Critics’ choice
Courtroom drama
Cosby — Fall Of An American Icon (BBC2, 9pm)
As Bill Cosby’s sexual assault trial gets underway, this sober documentary traces the allegations against the comedian once tagged “America’s Dad”. The film juxtaposes Cosby’s career — his stand-up, The Cosby Show, his philanthropy and his cultural importance as a black superstar — with harrowing testimony of two women from among the dozens who have accused him of abuse.
America’s difficulty in facing the accusations is illustrated by a clip from 2009, where Cosby is shown receiving the Mark Twain Prize for American Humour before a reverent celebrity audience — with no mention made of the 13 women at that point ready to testify that the man so well-loved as affable Cliff Huxtable had drugged and raped them.
Offering a crisp analysis of the legal proceedings and a platform for the women to tell their stories, the film also catches the shock of a country facing the possibility that they had been duped by a hero.
Victoria Segal
Syria — Football On The Front Line (BBC2, 11.20pm)
The sports journalist Richard Conway had merely planned to follow the Syrian national football team, funded as a show of strength and stability by the Assad government, as they tried to qualify for the World Cup. In a horrifying reminder of the reality on the ground, however, Conway found himself pressed into service as a BBC newsman after a suicide bomber killed 78 people. (HS)
Suzi Perry’s Queens Of The Road (BBC1, 7.30pm)
Roaring away from her usual circuit of F1 and motoGP, Perry speeds into the dangerous wild west of motorsport: motorcycle road racing. Perry travels to Northern Ireland for the Cookstown 100 race, where she meets three women who are negotiating narrow roads, high walls and treacherous hedges — not to mention their minority status in a male-dominated sport. (VS)
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Panorama (BBC1, 8.30pm)
This moving documentary follows a group of former Welsh Guards as they retrace the 56-mile trek they made as young soldiers in 1982 from San Carlos to Port Stanley. It’s a frequent pilgrimage for ex-servicemen, one subsidised by the Ministry of Defence for veterans suffering from alcoholism, anger and survivors’ guilt, who are given board and lodgings along the way by still grateful Falklands householders. (HS)
24 Hours In Police Custody (C4, 9pm)
Most violent assaults are caused by money or passion, asserts one police officer in this real-life procedural, but the horrific crime investigated here — a man bludgeoned with a fire extinguisher in a Luton hotel lift — comes from a more unpredictable place. The chilling murk of CCTV footage contrasts with the legal system’s brisk efficiencies, creating a compelling portrait of a crime. (VS)
Film choice
‘71 (2014)
Film 4, 11.15pm
Set in strife-torn Belfast in the year from which it takes its title, Yann Demange’s film stars Jack O’Connell as an inexperienced British soldier who becomes separated from his platoon in the thick of a riot. The story’s social and political background is observed with mordant realism, even though the director’s main goal is simply to hit us with a tense, ruthless thriller — a job he does well.
Taps (1981)
Sky Cinema Tom Cruise, 2.30pm/4.45am
Although it is being shown as part of a fortnight-long spate of Tom Cruise films, Harold Becker’s earnest tale of army cadets defending their academy against developers is not dominated by that star. Timothy Hutton has the lead role (and performs it well), and another young soldier is played by Sean Penn.
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The Quiet Man (1952)
Film 4, 3.55pm
Starring John Wayne as a Pittsburgher who returns to his birthplace in rural Ireland and there falls for a tough redhead (Maureen O’Hara), this romantic yarn from John Ford is so high-spirited that you might as well go along with its mawkish Hollywood vision of Irish life.
God’s Pocket (2014)
Sky Cinema Select, 4.35pm
Mad Men’s John Slattery calls in a useful array of thespian colleagues for his first movie as a director. John Turturro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christina Hendricks and Richard Jenkins are all well cast in this tangled story of low-level crooks in a bleak Philadelphia neighbourhood.
Previews by Edward Porter
Radio pick of the day
15 Minute Drama: That Was Then (Radio 4, 10.45am/7.45pm)
Rosie Cavaliero stars (as a vicar who logs her secrets on her phone) in Jonathan Myerson’s mystery serial, running all this week, about a murderer freed on appeal. There is more compelling fiction when Indira Varma reads Book At Bedtime: The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness (R4, 10.45pm), Arundhati Roy’s new novel, her first since the The God of Small Things 20 years ago.
Paul Donovan
Sports choice
French Open Tennis (ITV4/Eurosport, 9.30am)
Champions Trophy Cricket (Sky Sports 2, 1.25pm); Highlights (BBC2, 12.45am)
Isle Of Man TT (ITV4, 9pm)
You say
Although I really enjoy George Gently, there were several shots of people using Maglite torches in 1970 — though the first one was made in the USA in 1979. Ahead of its time?
Keith Elliott, Barnsley
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I was truly amazed to see characters walking and posing in front of a factory power switchboard built by a company I was working for in the mid-1980s.
Brian Coote, Birmingham
Hinterland (BBC4) is a wonderful home-grown version of Scandi noir. Should we call it Taffy noir?
Eric Brown, Bromley
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