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Cringe television has surely reached its zenith.
A BBC fly on the wall documentary called ‘The Scheme’ about six families living in a Scottish ‘scheme’ (US equivalent of a ‘project’) is currently being broadcast and although I sincerely hope it is never shown outside of Scotland, I couldn’t help but note down and share what happened as the cameras followed the scummy white trash around. In the first episode we meet three of six ‘families’ who are set to feature.
Marvin, Dana and Bullet.
Marvin is a giant, pock marked, toothless, rake thin, smack head, Bullet is his pit bull type dog and ‘best friend’. Besotted with his pet Marvin blathers an epistemological riddle when he says ‘Everyone knows Bullet around here, even people I don’t know, know Bullet'. Marvin dreams of ‘meeting the right person’ and ‘having a family’ even though his home has dog shit all over it and no furniture.
However Marvin is soon reunited with his ex girlfriend Dana who has just been released from prison with an electronic tag. Dana is a relatively attractive teenager (next to Marvin anyway) who speaks with a constant slur due to being a heroin addict and is quite possibly the most cretinous human being to have ever lived.
When Marvin’s play station is stolen by a ‘friend’, Marvin vows to ‘damage him’ but his dog Bullet runs away and as the graceless, lanky, junkie chases the dog down the street he is stopped by the police who find 310 Temazepan pills in his pocket.
Marvin is soon out on bail only to find out Dana has fallen pregnant and celebrates by playing host to a police raid, then overdosing on drugs.
Soon after Marvin is arrested again after beating up the pregnant Dana on a bus. ‘He kneed me in the stomach but I don’t think he meant it’ says Dana ‘Then he headbutted me and stole my purse’.
The Cunninghams
The Cunningham’s consist of ex jailbird father Gordon and alcoholic mother Anne and their three grown up children – Brian, Chris and Kimberely.
The Cunnningham’s story begins with a massive argument between 15 year old daughter Kimberly who wants to stay out all night with her friends and her father who demands she be home at 10pm because, so he believes, there is a pedophile cult operating in the area; presumably one that only operates after 10pm. On leaving the house her jail bait friends, near naked and all slutty make up – pass on the sage advice ‘Just move out! Have parties!’
Next day Gordon and Anne take their eldest son Brian to court who has been charged with a racial assault. Brian has a young girlfriend, a new born baby and seven previous charges. Fearing the worse, Brian’s ex con father gives him lessons on how to smuggle tobacco into prison.
At court Brian, perhaps unwisely, blames the assault on having post natal depression; this doesn’t cut much ice with the judge who gives him a year for attacking a local Asian shopkeeper while shouting ‘Bin Laden bastards!’ Mother Anne perceptively notes that Brian’s constant run ins with the law may be down to his mother and father ‘drinking and fighting all the time’.
However younger son Chris makes Brian look like a social responsible young man.
Chris is given £400 worth of cocaine by dealers to sell on but, hedonist that he is, he snorts the lot in a single night resulting in furious drug dealers letting it be known they are out to slash Chris’ face up with a razor by placing a threatening phone call to the family home (‘Where is the wee bastard! We’re gonna do him!”). Chris puts on a brave face for the cameras (‘fuck them, they'll no slash me, I'll punch their daft heads in, their big maniacs but I'll punch their heads in’) but then decides discretion is the better part of valor and hides out in his girlfriends attic.
More on Chris below.
Kay and family.
Kay is a single mother with a 15 year old daughter Candice (Chris Cunningham’s girlfriend) and a second daughter, 5 year old Kendal who, despite her age, is easily the most intelligent and engaging character in the series so far. Kay having lost her father and husband has spare rooms to let out and takes in a homeless teenager Jenna and a young alcoholic man Gary because she feels sorry for them.
Unfortunately Kay loses her job at a food factory after stealing a meatball from the conveyor belt and when her daughter makes the baffling complaint that Gary is 'treating this house like a house' Kay throws out Gary, who leaves with with an alloy wheel under each arm.
Having got rid of Gary, Kay brings in Lisa, the homeless teenage mother to 3 year old Jared. Kay, in perhaps the classic quote of episode 1 says 'Lisa is really nice, she's not on drugs or anything'.
While Lisa goes to get an abortion after falling pregnant to her abusive boyfriend for a second time, Kay lets her daughter Candice skip her school exams after she pleads ‘I don’t want to do exams, they are too hard’ after which the 15 year old goes back to bed with 20 year old boyfriend Chris Cunningham and Kay lies around like a beached whale, chain smoking and keeping a bottle of vodka and an ashtray on the floor by her bed.
Gary the alcoholic reappears when he is arrested on suspicion of ram raiding a shop but tells police he was at Kay's house all night even though he had been thrown out days ago. When the police come round to Kay’s house to check the story, Chris Cunningham upstairs with underage girlfriend, thinks they have come for him and leaps out of bed revealing, for reasons unexplained, that he has ‘Fuck You’ written on the soles of his socks in magic marker and then jumps out the 2nd floor window to escape. Meanwhile, despite being on camera in a nationally broadcast documentary, Kay lies to the police about Gary staying at her house.
Off the hook with the police, for a while at least, Gary gets his own place, a single bare room with an old mattress on the floor and discussing his alcoholism while swigging liberally from a large bottle of Strongbow cider proclaims ‘I’m doing alright now’ despite the fact he has just been stabbed and beaten up by dealers. Showing off a knife wound just inches above his heart he says ‘I still dabble with drugs but nothing serious’ as the camera zooms into his face, broken nose, scars and all.
Finally when Chris, drunk off his head, comes round at 2am to see Candice, Kay refuses to let him in prompting Chris into threatening to stab everyone while vandalizing Kay's car after which Candice and Chris split up.
Even though it is the most cringe inducing, painful to watch television I've ever seen I can't wait for episode 2.
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He has arrived, the mountebank from Bohemia, he has arrived, preceded by his reputation.
Evil Dr. K "The Jimmy McNulty of Payment Protection Insurance"
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