television & radio

The Briefs; Britain's Favourite Supermarket Foods – TV review

Burglar Alex, claw-hammer Gary and their ilk almost make you sorry for lawyers
The Briefs
Their workload is huge and seemingly pointless ... The Briefs. Photograph: ITV

It's not often you feel sorry for lawyers. The Briefs (ITV) gets you closer than most. The second two-part documentary about life at Tuckers, the country's busiest legal aid-funded criminal law firm, began with what you rapidly realise is the usual array of theft, burglary, assault (aggravated or, for those who didn't manage to pick up a hammer or an axe on their way, unaggravated), public order offences and so, very much, on.

It's a topsy-turvy world, in which 23-year-old Kyle Backhouse – who is, as the voiceover diplomatically puts it, on his 34th matter with Tuckers – is described as "the perfect client" because he is (like 70% of their clients) "repeat business … and he always takes our advice. We never have any trouble with him." A world in which another of the 70%, Alex Templar (23 previous convictions for burglary), is scandalised by an accusation of criminal damage. "I'm a thief!" he says indignantly. "If I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna do it for financial reasons." And a world in which Gary Raftery is a bright and shining star because although he attacked a man with a claw-hammer, it was his first offence and one he deeply regrets. "He's a lovely feller," says his lawyer. "I hope we can get that to shine through for the judge."

The lawyers' task is both Herculean and Sisyphean (I'm sorry – lawyers always make me overcompensate). Their workload is huge but the seeming pointlessness of it all would surely drive any ordinary man or woman to despair. It probably did many viewers within the space of just an hour. If they win, their clients obviously escape punishment (and you don't have to be a rightwing, hate-breathing bigot to see that the principle of innocence until proven guilty might be a vital one in jurisprudence but a cause of many violations to the principle of common sense in the real world) and if they don't, prison is greeted with a shrug. They serve their time, they re-emerge, they reoffend.

The Briefs is a good, solid, well-made and fair-minded example of the hidden-world genre but like most of them seems to be begging for a follow-on that would explore some of the issues raised. What will happen when the cuts to legal aid bleed the system dry of representation? Do the lawyers ever despair? What can be done about all the Kyle Backhouses out there? Do you, can you, should you try to instil a sense of shame or conscience in those who seem to be free of such shackles on their behaviour? Where does the answer lie? Or should you just stop reading the Guardian so that questions like this stop popping up to disturb your peace of mind?

Over to less demanding fare – Britain's Favourite Supermarket Foods (BBC1), presented by Cherry Healey. Now, look. I know it's summer, I know it's hot, and everyone's meant to be away enjoying themselves. But even if the entire isle had been emptied for the duration, even if there were nothing left here but a couple of overlooked pets and some grass snakes, it still wouldn't excuse this bag of utter balls.

Healey took, by dint of experiments that could have been dreamed up by a moderately intelligent eight-year-old with 10 minutes to kill before play time and the recitation of stupid statistics about widely-consumed foodstuffs ("We Brits eat four BILLION loaves of bread a year! ... We spend £4.5 BILLION pounds on sandwiches! BIG numbers of people eat and spend BIG amounts of food and money RESPECTIVELY!"), an hour to conclude that variety in food makes us eat more, protein and porridge fill us up for longer than carbs or fat or sugar, and nut-fat is better for us than crisp-fat or sticking a straw in a vat of liquid lard and drinking that down for breakfast.

My God, but Healey worked hard to disguise the fact that she was mired in a piece of absolute shit. She grinned and gurned as she delivered lines like "But when it comes to the CRUNCH, what are our ABSOLUTE favourites? I'm on a biscuity mission to find out!" She goggled and boggled at dietary advice anyone who hadn't recently suffered an incalculably severe brain stem injury was aware of ("Add fruit instead of golden syrup to porridge for a healthier breakfast!") and flung every last atom of her energy and fervour into the terrible, sub-moronic job at hand.

Given the choice between having my tax money used to represent Kyle in his 35th matter with Tuckers or given to the BBC to make more of this contemptuous bollocks, I'd say go ahead, Kyle. Have a free aggravated assault on me.

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