Tonight's TV
Brief encounter
Pramface Babies (C4, 9pm)
Skins (C4, 10.30pm)
LAURA is having a baby. Between
gulps of oxygen and demanding
drugs, she's on her mobile phone in
search of the father. This seems to
be leaving it a little late, but then
planning isn't her strong point.
She's one of four mothers-to-be in filmmaker
Philippa Robinson's Cutting Edge film
who are in the last stages of unplanned pregnancies.
They're at Liverpool Women's Hospital
to give birth.
"I'm awfully sorry to bother you, but I'm in
labour and haven't seen your Terry for two
weeks, I was wondering if you could get in
touch with him for me," says Laura to the person
on the other end of the phone.
Absent fathers are a recurring theme of the
programme. She met Terry over the internet
and, despite her initial shock on seeing him
-"oh, my god, what is
this?" was her reaction
- tells us
it's not about
looks. Besides,
Terry is
very well-mannered
"considering he's been in prison".
As usual, documentaries like this tell us as
much about the people around them as the
subject themselves. Not just absent Terry but
Linzi's mother, Pat. Her 19-year-old daughter
is on her second unplanned pregnancy in just
over a year.
"I knew from the minute she turned 12 it
was only a matter of time before she got pregnant.
I'm surprised she waited until she was
18," says Pat.
The reason for this thinking goes unsaid.
You wonder why, if she had that feeling, she
didn't talk to her daughter about the responsibility
of bringing a child into the world.
Linzi split up with the father, Andy, before
the first baby was born. Four months later
they had a "brief reunion" and she fell pregnant
again. They were taking their renewed
relationship slowly although, she says patting
her bump, "obviously one day we took a
bit faster".
He lives with his mum, she lives with the
baby. The situation doesn't change after the
second child is born.
Pat doesn't seem the most sympathetic of
mothers. She puts on her coat and announces
she's "going out for a ciggy" as she tells
Linzi, who's still screaming for painkillers,
"It's not coming out yet."
Linzi isn't coping well with labour, begging
to have a Caesarean. Andy and Pat tell
her to use her energy getting the baby out rather than moaning and saying such things
as "it's a demon child, the spawn of Satan".
Andy is philosophical about becoming a father
again. Fate's fate, he says, "and if not, it's
dodgy contraception."
Kerrie has been on a ward for a week with
complications. She met her partner in Asda
and they got together on Friday the 13th. Unlucky
for some, obviously.
It emerges that she's looking for someone
to love. She plans to look after her child the
way her parents didn't look after her. She was
in and out of care and foster homes and her
parents were arrested on drugs offences. "I
was a little kid crying out for help," she says.
Robinson's film is not judgmental. Each girl
is given ample opportunity to explain her circumstances
and feelings and, indeed, they
seem eager to do so.
The young people at the heart of Skins continue
to search for the meaning of life
through sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. The outlook
of this excellent drama is defiantly
youth-orientated, but much grittier and realistic
than many a so-called adult drama.
This is a series that has found a style to
match its content, growing and developing as
this second series progresses.
Centrestage in this latest episode is Chris
(Joe Dempsie), who quits college for a job with
an estate agent. He also takes advantage of
one of the empty properties - a flat so small
that you couldn't swing a mouse, let alone a
cat - to rest his weary head.
Harry Enfield directs with the necessary
energy as Chris's employment and amorous
adventures lead him into trouble. Skins is a
series about young people that can be enjoyed
by older ones looking for an insight into what
today's youth get up to and the chance to live
it without fear of being caught - or getting pregnant.
10:55am Thursday 13th March 2008
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