Kathy Burke: Growing up
The Bay
Judgement: 
Comedian Kathy Burke doesn’t tiptoe around delicate subjects. Instead, she puts on her boots and starts to stomp.
She thinks anyone lying about their age is “actually kind of pathetic,” and insists she’ll never have plastic surgery, “because where does that end?” Madonna!’
But even she fooled herself a bit, as she confronted her 58th Kathy Burke: Growing Up (Ch4).
When she was a wild young woman, she said, senility started at 40, and anyone approaching 60 was pretty much decrepit.
Now, she says hopefully, you can be at your best for decades to come. Getting old is optional well past 80.
Comedian Kathy Burke (right) doesn’t tiptoe around delicate subjects. Instead, she puts on her boots and starts to stomp
She thinks anyone lying about their age is “actually kind of pathetic,” and insists she’ll never have plastic surgery, “because where does that end?” Madonna!’
I’m a few weeks older than Kathy, and I have sad news for her.
Millennials don’t just think of our generation as dinosaurs – they assume we’ll be functionally extinct by 58.
Proof of that was on display this week in Interior Design Masters, when two young contestants were challenged to furnish an apartment for “a mature older couple” – in their 40s.
Host Alan Carr made it sound like a stairlift assignment and a live-in nurse.
You can forget the adage ‘life begins at 40’.
In this youth-obsessed culture, life is over at 40.
The only effective response is to act like a Burke: “The older I get, the more immature I get,” she said.
‘I like being naughty – it’s seen as eccentric when you’re older. Do what you want and try not to get arrested.’
While exploring some of the weirder ways people can keep themselves young, Burke met Mistress Sofia, who supplements her retirement by working as a dominatrix – in her 70s!
Sofia’s dungeon was filled with racks of handcuffs, a school desk and walking stick, and a leather-covered whipping table—hand-built for her by one of her “slaves,” or gentleman visitors.
Presumably he made it in his garden shed. I’d like to know what he told his wife he was up to.
Kathy admired Mistress Sofia’s work ethic but wasn’t jealous of her: “I couldn’t do that job because I would kill them.” . . accidentally on purpose.’
Seething resentment between the police and the fire brigade on The Bay (ITV1) sparked a few one-liners in the Burke form. One officer called firefighters “Trumpton” and scoffed, “Don’t you have a calendar to pose for?”
DS Jenn Townsend (Marsha Thomason, pictured left) investigates an arson attack that killed a mother of four. Her boss thinks the house was accidentally bombed: there’s a probation center a few doors down that’s a more likely target.
Her investigations, peppered with crude humor and often funny enough to make me sniffle, ended with a visit to an undertaker’s house in Croydon, where the undertaker tried to sell her a coffin covered in ostrich skin.
I don’t much care what happens to my terrestrial remains, but I’d rather they weren’t used as stuffing in a roast ostrich like Sunday dinner in the Serengeti, thanks anyway.
Seething resentment between the police and the fire brigade on The Bay (ITV1) sparked a few one-liners in the Burke mould.
One officer called firefighters “Trumpton” and scoffed, “Don’t you have a calendar to pose for?”
Earlier series of this crime drama were characterized by character traits and storylines.
This time around, writer Daragh Carville has pushed political correctness aside and focused on strong characters with lots of secrets – and The Bay is much better at it.
DS Jenn Townsend (Marsha Thomason) investigates an arson attack that killed a mother of four.
Her boss thinks the house was accidentally bombed: there’s a probation center a few doors down that’s a more likely target.
But the deceased woman’s husband has money problems, alcohol problems and family problems, just to start.
Joe Armstrong plays him with a mixture of self-pity and threat, and enough genuine sadness to keep our sympathy.
As he whimpered and growled in the police interrogation room, I was struck by how much his face and mannerisms resembled that great actor Alun Armstrong.
And then the penny dropped. Joe is starting to look a lot like his father. Age will do that to you.
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