CRITIC’S CHOICE
Pick of the day
The Witness For The Prosecution (BBC1, 9pm)
Agatha Christie adaptations no longer promise village intrigues or exotic deaths on the Nile. After last year’s nightmarish And Then There Were None, the BBC continues its mission to modernise the Queen of Crime with this bleak, languorous take on her story best known as a Billy Wilder film starring Marlene Dietrich.
Emily French (Kim Cattrall) is a rich woman with a fondness for younger men. When she is found bludgeoned to death, suspicion falls on her latest “companion”, Leonard Vole (Billy Howle), a First World War veteran. With Toby Jones on board as solicitor John Mayhew, a man struggling to breathe physically and spiritually, and Andrea Riseborough playing Romaine, Vole’s ethereal Austrian showgirl lover, the cast is a quality one, but even they are overshadowed by a creeping sense of menace and atmosphere of postwar disillusionment manifesting itself in murderous ways.
Victoria Segal
Scary fairies
Revolting Rhymes (BBC1, 6.30pm)
Magic Light Pictures has created a two-part adaptation of Roald Dahl’s twisted fairy stories. The first has everything required for a great family animation: visual appeal, snappy structure and dark humour. A babysitter (voiced by Tamsin Greig) and a wolf (who speaks in Dominic West’s most sinister tones) meet in a café. Soon the wolf is revealing the true stories behind well-loved legends, weaving together Snow White, the Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood.
Strike a light
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures 2016 (BBC4, 8pm)
On the 80th anniversary of these speeches being first broadcast, the materials chemist Professor Saiful Islam looks at energy. He opens in darkness, holding a single candle, and tries to explain how much scientific endeavour has taken place to transform the lecture theatre in which the audience of children sits into the brightly illuminated wonder it becomes. The challenge for them growing up, Islam explains, will be to light their world without destroying the planet.
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Dangerous ambition
Elephant Family & Me (BBC2, 8.30pm)
The wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan yearns to walk among elephants, but their beauty and intelligence do not stop them being dangerous — the beasts are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people in Africa each year. To facilitate his risky dream, Buchanan travels to Kenya’s Tsavo National Park to work with Benjamin Kyalo, a man who has gained the trust of an elephant family. Under his guidance, Buchanan encounters both ends of the pachyderm spectrum, from mammoth-like “supertuskers” to baby Wiva, who is constantly stumbling into trouble’s way.
Amazing and expanding
The Entire Universe (BBC2, 9.30pm)
Brian Cox clearly takes his role as the Royal Society’s professor for public engagement in science seriously, and what better way to engage with the public than by creating a lecture in musical form co-written by and starring Eric Idle, and performing it in front of an appreciative audience? Cox manages to dispute the existence of time (there is only space time), count the number of observable stars (seven billion trillion at the last count) and investigate the Schrodinger’s Cat experiment with the help of Warwick Davis and Noel Fielding.
Victoria Segal and Helen Stewart
Radio pick of the day
Book Of The Week: Snow (R4, 9.45am FM/12.30am)
Jonathan Firth reads Marcus Sedgwick’s words about the stuff that even now might be giving us a white Boxing Day. The other new serialisation is Book At Bedtime: Persuasion (R4, 10.45pm), with Samantha Bond reading Jane Austen’s final novel to mark the 200th anniversary, in 2017, of her death. Paddy O’Connell presents The World’s 100 Best Selling Artists (R2, 9.30am), a mega countdown that runs from the 1950s to the present day and takes over Ken Bruce’s slot all week.
Paul Donovan
FILM CHOICE
Brave (2012)
(BBC1, 2.40pm)
Using the familiar cartoon theme of a young princess’s formative adventures, this Pixar film about a medieval Scottish teenager from royal stock is not one of the studio’s most original works, but it is still abundantly rewarding. Its story takes a thoughtful look at a mother-daughter bond and comes with beautiful landscapes and the best animated archery scenes since Disney’s Robin Hood. Co-dirs: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman
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Deadpool (2016)
(Sky Cinema Premiere, 2pm/8pm)
A superhero movie given a 15 certificate, Tim Miller’s film mocks costumed crime-fighting through the antics of a masked mercenary (Ryan Reynolds) who chats to the camera. Its reward for flamboyantly catering to its target audience — with splashy violence and impolite jokes — was a big box-office return.
The Love Punch (2013)
(C5, 5.20pm)
Emma Thompson and Pierce Brosnan soldier through an embarrassing romcom farce in this tale of a divorced ex-couple who fall back in love while carrying out a diamond-theft scheme. At this time of year, though, Joel Hopkins’s film can perhaps be enjoyed as a sort of panto.
Pride (2014)
(BBC2, 10.30pm)
Based on the true story of gay-rights campaigners who gave help to Welsh miners during the 1984-5 strike, Matthew Warchus’s film is jaunty social realism in the Billy Elliot tradition. Led by Imelda Staunton and Dominic West, a trusty cast helps it achieve a simple poignancy.
Edward Porter
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