Best thing on the television last night? Easy – Modern Times: The Secret Life of Cleaners (BBC2), by a mile. A few reasons why ...
1. The Irish lady with the interesting hair, interesting outlook and a nice way with words. “I prefer cleaning when people aren’t at home because I can quietly ruminate on their personal possessions and make judgments on their humanity.” That one. “I wondered why she felt the need to keep her sex toy and her teddy bear together,” she adds about one of her employers. (Is she watching, I wonder?) “The soft toy is more offensive than the sex toy in some ways. Why do you need the teddy bear? I can understand the other one.”
Ha, yes. She – crazy-haired Irish lady – is only a talking head (used to good effect); I’d have liked more from her: a body, a name, more of a role. But she’s in it, at least, and that’s a good thing. She’s the standout star.
2. The voice recordings – another effective device – of people calling an agency that supplies cleaners, and moaning. Like this: “She’s very slow, that girl, and I’d already requested she get blacklisted, so I was very surprised when I opened the door to her.” Blacklisted! Ghastly woman. I hope, if “that girl” is allowed through the door to clean, she finds your sex toy and rubs it all over with habanero chillies.
3. At the other end of the scale, life coach Isabelle and financial barrister David, who are keen to show how very, very nice they are to their Bulgarian cleaner. A morning’s work for Yuliya goes something like this: “Mwa mwa, you lost your keys, no problem, have another set”; “A bit of ironing to do today, I’m afraid, but here’s War Horse to watch while you do it, with Bulgarian subtitles”; “How’s the English coming along? Not so great? [It’s really not.] Don’t worry, we’ll teach you – David might like to read some Shakespeare with you later”; “Don’t bother about cleaning round the Buddha and the cactuses, give me the Hoover, I’ll do it …” etc.
Oh, and they go out leafleting for Yuliya, to try to find her more work. I’m sure it’s very well intentioned; it’s also – unintentionally on their part – hilarious. Makes the tidying up – OK, so some actual cleaning, too – that we do in our house seem almost normal. Oh yeah, we have a cleaner too, Edyta, every other week, and that leads to the next point …
4. The relationship between cleaner and employer – which can range from the inhumanity of the phone-moaners to the David-Isabelle-Yuliya situation, where you wonder who’s actually working for whom. In between the two extremes there can be varying levels of contempt and disdain (in both directions), also friendship, therapy, and almost always a lot of awkwardness and, for the employer, hand-wringing middle-class anxiety.
Why do they – OK, we – find it so difficult? We’re employing someone; that’s a good thing, no? It’s because of the nature of the work. Because a cleaner knows their employer’s filthiest secrets – not just about the actual dirt, but also about their sex toys and and teddy bears. And because they clean their toilets. Should a person ever have to clean someone else’s loo? Discuss.
Anyway, it’s a complicated and fascinating relationship, which I’ve never seen explored like this before. “They want blood. They want a piece of your soul left in the toilet,” says crazy-hair lady.
5. The fact that it’s also part of a much bigger story. The story of our time: the story of migration. And of the huge sacrifices that go with it. So, here’s Mary phoning her little girl on her birthday. Because the children are still back in Romania, while Mary lives in a tiny room in east London and cleans, “just because we want to give them something good”. Only a Ukip voter could fail to be moved by that. And no, glamorous Caroline, with the lovely house and lovely Yasmin to dust it and listen, it’s nothing like when your own little boy goes away to his weekly boarding school.
Kayvan Novak! The Fonejacker! In a BBC sitcom, SunTrap (BBC1). Kind of acting, but still mainly just showing off his repertoire of characters and impressions. That’s the com; the sit is the Costa del Crime. It’s basically Sexy Beast – but lite, very lite, and very silly. But because it’s done so well, with cojones and chutzpah, it’s hard not to like. Even if you suspect it’s wrong to.
