CRITICS’ CHOICE
The South Bank Show (Sky Arts, 8pm)
Melvyn Bragg meets the film director and screenwriter Amma Asante in the first of a six-part series in which half the artists featured are non-white but only two are women. After highlighting her hit Belle, the profile looks in turn at Asante’s debut, A Way of Life, and two period love stories centring on race — last year’s A United Kingdom and the forthcoming When Hands Touch. The most absorbing sections, though, deal with growing up as the child of Ghanaian immigrants, her teenage acting roles (including Grange Hill) and how she went from actress and typist to writer, and then from writer to director.
Although Asante talks fluently and engagingly, she is handicapped by what seems to be a peculiarly stiff interview set-up. You can’t help imagining how she would direct it herself: lots of two-shots, the pair going for a walk, and probably a polite request for Lord B to change out of that funereal suit.
John Dugdale
Sarah Payne — A Mother’s Story (C5, 9pm)
On July 1, 2000, eight-year-old Sarah Payne was abducted in West Sussex and murdered by a known sex-offender from that area. The case caused a media storm and led to the launch in 2011 of the Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme (the so-called Sarah’s Law). Here the harrowing story is revisited and Sarah’s mother, Sara speaks of the family’s grief and her campaigning role. (MJ)
Women’s Euro 2017 Football (C4, 7pm)
Five weeks after their male counterparts met, England play Scotland in Utrecht in the first group-stage game for both sides. The seeded side in a pool that also includes Spain and Portugal, the Lionesses are ranked fifth in the world after shining in the 2015 Women’s World Cup; whereas Scotland are ranked 21st by Fifa and have not previously qualified for the tournament in its current form. (JD)
Hitler My Neighbour (PBS America, 9pm)
Edgar Feuchtwanger, an elderly historian who came to Britain aged 16, travels from Hampshire to potter around his old haunts in Munich. There, Hitler lived near to his Jewish family in 1929-39, when Edgar and his parents went into exile. Though too ready to retell the familiar story of 1930s Germany, the film comes to life whenever it sticks to Edgar’s first-hand boyhood experiences. (JD)
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The Natives — This Is Our America (BBC1, 11.25pm)
Apparently it was once cool to be gay for the Sioux people, until Paleface wagged his puritanical finger. Here, we meet some of the tribe now reclaiming their heritage in this otherwise cheerless film (first shown on BBC3). Crystal meth, alcohol and Big Oil are among the enemies faced at Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, but a renewed sense of nationhood offers grounds for optimism. (MJ)
FILM CHOICE
To Sir, With Love (1967)
Sony Movie Channel, 4pm
James Clavell’s drama about a Guyanese teacher (Sidney Poitier) facing unruly pupils in a London school was meant as a social-studies class for viewers, and though it is now more like a quaint lesson in ancient history, its noble didactic aims are still appreciable, partly because they are so well honoured in the star’s charismatic performance. ER Braithwaite, on whose autobiographical novel the film was based, died last year, aged 104.
The Ballad Of Cable Hogue (1970)
TCM, 3pm
The story of a prospector (Jason Robards) who hopes to exploit a desert spring near a stagecoach route, this comic drama by Sam Peckinpah is of interest as a companion piece to his better-known westerns. Although the plot and tone here are lighter, there are still limits to the director’s subtlety: he handles certain scenes with all the restraint of the Wild Bunch mowing down Mexicans.
Previews by Edward Porter
Radio pick of the day
BBC Proms Radio 3, 7.30pm
Alisa Weilerstein joins her brother, the conductor Joshua Weilerstein, for Outscape, Pascal Dusapin’s modern cello concerto. Before that, there is Jean-Féry Rebel’s suite Les Elémens, and Berlioz’s wild opium dream Symphonie Fantastique. In the interval, Richard Davenport-Hines and Daisy Hay join Matthew Sweet to ask why so many 19th-century French artists used opium.
Andrew Male
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Sports choice
Premier League Asia Trophy (Sky Sports Main Event, 10.30am) WBA v Leicester, Liverpool v Crystal Palace
Tour De France (ITV4, 11am/7pm)
T20 Cricket (Sky Sports Main Event, 5pm)
You say
Broken raised TV drama to a new level. Awards, please, for Sean Bean and Jimmy McGovern.
Ann Tyas
Surely You Sayers are old enough to remember Cathy Come Home — Jimmy McGovern has achieved the impossible by writing a TV drama that’s even more depressing. Brilliantly acted. Can’t wait for the next series. No, really!
Martin Reynolds
Bleak, bruising and brilliant. Sean Bean was outstanding as Fr Michael.
Sarah Sparkes
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