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Transaction is the latest TV project to come across as a diversity box-ticking exercise, following Pushers and whatever passed for the last couple of series Doctor Who.
Hey, it starts well, with hearing Ave Maria.
But then it falls apart. Supermarket manager Simon (Nick Frost) is trying to have the most inclusive workplace. A female dwarf, Millie (Francesca Mills), and a tall, black woman, Beefy Linda (Kayla Meikle – Coma) don’t cut the mustard, so he thinks the answer is to look up “transgenders in the area”. To me, a transgender person is someone who’s had gender reassignment surgery in order to become the opposite gender. As such, in this case, Jordan Gray would go from ‘he’ to ‘she’.
At this point in time, Jordan has not, so you can’t just – to quote the late, great, Lou Reed, “shaved her legs and then he was a she“. We know Jordan has male bits, because the punchline to an awful set on Friday Night Live with Ben Elton, was for him to pull down his pants and show them to us!
Playing Olivia, this person blahs on about “being born with a penis I didn’t ask for“, and telling Millie, “Like you, I’m a woman“.
Perhaps if Jordan HAD been born a girl, back in 1989, we wouldn’t have had to listen to his endless agenda that’s masquerading as televisual entertainment.
Pellocks is also the only supermarket I’ve ever seen which doesn’t have customers. Instead, they just have a bunch of trans rights activists outside, moaning about a badly-worded billboard that causes offence, the contents of which I won’t bother to describe here because it’s a hackneyed attempt at a joke.
As for shaving one’s face, surely, you shave UP rather than down? The latter would get nowhere for me.
About the only thing I could possibly relate to was Jordan’s attempt to set the workplace on first. That was done on purpose. However, mine was accidental, when I was tasked with emptying a fryer at Little Chef, first thing in the morning, in order to change the oil. This was best done when it was cold. Alas, as it was 7am, and I was mostly asleep.
I put the other fryer on to use shortly, and went to prep some veg in the back. I came back a few minutes later to find the first, now-empty, fryer on FIRE… because I’d ALSO put that on. I went to the office – where all the supervisors hide – knocked on the door and said, “Julie? Erm… I’ve got a bit of a problem…”
She came out, saw the fire, exclaimed, “OH MY GODDDD!”, grabbed the fire blanket and put it out. The fryer was later checked and it was okay. I didn’t get the sack. My job was safe because no-one else wanted it!
Overall, if anyone moans, “How dare Dom call Jordan Gray a man!” – Well, Gray dared call Transaction a “comedy”. I’ve had more laughs at funerals, or back-to-back binges of Pushers. Just because someone says something, doesn’t necessarily make it so.
And what on Earth is Nick Frost doing in this? Then again, he’s been stealing a living since Spaced!
Transaction begins tonight on ITV2 at 10.05pm, and the entire series is already on ITVX, so, you’ve got chances 24/7 in order to watch something else. Additionally, ITV are making it available on Youtube, so I’ve linked the first episode below.
It’s not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but if it is in future, it will be listed on the New DVD, Blu-ray, 3D and 4K releases UK page.
Director: Ollie Parsons
Producer: Lara Singer
Creator: Jordan Gray
Writers: Jordan Gray, Sarah Page
Cast:
Liv: Jordan Gray
Tom: Thomas Gray
Millie: Francesca Mills
Beefy Linda: Kayla Meikle
Simon: Nick Frost
Participants: Danny Dyer, David Tennant
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.