Saturday’s TV, by Chris Bennion
Sgt Pepper’s Music Revolution with Howard Goodall
BBC Two, 9pm
The BBC has not stinted when it has come to marking the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (on the radio at least), and as such you may be feeling a little over-Peppered. However, whether you’re a casual Fab Four fan or a bona fide Beatles buff, don’t miss Howard Goodall’s terrific and in-depth study of the musical — and production — genius behind the masterpiece. By 1966 the Beatles were fed up of not being able to hear themselves think, never mind play music on stage, and called an end to three years of touring. For them, the recording studio would be their retreat. By analysing a handful of songs, Goodall explains how Sgt Pepper moved the boundaries for pop music and created the blueprint for the music we consume today. This is a proper inside-the-recording-studio look and some of the most illuminating moments come from hearing outtakes from the album’s recording sessions. Here’s John mucking about on Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, there’s Paul demanding that Ringo “keep it a little straighter at the end”. Goodall is superb on dissecting the music, whether it’s separating out tracks from the master tapes of Penny Lane, describing why Paul’s Aeolian folk modal melody is key on She’s Leaving Home, or why the bassline of Lucy in the Sky undermines the key structure so much that it drifts into almost every other key by the end. You’ll never doubt their or Brian Epstein’s genius again. There is some more Beatles on Sky Arts at 9pm, as the conductor Charles Hazlewood creates his own compilation album of the Beatles’ solo tracks in My Beatles Black Album.
Live Rugby: The Lions
Sky Sports 1, 8am
Graham Henry, the former Lions and New Zealand coach, has described this tour as the hardest in the history of rugby union. The reason is that before the three Tests against the All Blacks, the Lions face the country’s five Super Rugby teams and two fearsome invitation XVs, starting today with the Provincial Barbarians in Whangarei (kick-off 8.35am). Eden Park and the Blues await on Wednesday. In the commentary box for today’s match are Miles Harrison and Stuart Barnes, while the former Lions Scott Quinnell and Will Greenwood, as well as the All Black hero Sean Fitzpatrick, are in the studio with Alex Payne.
The Derby
ITV, 1.30pm
The jewel in the flat-racing season’s crown returns to ITV for the first time in almost three decades. Ed Chamberlin and Francesca Cumani present live from Epsom Downs racecourse as the 238th Derby gets under way, with several hours of coverage that will include five races, a behind-the-scenes look at Epsom and interviews with everyone from star jockeys to stable boys. Expert analysis is provided by AP McCoy, Michael Kinane and Jason Weaver, while Matt Chapman will be marking your card if you fancy a flutter. There is a preview show at 9.25am for those who can’t wait; for the rest — the main event is at 4.30pm.
Britain’s Got Talent Final
ITV, 7.30pm
The country’s most popular end-of-pier variety show comes to a close tonight with the live final. One act will depart with the £250,000 prize plus a spot at this year’s Royal Variety Performance, while girl band Little Mix and dance troupe Diversity are in the studio to prove that there is life after winning TV talent shows. Finalists include the “mind-readers” DNA, eight-year-old magician Issy Simpson, young singer Kyle Tomlinson and “the Lee Evans of magic”, Matt Edwards. Best of British to them all.
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Doctor Who
BBC One, 7.35pm
There was a rumour doing the rounds recently that Pearl Mackie’s companion, Bill Potts, may depart the series when Peter Capaldi regenerates at Christmas (presumably so that the new showrunner, Chris Chibnall, could have a blank slate). What a crime that would be. This show needs someone who can arch an eyebrow and ask: “Why have you got a woman in a vault? Cos even I think that’s weird and I’ve been attacked by a puddle.” Tonight we are six months on from the alien monks’ invasion of Earth and everyone, in a very 1984 sort of way, has been brainwashed into believing that they have been there since the dawn of time. Except Bill.
Cardinal
BBC Four, 9pm
Snow? Check. Forests? Check. Surly, troubled detective? Check. Dead girl? Check. It is fair to say that this watchable import from Canada isn’t trying to reimagine the rules of crime drama — it is rather like one of those pulpy paperbacks aimed squarely at commuters. It is crime drama by numbers. Billy Campbell is Detective John Cardinal, who is vindicated when the body of a 13-year-old indigenous girl, who everyone but Campbell said was a runaway, is found in a block of ice in the Ontario wilds. Now Campbell and his Just-For-Men perma-stubble are back on the case with a pesky, peppy new partner — the Québecoise cop Lise Delorme (Karine Vanasse).
Catch-up TV, by Joe Clay
Mexico: Earth’s Festival of Life
BBC iPlayer, episode one expires on June 10
When you think of Mexico, your first thought probably isn’t of its wildlife, but this three-part series will change that. It begins in the ancient mountain worlds of the Sierra Madre, where there are black bears, a band of coatis living in an abandoned shrine, and the resplendent quetzal, whose feathers were more valuable than gold to the Aztecs. From there, we are plunged deep into the forests of the Yucatan peninsula, where spider monkeys feast on the fruit found in the ancient gardens of a Mayan temple. The series concludes in the arid deserts of the north, where the animals that adapt to these harsh conditions, such as the rare aplomado falcon, thrive.
Film Choice
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Grow Your Own (PG, 2007)
BBC Two, 6pm
A surfeit of political subtext is the flaw in Richard Laxton’s otherwise amiable and jaunty Britflick. It follows the fortunes of two immigrant families who are given garden patches by social workers on a communal allotment in post-industrial Merseyside. Naturally, some of the local green-fingered cronies soon complain of “immigrant invasions” and before you can say “George Orwell” the movie has launched itself into a world of metaphor and allegory. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and indeed the script by Frank Cottrell-Boyce thrills with its ability to turn the regular allotment meetings into parliamentary parody. There is some sprightly writing throughout, married with effortlessly naturalistic performances from an ensemble cast that includes Benedict Wong, Eddie Marsan, Olivia Colman, Omid Djalili and Pearce Quigley. (95min) Kevin Maher
Legend (18, 2015)
Channel 4, 9pm
What’s better than Tom Hardy? Two Tom Hardys in Brylcreem and sharp suits knocking seven bells out of one another in an East End gangster movie, based on the real-life story of the Kray twins. This biopic is an awful mess, but it’s worth a watch for Hardy (Hardies?) alone. Oozing bullish menace, Hardy plays Reggie and Ronnie in a miracle of CGI, splitscreen, body-double wizardry. Legend proves that organised crime can become disorganised when it’s in the hands of two very different brothers: the cool, smart Reggie and the more unbalanced Ronnie. Hardy plays Reggie as a straight businessman with an occasional taste for surprise violence, and the bespectacled and somehow fatter Ronnie as a gay, capricious, spittle-mouthed psychopath with no control. Two magnificent performances. (131min) Kate Muir
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (15, 2011)
Channel 4, 11.35pm
Gary Oldman is doughily inscrutable, a pudgy, pallid little man who is all but unreadable in his swamp of an overcoat — he perfectly captures the character of George Smiley, John le Carré’s seasoned spy, who is called out of retirement to uncover a Soviet agent within the upper echelons of “The Circus”. The director Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) reunites with the cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, and the results are impressive. Like Let the Right One In, Tinker Tailor is set during the grubby, nub end of the 1970s. What the pair bring to this material is a sense of the paranoia of surveillance culture. (127min) Wendy Ide
Radio Choice, by Catherine Nixey
Between the Ears: Water Towers of New York
Radio 3, 9.30pm
Look across the rooftops of New York and you will see that on every roof — at least every one over six floors — is a water tower: round, wooden structures, like giant barrels. They were there to solve a simple problem: the state reservoirs supply water only pressurised enough to be pumped to the sixth floor, so above that you need a tower to store water for drinking water and for firefighting. Although you will have certainly seen them before — equally certainly, you will probably never have noticed them. Now, these cedar tanks are moving from being invisible to iconic: artists are photographing them, adoring them, making models of them, putting art inside them and (dare one say it) slightly spoiling them with their adoration. Judith Kampfner peers into them.
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Opera On 3: John Adams’s Doctor Atomic
Radio 3, 6pm
John Adams is often seen as a political composer: he has written operas about the atomic bomb, Richard Nixon and a Palestinian hijacking. He won’t, however, be writing about President Trump anytime soon. As he said recently, “So far I’ve always said a categorical ‘no’ . . . [Trump] is not interesting because he’s a sociopath. There’s no empathy. He’s a manipulator.” So if you want an Adams take (albeit a tangential one) on events, you’ll have to plumb his back catalogue. His opera on Dr J Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the first atomic bomb might be a good place to start, given recent nuclear wobbles. Gerald Finley sings Oppenheimer.
Sunday’s TV, by Joe Clay
The Handmaid’s Tale
Channel 4, 9pm
Bruce Miller’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian feminist novel looks fantastic. It is beautifully filmed and artfully styled. Some of the cinematography in last week’s opening episode was straight from a Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers) movie, especially the aerial shots of the handmaids moving in groups in a flowing ripple of red and white. The tone is sombre and the mood repressive and bleak; this is not the escapist fare many crave on a Sunday night. The only relief from the horrors of the totalitarian society, with its mutilations, executions and ritual rapes, is offered in the petulant voiceover from Offred (Elisabeth Moss), brief snatches of black humour in the joyless plot. “I don’t need oranges,” Offred thought during a shopping trip in last week’s pilot, “I need to scream. I need to grab the nearest machinegun.” There is a marginally lighter tone to tonight’s second episode, although it opens with Offred being raped again. “I wish he’d hurry the f*** up,” she says, deadpan, during a scheduled bout of mechanical sex with the Commander, Fred (Joseph Fiennes). Later, Offred accompanies several other handmaids to the birthing ceremony of Janine and Naomi, for whom the Commander’s wife, Sere, acts as a surrogate. In a time when births are rare and healthy births even rarer, the arrival of a new baby is a joyful thing. On arriving home, Offred receives an ominous summons from Fred: he wants to see her alone in his office that evening, which is against standard protocol. You fear the worst, but his request is surprising. The Handmaid’s Tale is surreal, horrific and mundane in equal measure.
Question Time Leaders’ Special
BBC One, 6pm
With only four days to go until votes are cast in the general election, David Dimbleby chairs another Question Time Leaders Special from Edinburgh, this time featuring the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron, and Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland. It is invaluable if you still haven’t made up your mind who to vote for, but tiresome if you’re already suffering from election fatigue. Also tonight, Election Questions to the leader of Plaid Cymru, Leanne Wood, are broadcast live from Swansea (BBC One Wales, 10.30pm), while Paul Nuttall of Ukip faces the public live in Bristol (BBC One, 10.30pm).
One Love Manchester
BBC One, 6.55pm
Old Trafford cricket ground is the venue for this impressive and impressively organised concert, shown live here on BBC One, to benefit those affected by the Manchester bomb attack in May. The line-up is a who’s who of the pop world and includes Justin Bieber, Coldplay, Katy Perry, Take That, Miley Cyrus, the Black Eyed Peas, Pharrell Williams and Niall Horan. With no little courage the performer Ariana Grande, whose concert was targeted by the attacker, returns to the city to headline what will be an emotional event. Chris Bennion
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Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This
ITV3, 10pm
A repeat of Simon Nye’s 2014 drama that tells the story of Tommy Cooper’s love for two women at the same time. It’s a sad old business. Cooper (David Threlfall) needed to tour, but his wife (Amanda Redman) was sick of it. Since he couldn’t function without someone to help, Cooper employed Mary Kay (Helen McCrory) as his assistant and they fell in love. Threlfall is so good, playing an innocent who could be oddly cruel, that you forget it isn’t the man himself on screen.
Paul Hollywood’s Big Continental Road Trip
BBC Two, 9pm
Paul Hollywood is in Germany, learning the rules of the road from the lanky comedian Christian Schulte-Loh while driving a powerful Mercedes 600 Grosser around Berlin. Drive fast, but don’t break the rules. “Efficiency within the system,” says Hollywood. “How very German.” Amid the German-stereotype bingo (naked people, spicy sausages) there are lots and lots of cars. Hollywood channels Clarkson, speeding along the autobahn in a BMW i8 (“It’s gorgeous, sexy and very, very fast”), discovers his inner-hippy in a VW camper van, and drives a stretch of the Nürburgring known as “the green hell” with a clearly petrified Al Murray.
Catch-up TV, by Joe Clay
Inspector George Gently
BBC iPlayer, to June 20
It is 1970 and a new case for Gently (Martin Shaw) puts him at loggerheads with his protégé, DI Bacchus (Lee Ingleby). A body discovered in a chemical plant turns out to be that of a man killed by his wife in 1962. Bacchus was a DS in the investigating team that secured the wife’s conviction. However, the location of the body leads Gently to believe that the original investigation was flawed and Bacchus’s insistence that Gently should not reopen the case adds to his suspicions. “Is there something I should know here?” asks Gently. “If there is, tell me — don’t let me find it.” A bullish Gently, with retirement almost upon him, doesn’t let anything stand in his way in his search for the truth.
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The Queen (12, 2006)
ITV, 12.20pm
Stephen Frears’s examination of the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana is a crisp and classy affair. The writing, by Peter Morgan, is pitched perfectly — pathos and an empathy for the tragedy is matched by elegant wit and well-observed humour. Yet even a script of this calibre would run the risk of turning into a hollow soap opera without performances to bring it to life. And in The Queen, Helen Mirren in the title role and Michael Sheen as Tony Blair, the newly appointed prime minister, are on top form. Mirren won a Bafta and an Academy Award for her performance, thanking the real Queen in her acceptance speech. She later received an OBE, despite having previously refused one. (103min) Wendy Ide
Pride and Prejudice (U, 1940, b/w)
BBC Two, 2.15pm
Jane Austen’s novel gets the full swoonsome 1940s silverscreen treatment, with Laurence Olivier slipping into Mr Darcy’s sideburns. The script takes liberties with the source material, not least transposing the action to 1835 to keep the costume department happy, but the spirit of Austen’s sharp comedy of manners remains. Despite being a rather “middle-aged” Elizabeth Bennet, Greer Garson — who was 35 — sparkles as the strong-willed second daughter. The romance is of the string-swelling, not bodice-ripping kind (Olivier does not dive into any ponds) and is all the nicer for it. (117min) Chris Bennion
Rust and Bone (15, 2012)
Film4, 1am
Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts star as Stephanie and Ali, two lost souls flung together after a horrific incident robs Stephanie, a killer whale trainer at a marine park, of her legs and the will to live. The freak accident around which the film pivots is bizarre and unlikely — it’s one of the few moments when the director, Jacques Audiard, trades his clear-eyed style for something more impressionistic. Sinking into depression in her wheelchair, Stephanie calls the one person she knows won’t shroud her in pity: Ali, a bouncer who once drove her home from a nightclub after she got in a fight. Schoenaerts nails the role. There is something animalistic in him that strikes a chord with Stephanie and she watches him compete in underground bare-knuckle fights with an expression between hunger and arousal. (120min) WI
Radio Choice, by Catherine Nixey
World Book Club: Jeffrey Archer
World Service, 2.06pm
It is one of the bestselling books of all, having sold more copies than The Great Gatsby and Gone With the Wind, yet it’s not the kind of book that you’d expect to hear on World Book Club because it is Jeffrey Archer’s Kane and Abel. Read its first two sentences and you can see why it appeals: “She only stopped screaming when she died. It was then that he started to scream.” Archer is interesting — although few would accuse him of being self-effacing. Harriett Gilbert is her usual excellent self, this time with a touch of archness too. Readers of Archer’s books, she says, “need never worry about going cold turkey. In the last four decades he’s published more than 30 works of fiction.” Somehow she doesn’t make that sound like a compliment.
Drama on 3: My Own Life
Radio 3, 9pm
“Now I am face to face with dying.” So says Oliver Sacks at the start. When he recorded this programme in 2015, he didn’t sound unwell; he sounded, if anything, a bit like God might: deep, and slow, and wise. “It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can.” Being Sacks, this didn’t mean a “bucket list” or a trip to India. It meant turning to David Hume’s autobiography, written when he was himself dying, excerpts of which are read here. The atheist Hume was admirable in his consistency even to the point of death. Did the thought of annihilation never give him any uneasiness? “Not the least. No more than the thought that he had not been, as Lucretius observes.”