CRITIC’S CHOICE
Pick of the day
To Walk Invisible (BBC1, 9pm)
From an opening scene in which three girls and one boy play together, their heads wreathed in halos of imaginary flame, to the almost immediate use of an expletive (a proper one, not one of your mimsy period-drama subsitutes), Sally Wainwright strikes stark contrast between the rich interior lives of the Brontë sisters and their isolated lives with a raging, spitting, alcoholic brother.
The dramatist’s great skill lies in capturing the lovingly bitchy chit-chat and outright violence that comes of adults living at close quarters, and Finn Atkins, Chloe Pirrie and Charlie Murphy (as Charlotte, Emily and Anne respectively) are credible as both literary geniuses and women livid at the limitations placed on their sex. Their father is played by Jonathan Pryce, while Branwell (Adam Nagaitis) is every bit the self-absorbed hipster who believes the world owes him a living.
Helen Stewart
Waltzing in Wales
The Ballroom Boys (C4, 7pm)
The “Strictly effect” has not yet hit the menfolk of the Welsh valleys: this is rugby territory, and there is a shortage of young male dancers on the ballroom scene. This documentary meets four boys who withstand mockery to pursue their dancing dreams, some embracing their inner Billy Elliot, others struggling with the difficulties of fitting in at school with a fake tan. Sharply edited and as sensitive to detail as Len Goodman judging a foxtrot, it is a film that reveals a lot about what really drives a child’s dreams.
Out of the freezer
Life In The Snow (BBC1, 8pm)
Gordon Buchanan investigates how animals adapt and survive in apparently hostile frozen environments, from owls with supersensitive hearing to polar bears who have 4in of fat tucked away under their fur. While he generally swerves Planet Earth-style feasts and maulings, there is one harrowing sequence in which an inexperienced bear, prioritising hunger over responsible parenting, takes her twin cubs out of their den too early, leaving them exposed to all the perils their world has to offer.
Flying slowly
Flying Scotsman — From The Footplate (BBC4, 9pm)
This is a blissful journey on the much-loved steam engine as it makes the 16-mile trip between Bridgnorth and Kidderminster, manned by volunteers from the Severn Valley Railway. “Just a little difficulty actually getting the locomotive on the move,” confesses the driver at the first station. “We seem to have got ourselves stuck.” After some toing and froing, the pistons get them up the hill. Despite compressing a 70-minute journey into hour, this is splendidly unrushed television.
Insanity Claus
Cunk On Christmas (BBC2, 10pm)
“Christmas is everywhere,” declares Philomena Cunk. “On television, in the high street, even in normally sacred places like churches.” Charlie Brooker, Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris’s pointed script works beautifully with Diane Morgan’s moronic delivery, and her interviews with academics, clerics and the food critic Jay Rayner demonstrate her ability to improvise as she investigates the origins of the winter festival (“Pagans worshipped nature, a bit like Chris Packham”) and Father Christmas in her latest absurdist comedy documentary.
Helen Stewart and Victoria Segal
Radio pick of the day
In Our Time (R4, 9am/9.30pm)
Johannes Kepler, the Lutheran genius who brought religion and science into symmetry, is given a rounded portrait — God, geometry, his “laws” of planetary motion, the problem of stacking cannon balls, his mother’s alleged witchcraft. It is recorded, though, and lacks some of the spark of the usual live editions of this programme. Another expert on motion, Juan Fangio, perhaps the greatest Formula 1 driver of all time, is championed by Stirling Moss in Great Lives (R4 Extra, 6.30pm/12.30am), from 2008.
Paul Donovan
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FILM CHOICE
Truth (2016)
(Sky Cinema Premiere, 12 noon/10pm)
James Vanderbilt’s movie dramatises the controversy that arose from a 2004 investigation by American television reporters looking into George W Bush’s military service during the Vietnam years. For a film about journalism, it has a terribly shaky grasp of what its story is, but at least it knows how to add colour: Cate Blanchett does a showy turn as the producer in charge.
The Martian (2015)
(Sky Cinema Greats, 11.45am/9.40pm)
All of today’s films on Sky Cinema Greats show people stranded in adversity, but nobody is further afield than the spaceman played by Matt Damon in this Ridley Scott movie. Stuck on the red planet, he tries to find pleasure in his situation, and this attitude proves to be the essence of the film’s smart and engaging tale.
Men In Black (1997)
(Film 4, 5.20pm)
Barry Sonnenfeld’s comic sci-fi action movie gets the best out of its premise: the news that aliens secretly live among us, monitored by special agents (including Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones). Its two sequels, which are also on Film 4 today, cannot help being a bit redundant.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
(ITV, 5.50pm)
Andrew Garfield’s stint as the swinging superhero came to an end with this adequate but uninspiring sequel, ensuring that he would be ranked as an appealing Spidey who was never given the material he deserved. Dir: Marc Webb
Edward Porter