Netflix
The White Helmets
Half a decade in and with nearly half a million estimated deaths, the intractable conflict in Syria shows no sign of easing. This Netflix documentary follows a group of three volunteer workers handed the unenviable task of rescuing victims of the many airstrikes carried out during the war. It’s a job that frequently puts their own lives in peril, all the while suffering from the unending worry that their own family members might also be caught up in the violence. A harrowing portrait, though one not without small moments of optimism, not least in the courage of the workers themselves.
Available from Friday
YouTube
How To Make It In USA
Joe Pera is a standup whose shtick is, essentially, a featureless voice. Conner O’Malley is a stunt-happy comedian who employs self-consciously shouty pugnacity to devastating effect. Their webseries, in which Pera plays a hopeless comic and O’Malley his hilariously charmless agent, is very funny and, once you get started, oddly compulsive viewing. In it, O’Malley makes repeated (and apparently real) phone calls to cruise-liner booking agents offering Pera’s worthless services while Pera road-tests absurdly dull jokes. Surprisingly great.
Available now
Trump Dubs
Donald Trump is a man of many faces. There’s Liberace Trump. Sassy Trump. Sophisticated Trump. Lairy cockney geezer Trump. And Peter Serafinowicz has them all covered. These voice dubs over the Donald’s variously furious, paranoid and skittish speeches do a wonderful satirical job. The secret is that they’re completely verbatim: by tweaking the style but not the content, Serafinowicz hilariously exposes the true bankrupt banality of Trump’s vision.
Available now
Podcast
Laura Marling: Reversal Of The Muse
Why are women so under-represented in recording studios? What difference does this make to the finished product? And what can be done to even things up? A new podcast with Laura Marling is an intriguing, questioning affair: the first two invite sound engineer Vanessa Parr and members of Haim to discuss their experiences. Neither po-faced nor trivial, this is a sensible, constructive and engaging treatment of the kind of everyday gender imbalance that needs to be addressed.
Available now
All4
The Unlikely Bikers
It’s debatable whether people still regard bikers as terrifyingly delinquent figures. But if so, this cheerful webseries challenges the stereotype. The six short films introduce us to leather-clad menaces who range from vicars to estate agents. There’s also a glamour model and a disabled woman who rejoices in the freedom of the open road.
Available now
BBC3
Obesity: The Post Mortem
In the interests of proving, beyond reasonable doubt, how bad obesity is, this doc follows a specialist pathology team as they conduct a postmortem on the body of a 17st woman who, it should be stressed, donated her body to medical science. What is the effect of fat on our vital organs? Grimly fascinating.
Available from Tuesday
