like for the residents of India’s boomtown
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS: Silent Witness is a criminal offense drama produced by the BBC
Locals dwelling within the tower’s shadow had been guardedly diplomatic, insisting that the billionaire household had been all awfully good. Apparently, one in every of them even waves often. Well, it’s vital to get together with the neighbours.
This three-part sequence, which reveals what life is like for the residents of India’s boomtown, can be cautious to offer no trace of offence. The cameras observe numerous tycoons, self-proclaimed celebrities amongst Mumbai’s one-percenters, touring their mansions and hanging out at their PR occasions.
Fashion designers Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla confirmed off their artwork assortment. Their treasures had been purchased in bulk and crammed onto each inch of wall and shelf, the best way doting grandparents show their grandchildren’s finger-paintings.
Novelist Shobhaa De, billed as ‘the Jackie Collins of India’, allowed us to see her being feted at a guide launch for her memoir, Insatiable. By the time we arrived at Abu and Sandeep’s newest catwalk present, this documentary was beginning to resemble a company video.
There was no trace of any darkness behind the sheen and glitter, and undoubtedly no awkward questions. Director Philip McCreery met mogul Gautam Singhania, whose personal skyscraper, JK House, at 36 storeys is even taller than Antilia.
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS: The episode was lifted by star turns from John Hannah as a retired pathologist and homicide suspect, and Josette Simon as a detective attempting to unravel a case that has haunted her for 20 years, as each TV copper dealing with retirement at all times does
Much was product of his enterprise acumen, however not a phrase was talked about of his divorce from health coach Nawaz Modi, who’s believed to be demanding 75 per cent of his fortune.
Instead, the give attention to trivia was relentless. Jimmy Mistry, in his Persian palace that by now started to look barely greater than a bungalow, was complaining of a nasty again. He known as in an ‘astro architect’, Neeta Sinha, whose job title implies she might construct him a skyscraper that touches the celebrities.
Sadly, she was simply an astrologer with a penchant for inside design, who advisable trailing vegetation (to channel ‘bad energy’ all the way down to decrease flooring) and yellow material (to cheer the place up).
Emilia Fox, as Dr Nikki Alexander in Silent Witness (BBC1), was on the path of a serial killer with decidedly gothic tastes in inside design: timber festooned with useless crows, corpses posed with candles at church altars, that form of factor.
The episode was lifted by star turns from John Hannah as a retired pathologist and homicide suspect, and Josette Simon as a detective attempting to unravel a case that has haunted her for 20 years, as each TV copper dealing with retirement at all times does.
For Dr Nikki and her colleague Jack (David Caves), this was an unwelcome distraction from their soupy love-in. They start every day on the morgue by holding fingers and gazing into one another’s eyes with gooey smiles.
This is so mawkish, you might nearly envy the our bodies on the slab. At least they’re oblivious to it.