Sir Lenny Henry: A Life on Screen
BBC Two, 9pm
Lenny Henry is very much alive and kicking, but there’s an element of the posthumous tribute to this Bafta celebration of his 41 years in showbusiness, made to mark Henry receiving the Bafta Special Award in May. It is pure hagiography, with a succession of famous faces, including Trevor McDonald, Chris Tarrant and Michael Grade, waxing lyrical about the man, but seeing as it’s the season of goodwill that can be excused. Plus, he is a multitalented and very funny human being and the wealth of archive material make this a hugely entertaining watch. As well as his comedy output, for television and stand-up, Henry has written books, been a Radio 1 DJ, performed Shakespeare and other plays on stage, and starred in films. Then there is Red Nose Day, the now annual TV event that Henry helped to launch in 1988 to support the charity Comic Relief. And as one of the UK’s leading black performers, Henry has been a strong advocate in the campaign for improved diversity in the arts. “I can think of few people in TV who have used their fame more brilliantly,” says Richard Curtis. Henry is interviewed in-depth, recalling his childhood in Dudley (“I was the comedy jukebox. I killed my friends with jokes”) and how doing an Elvis impression at a nightclub in 1972 gave him the performing bug. He discusses winning New Faces in 1975 with his impressions of Frank Spencer and Stevie Wonder, working on the controversial The Black and White Minstrel Show and the radical black family sitcom The Fosters, as well as better-known projects such as the anarchic kids’ TV show Tiswas and tremendous 1980s sketch show. National treasure status is assured.
John Simpson: 50 Years on the Frontline
BBC One, 7.30pm
John Simpson has been a BBC reporter since 1970. On his first day at work he was punched in the stomach by the prime minister, Harold Wilson, and as the BBC’s frontline war correspondent he has proved himself a fearless journalist. In the line of duty, he has dodged bullets during the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, been injured in Iraq by friendly fire in 2003, and rather grandly announced that the BBC had liberated Kabul in 2001 (a report that won him an International Emmy), when he entered the city before coalition forces. Here, Simpson’s eventful career is recalled by a Panorama documentary.
Last Tango in Halifax
BBC One, 9pm
Sally Wainwright’s Bafta award-winning family drama has a limited universe. Perhaps in fear of it becoming stale, at the outset of this double bill (which concludes tomorrow, with the rest of series four to come early in 2017), Caroline (Sarah Lancashire) takes a job at a challenging academy school in Huddersfield, relocating her family to a new house – which could be haunted and definitely has damp. A change of scene doesn’t change the dynamic, but it does create plenty of new tensions. To give the oldies something to do, Celia and Alan (Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi) get involved in an am-dram production of Blithe Spirit.
Prince Harry in Africa
ITV, 9pm
Henry Charles Albert David Windsor, fifth in line to the throne, was voted the UK’s favourite royal in 2015, past misdemeanours forgiven as he follows in the humanitarian footsteps of his late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. This film exclusively focuses on his work for Sentebale, the charity he set up in the little-known African kingdom of Lesotho 12 years ago, which provides care, support and education to young people affected by HIV and Aids. The ITV news anchor Tom Bradby accompanies the prince as he returns to the kingdom to raise awareness of the charity, where he reveals why he’s determined to use his unique position to do good.
Booze, Beans and Bhajis: The Story of the Corner Shop
BBC Four, 10pm
The corner shop is a British institution. It dates back to the Victorian era, when the houses on the corner of the rows of newly built terraced houses were designed specifically to be a shop to provide food and essentials to the local community. Its demise is often predicted — most recently it was hit by a ban on displaying tobacco products — but somehow it soldiers on. Babita Sharma grew up in her parents’ shop in Reading, so she is uniquely placed to front this evocative edition of Timewatch, which reveals how these small, independent shops helped to shape Britain into a modern, multicultural society.
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Catch-up TV, by David Chater
Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race
BBC iPlayer, to January 4
Compared with the achievements of Nasa, the story of the Russian space programme is much less familiar. And yet — as this enthralling 2014 documentary shows — it was every bit as remarkable. Their massive R-7 Semyorka rocket was nine times more powerful than anything built before. It gave them a head start in the space race and they were able to launch the first dog in space, the first satellite, the first man in orbit, the first woman in space, and to carry out the first space walk. What the Russians didn’t divulge was how close they came to disaster on numerous occasions; for example, when Yuri Gagarin’s craft spun out of control as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere.
Film choice, by Chris Bennion
Earth vs the Flying Saucers (U, 1956, b/w)
More4, 10.20am
How can anyone resist that title? This 1950s sci-fi is almost the classic example of the genre and a major influence on Tim Burton’s hilarious B-movie pastiche, Mars Attacks! Dripping with Cold War paranoia, Earth vs the Flying Saucers is melodramatic, camp, silly and contains dialogue so hammy that you could hang it in a delicatessen: ie, it is everything that you would want from a film of this ilk. Hugh Marlowe is the handsome scientist who witnesses Ray Harryhausen’s disc-shaped flying saucers and, as everyone else is adopting a shoot first policy, attempts a bit of diplomacy with the aliens. Joan Taylor is his occasionally hysterical wife. There is even a spectacular spaceship attack on Washington DC, 40 years before Independence Day laid waste to the Capitol Building. (83min)
Madagascar (U, 2005)
BBC One, 3.50pm
The school holidays have started, it’s cold outside and the kids are getting fractious. Good news, then, if your little ones are fans of the animated Madagascar franchise, because all three are being shown in the next three days — and if they still can’t get enough, a spin-off, The Penguins of Madagascar, is on BBC One on Christmas Eve. They get better as they go along, but the first outing for the zany bunch of animals who escape the confines of a New York zoo is still good fun. Ben Stiller leads an impressive voice cast as Alex the lion, while Chris Rock provides serious pep as Marty the zebra, while David Schwimmer grabs laughs as a germ-fearing giraffe. However, it is Sacha Baron Cohen’s lunatic lemur that you won’t forget. (86min)
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The Woman in Black (15, 2012)
Channel 4, 12.40am
Here’s a classic Victorian ghost story for Christmas, full of old-fashioned, jump-in-your-seat scares (our tip: set the recorder and watch late on Christmas Eve). Daniel Radcliffe plays Arthur Kipps, a lawyer sent to Eel Marsh House in a coastal village to investigate an old lady’s disputed will. The set-up is chillingly effective, suffused with a nagging, damp disquiet from the marshes near by. The ghost woman is seen only in flashes, leaving the unknown to work over your subconscious. Jane Goldman’s adaptation of Susan Hill’s novella really works, with much creeping down of dark corridors in search of the unspeakable. Jessica Raine and Ciarán Hinds are among the supporting cast. (95min) Kate Muir
Radio choice, by Catherine Nixey
Northanger Abbey
Radio 4, 10.45am
Here’s a jolly adaptation of Jane Austen’s jolly satirical novel about the young Catherine Morland, who is taken to Bath for the season by her family, but who lives more fully in her overactive imagination than in the town’s Georgian terraces. Catherine, however, is disappointed to discover that she lacks all the attributes of a gothic heroine: she is not wanly beautiful; her father is called Richard; and, most disappointing of all, her mother, “instead of dying when she brought her into the world . . . lived on to have two more children and enjoyed excellent health”. Catherine is read by Georgia Groome — probably unknown to most Radio 4 listeners, but famous to the under 25s as the star of the 2008 film adaptation of the book Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging. A title that might have come from the pen Austen herself.
The Sigh
Radio 4, 8pm
The poet Imtiaz Dharker, who presents this social and cultural history of “the sigh” — a concept that sounds like the basis for a dry PhD thesis, but that in her hands turns into something very lovely indeed. Dharker traces the history of this sound from the medieval poets who believed that it was one of the most truthful ways that one could pray to God (sighs don’t lie); through the Romantic poets, who barely stopped sighing; and into the modern world and the science of sighing. It might seem like a slightly jaded, elderly act to sigh, but apparently babies sigh almost from the moment they are born.