[null, {"document_url": "https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2945086/Why-Mr-Selfridge-selling-ugly-violence-prime-time-TV.html", "unformatted_src": "https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/furniture/facebook/DailyMail/DailyMail.png", "src": "https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/furniture/facebook/DailyMail/DailyMail.png", "formatted_filename": "DailyMail"}, null, null, null, {"document_url": "https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2945086/Why-Mr-Selfridge-selling-ugly-violence-prime-time-TV.html", "unformatted_src": "https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/02/08/25713FB400000578-2945086-image-a-13_1423430674985.jpg", "src": "https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/02/08/25713FB400000578-2945086-image-a-13_1423430674985.jpg", "formatted_filename": "FB image a", "alt_text": "Millions of puzzled customers must still be scratching their heads, wondering how they found themselves in the sexual violence and drunken brutality department as they watch the third series of Mr Selfridge", "rendered_width": 634, "rendered_height": 423}, null, {"document_url": "https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2945086/Why-Mr-Selfridge-selling-ugly-violence-prime-time-TV.html", "unformatted_src": "https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/02/08/24BA939F00000578-2945086-image-a-17_1423430919943.jpg", "src": "https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/02/08/24BA939F00000578-2945086-image-a-17_1423430919943.jpg", "formatted_filename": "BA F image a", "alt_text": "Zoe Wanamaker as Princess Marie and Jeremy Piven as Harry Selfridge in the show which is in its third series", "rendered_width": 634, "rendered_height": 423}, null, {"document_url": "https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2945086/Why-Mr-Selfridge-selling-ugly-violence-prime-time-TV.html", "unformatted_src": "https://d3tsytm1wtjqo2.cloudfront.net/images/media/68/d/DailyMail_308x100_firstchoice_10-07-18_IJ.png", "src": "https://d3tsytm1wtjqo2.cloudfront.net/images/media/68/d/DailyMail_308x100_firstchoice_10-07-18_IJ.png", "formatted_filename": "DailyMail firstchoice IJ", "alt_text": "First Choice discount codes"}, {"document_url": "https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2945086/Why-Mr-Selfridge-selling-ugly-violence-prime-time-TV.html", "unformatted_src": "https://d3tsytm1wtjqo2.cloudfront.net/images/media/68/d/DailyMail_308x100_Myprotein_RR.png", "src": "https://d3tsytm1wtjqo2.cloudfront.net/images/media/68/d/DailyMail_308x100_Myprotein_RR.png", "formatted_filename": "DailyMail Myprotein RR", "alt_text": "MyProtein discount code"}, null, null]


Why is Mr Selfridge selling this ugly violence on prime time TV? CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV


Published: 17:28 EST, 8 February 2015 | Updated: 05:51 EST, 9 February 2015




Mr Selfridge Hitler's Hunting Experiment Ground floor perfumery, stationery and leather goods, wigs and haberdashery, kitchenware and food, going up...

That's the song trilled by a recorded voice in the lift at the start of the classic department store sitcom, Are You Being Served? — and we should be grateful that there's nothing so vulgar at the Oxford Street emporium in Mr Selfridge (ITV).

'Ground floor light romances, flirting and some saucy looks, going up,' the script would run. 'First floor, domestic rows, family feuds and widowers, going up. Millions of puzzled customers must still be scratching their heads, wondering how they found themselves in the sexual violence and drunken brutality department as they watch the third series of Mr Selfridge

'Second floor, social comment, shell shock, fights and alcoholics, going up. Third floor, battered women and attempted rape... thank you for shopping with Mr Selfridge.'

Millions of puzzled customers must still be scratching their heads, wondering how they found themselves in the sexual violence and drunken brutality department, when moments earlier they had been browsing on the fluffy goods and frivolities stand.

Head of cosmetics Kitty Edwards (Amy Beth Hayes) had been demonstrating the latest racy make-up products at an evening demonstration for her regulars — rouge powder and 'lip colour in a stick'.




Kitty is a bit of a mouthy madam, but we love her because she's a good-hearted Cockney sparrow. She might need taking down a peg or two occasionally, but we'd hate anything bad to happen to her.

So the final scene was an unpleasant shock: Kitty was accosted by a bunch of boozy ex-Tommies who were begging outside the store, when the ringleader stepped forward and punched her so hard that her face was smashed against the stone wall.

Then he threw himself down on her, gagging her with his hand, before gallant Harry Selfridge (Jeremy Piven) arrived to chase him off. Zoe Wanamaker as Princess Marie and Jeremy Piven as Harry Selfridge in the show which is in its third series

Kitty's head was streaming with blood. The attack was ugly, squalid and graphic — and completely wrong for this show.

This is supposed to be a love-strewn costume drama, where shop girls are swept off their feet by passionate toffs or sensitive artistic types, and villainous aristos plot mischief in the lingerie department while twirling their moustachios.

It opened as Harry released a cloud of pink helium balloons on the roof of the store. Meanwhile his mother's butler was playing private detective, trying to find out why rascally Russian Princess Marie (Zoe Wanamaker) was running up a huge hotel bill on the Selfridge tab.

The dramatic climax ought to have been a tearful row in the shop window between newlywed Agnes and her temperamental Frenchman Henri, which ended with him kicking over the display in a fit of petulance while shoppers gawped. That should be the limit of violence in Mr Selfridge. Instead, the show is aping the mistakes that almost sank Downton Abbey, when it featured the rape of a popular character below-stairs and the subsequent murder of the rapist.

If Mr Selfridge carries on like this, you can expect Miss Mardle to run amok with a meat cleaver, while Mr Grove and Mr Crabb are locked in a steamy clinch behind a palm tree in the cafe. You can also expect millions to give up watching, in disgust.

The makers of Hitler's Hunting Experiment (More4) were trying to inject bursts of drama into their story as well, which was stupid because the tale was quite compelling enough to grip the viewer without the sententious voiceover and the whooshing graphics.

It didn't have much to do with Hitler, but perhaps we're not trusted to know who Hermann Goering was. The obese head of the Luftwaffe had an insane scheme to fill a Polish forest with bears, bison and aurochs, making his own private hunting reserve.

The aurochs were extinct, but Goering didn't intend to let that stop him: he had a mad scientist who believed these killer cattle, almost as big as elephants, could be recreated through intensive breeding.

The scraps of archive footage were fascinating — Goering playing with his pet lion cub, and winning trophies for his 'prowess' with a bow (the other contestants, you suspect, might have missed on purpose).

It's a shame he never did get to hunt aurochs. 'Nazi chief trampled to death by psycho cow' is the sort of violence we can all applaud.



Christopher Stevens reviews Mr Selfridge and Hitler's Hunting Experiment





