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Barely a soul in sight • Sea of Souls Tuesday, BBC1, 9pm TO LOSE ONE PAIR OF PARAPSYchology research assistants may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two - now that Dawn Steele and Iain Robertson have left Sea of Souls, as did Peter McDonald and Archie Panjabi after the first series - looks like carelessness. Now it's just Dr Monaghan against the ghosties, so if there's something strange in your neighbourhood, I guess he's who you're gonna call. Luckily, Monaghan is Bill Paterson, who has the most reassuring voice around (he's always being drafted to voice documentaries about potentially disturbing topics), so at least he'll be able to explain why you're being haunted by demons in tones as warming as a good whisky. That's just as well when you've plunged all your life savings into turning an abandoned building into a hotel, only to find weird symbols painted under the wallpaper, radios which retune themselves and mysterious bowls of dried blood everywhere. No, it's not the latest Channel 4 show about Property Disasters Abroad, but what befalls Ian and Karen (Ben Chaplin and Neve McIntosh) in this new two-parter. They send for Monaghan, the Clyde University professor who always claims that "most paranormal experiences can be explained completely rationally" - right before the whole thing turns out to be completely irrational. Are the mystic messages important, professor, they ask? "Well, yes, you could say that," murmurs Monaghan as soothingly as if he's calming a frightened horse, "it could give us the secrets of speaking with spirits and of immortality." Oh, well, not a big deal then. Perhaps because of the new format, or the loss of Monaghan's back-up, this story seems to drag out for ages and ages. It's very atmospheric, but after something kind of eerie has happened for the twelfth time, you've not only got the message that the spirits are tapping out, they're beginning to nag. It's also quite po-faced. If you can stick with it, though, the ending is quite grippingly gothic, in a hokey way. And there's a technique of cutting between the past and the present which works beautifully. During the week, Gavin is a 41-year-old bloke who runs a power tool company in County Durham. At the weekends he's Leah, his own "designer woman" (he designed her) whom the website Am I Hot Or Not? rates as hotter than 98 per cent of the women on the planet. So Gavin thought he was in with a good chance when he entered the Miss International Queen, or Mr Miss World, contest in Thailand as Miss England. But things go horribly wrong in this documentary. Nearly all the other contestants live as women full-time and have had surgery or hormones; they look much more convincing than Gavin, who stresses himself out, trying to keep up. His costume goes wrong, his talent act (four minutes of watching a wardrobe while he changes behind it) falls flat and the one beauty queen tendency he does master is bitching at his preternaturally patient girlfriend, Sue. She "jokes" that he only goes out with her as she's the same size and can try on dresses for him; Gavin admits that he fancies Leah (ie himself) much more than he fancies Sue. In fact, he's not a very nice man, or woman, so it's a bit hard to sympathise with his frustrated cry: "If you want to be put off wearing a dress for the rest of your life, this is how to do it. At home I feel quite special ... I don't feel like that here." But there is another side to this film. It's interesting to see how accepted the contestants are in Thailand, where the show gets ten million TV viewers and, says one, they're treated "like celebrities, instead of freaks". When Gavin finally plucks up courage to tell his mum about Leah, it's touching; while Miss Egypt sobs about how her family cut her off for living as she does. Speaking of taking on another identity, here's a stunning statistic: there are more than 30,000 Elvis impersonators around the world. There's probably only one from Jerusalem; certainly he's the only one who believes that Elvis is his angel guide who writes him letters in Hebrew - the language of Heaven - in between regular concerts in the afterlife, which is presumably a lot like Las Vegas but with even nicer hotels. Gilles Elmalih, the subject of Morgan Matthews's film Blue Suede Jew, has turned fan worship into actual worship, not just for himself but his entire family. Following advice from the King (and Uri Geller), he sells his possessions to try to make it in America, where he hopes to inspire world peace through Elvis's music. I couldn't quite decide if Gilles's Presleytarianism was genuine or a giant publicity stunt. But frankly, given the situation in the Middle East now, it might be worth a try. This article from here
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