For full TV listings for the week, see thetimes.co.uk/tvplanner
Saturday’s viewing guide, by Ben Dowell
Reel Stories: Sting
BBC2, 9.25pm
Dermot O’Leary showing famous musicians clips from their lives in a comfy cinema . . . sometimes the best TV formats are the simplest. There is a certain deference about O’Leary’s interviewing style and it doesn’t always bring out the most likeable side of Sting, or Gordon Sumner to give him his real name, a man whose self-confidence can sometimes come across as arrogance. Yet he has certainly led an interesting as well as a charmed life, from when he was a young, cash-strapped Geordie journeying to London and eventually starting a band called the Police (the subject of a Top of the Pops Police Special being broadcast before this at 8.25pm). Life has taught him that “if you dream hard enough, something happens”, he tells us. We learn something about Sting’s early musical influences, foremost of which seems to be watching Jimi Hendrix performing live, the American’s dazzling brilliance making him seem almost like a creature from another planet. Sting is sufficiently self-aware to realise that he was sometimes a difficult person to work with, his drive for perfection often rubbing his Police bandmates up the wrong way, and we are shown honest and raw footage of their rows before their split. He admits to taking his young family to Chelsea before fame struck and promising them that they would one day live somewhere like the fancy Cheyne Walk houses they saw. Yet he can also be likeably frank about the vagaries of pop success, later admitting that at the height of their early-1980s fame the Police were simply “in the right place at the right time and had the right haircut”.
48 Hours to Victory
Channel 4, 8.25pm
There’s more Dermot O’Leary on telly tonight, with the latest examination of the way strategy played a key role in landmark battles. The title again doesn’t seem to entirely fit the subject. Last week it was the Dunkirk evacuations, this time it’s the 1916 Battle of the Somme, a byword for senseless slaughter and perhaps not a victory in the strict sense of the word. O’Leary, alongside the former Royal Marine Arthur Williams and the historian Lucy Betteridge-Dyson, reveal how the lessons learnt in previous months finally came to fruition as the German lines were penetrated and grenade warfare was refined.
The Mountbattens: A Scandalous Marriage
Channel 5, 9.25pm
In The Crown, Charles Dance’s Louis Mountbatten was depicted toying with the idea of overthrowing Harold Wilson’s government. The drama deployed less stress on another interesting — and important — aspect of his life: his open marriage to the multimillionairess Edwina Ashley. It was characterised by a number of infidelities on both sides, largely kept out of the newspapers. Ashley was said to have had 18 affairs, with her lovers including the West Indian cabaret performer Leslie Hutchinson and the prime minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru.
Stieg Larsson’s Millennium
BBC4, 9.30pm/11pm
The final two episodes of this Swedish series culled from the original three films of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy finishes tonight with the final book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. It makes for a marathon but rewarding watch, with the story fleshed out into two 90-minute episodes. Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is once again our attractively raffish hero, investigating corruption, sexual abuse and murder with the aid of the ingenuous computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace). As the action begins where the last book ended, we find her severely wounded in hospital.
Advertisement
Lead Belly: The Man Who Invented Rock and Roll
Sky Arts/Now, 11pm
George Harrison was certainly unequivocal in his assessment of the impact of Huddie Ledbetter, better known as the folk and blues singer Lead Belly. “No Lead Belly, no Beatles,” the English guitarist and songwriter said. Lead Belly pioneered 12-string guitar rhythms and is said to have invented rock’n’roll. The claim is explored by this gentle film, which uses interviews and footage to support the thesis, one that is shared by a number of British music greats including Van Morrison and Ronnie Wood.
Catch-up TV, by James Jackson
Showtrial
BBC iPlayer
Guilty or not guilty? It’s the oldest premise in the suspense drama playbook, yet it rarely fails to grip your attention. And so it is with Showtrial, a five-part crime mystery that has a novel hook to go with it: you can’t stand the person being accused. Talitha (the impressive Celine Buckens) is a rich, “bad girl” student so high on her privilege that she sneers at the officers who arrest her, laughs as they interrogate her about the disappearance of a fellow student and disregards the advice of the lawyer looking out for her (Tracy Ifeachor). Talitha is awful, but that’s the point. The audience is challenged to put aside any judgment of her and look baldly at the facts of what becomes a murder case.
Film choice, by Kate Muir
Far from the Madding Crowd (12, 2015)
BBC2, 6.35pm
A glowing Carey Mulligan illuminates the screen as Bathsheba Everdene in this lush adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s novel by the author David Nicholls (One Day, Us). The 1874 novel has a most modern heroine in Bathsheba, a feisty young woman who inherits a fine farm and house and resolves to run the show alone. “I have no need of a husband,” she declares, but Hardy has other plans for her, and fate intervenes in the form of three handsome suitors: Gabriel Oak, a farmer of sense and sensibility played by Matthias Schoenaerts; William Boldwood, an uptight, upright landowner played by Michael Sheen; and Sergeant Francis Troy, a scarlet-clad cad played by Tom Sturridge. Choices, choices. (119min)
First Knight (PG, 1995)
Drama, 9.30pm
Jerry Zucker’s big-budget take on the Arthurian legend does for Camelot what Braveheart did for William Wallace — ie, whatever the heck it wants. In Zucker’s defence, King Arthur is a legend, so he may well have been involved in a love triangle with Lancelot (a glossy maned Richard Gere, looking like a very healthy dog) and Guinevere (Julia Ormond). Lancelot’s designs on Arthur’s betrothed are not the only thing to worry Sean Connery’s king — an uppity knight, Malagant (Ben Cross), is intent on rebellion. Look out for appearances from Ralph Ineson (Finchy from The Office) and Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones), with big bonus points if you spot Rob Brydon. (134min) Chris Bennion
Radio choice, by Ben Dowell
Lola vs Powerman
Radio 4, 2.45pm
The Kinks album Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One was released in 1970 when the band’s songwriter, Ray Davies, was in the middle of a legal struggle for the rights to his compositions. This 90-minute play, which Davies has written with the dramatist Paul Sirett, obliquely tells that story through the adventures of a songwriter essentially battling the man. Alongside classic Kinks songs (such as Lola), it makes an often self-justificatory and occasionally self-indulgent appraisal of music industry temptations and the conduct of its chieftains via characters such as Satan, Lust and Mammon.
Advertisement
Sunday’s viewing guide, by Joe Clay
Walk the Line
ITV, 8pm
This year The X Factor, faced with dwindling ratings and a lack of relevance in an ever-changing TV landscape, was finally put out of its misery after 17 years. Beaten but not broken, Simon Cowell is having another crack at the musical reality show with Walk the Line, hosted by the former Radio 1 DJ Maya Jama, which he created and is made by his production company Syco and Lifted Entertainment (the team behind I’m a Celebrity and Love Island). The game show, which is on every night this week with the final on Friday, offers one musical act — soloists, duos or bands — the opportunity to win £500,000. First they must perform for the nation and the judges — the pop stars Gary Barlow, Alesha Dixon and Craig David and, sticking out like a sore thumb, the comedy actress Dawn French. The top two performers on the night can either take the money awarded for their initial triumph and run, or “walk the line” and play on. Should they stay in and top the leaderboard, they will progress to the next show, facing a different cast of performers — but only one act can win the final prize pot. The hope is that this financial jeopardy is enough to differentiate Walk the Line from The X Factor, while the brief six-episode run should ensure it doesn’t overstay its welcome. Barlow, a former X Factor judge, is taking Cowell’s place on the judging panel, with TV’s Mr Nasty unable to fulfil the role as he continues his recovery after breaking his back in an electric bike accident in 2020.
The Pet Show
ITV, 4.30pm
Dermot O’Leary and a heavily pregnant Joanna Page (Gavin & Stacey) are your hosts for a lightweight new eight-part series about one of the nation’s favourite obsessions — our pets. The duo present from a bucolic countryside location, where they are joined by a vet and an animal behaviour expert, while the biologist Patrick Aryee is the show’s roving reporter. There are stories of inspirational animals in the search for pet of the year, while each week a prize pooch and their celebrity owner compete on the agility course, starting with Ben Miller and Jet, his Black Russian terrier.
Britain’s Favourite 80s Toys
Channel 5, 8pm
More visual catnip for children of the 1980s as toy experts, manufacturers and celebrity talking heads, including Shappi Khorsandi, Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Grace Dent, look back at the toys that helped to define the decade. This year the must-have Christmas toys include Galactic Snackin’ Grogu Animatronic (fans of Disney’s The Mandalorian will know what that is), but at various points during the 1980s kids were asking Santa for He-Man action figures, Transformers and Care Bears. They all feature here, along with Hungry Hippos (described on Twitter by Werner Herzog as “a special Cold War project designed to . . . undermine late-capitalism”), Trivial Pursuit, Sony Walkmans and BMX bikes.
You Don’t Know Me
BBC1, 9pm
Tom Edge’s gripping crime drama, based on the 2017 novel by the barrister Imran Mahmood, continues. Our protagonist, Hero (Samuel Adewunmi), on trial for the murder of drug dealer Jamil (Roger Jean Nsengiyumva), continues telling the jury his story, about how he risked everything to save the girl he loved. He has accounted for most of the evidence that linked him to the crime and in the process implicated himself in other crimes, revealing how he nearly lost his life. But he still insists he is not guilty of murder. Will the jury believe him? Find out tomorrow night.
I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! Final
ITV, 9pm
This year’s series of the reality show has been notable for the celebrities being removed from their Welsh castle home due to the adverse weather conditions caused by Storm Arwen. Three of the live episodes had to be cancelled, but once the winds subsided it was business as usual, with the former footballer David Ginola emerging as the favourite to be crowned King of the Castle. The biggest disappointment was an early exit for Richard Madeley — the show’s only real big beast — who had to leave after feeling unwell and going to hospital, thus breaching the Covid safety rules.
Advertisement
Catch-up TV, by Joe Clay
Universe
BBC iPlayer
Ten years after his BBC series Wonders of the Universe, Professor Brian Cox embarks on another mind-bending journey into the cosmos. There are an estimated two trillion galaxies in our universe, all containing billions of stars and countless planets, worlds that exist “beyond our imagination”. The universe is “so vast, so incomprehensible, so terrifying”, Cox says, “that I think it’s natural for us to live out our lives completely oblivious to it”. But in answering some of the big questions — How did the universe come to be? Why are we here? Is there life on other planets? How will it all end? — we can start to understand ourselves better. The five-part series is often profoundly melancholic, with Cox wandering an assortment of parched landscapes as if he were the last man on Earth.
Film choice, by Wendy Ide
The Shape of Water (15, 2017)
Channel 4, 10.55pm
Guillermo del Toro’s girl-meets-fishman fairytale gained the Mexican auteur the best picture and best director Oscars, with its stars Sally Hawkins, Richard Jenkins and Octavia Spencer also nominated. It is, as Mark Kermode put it in his BBC Four series Secrets of Cinema, “Splash meets Creature from the Black Lagoon”, with Hawkins’s mute cleaner Elisa falling for the amphibious humanoid creature, who has been brought into the Cold War government facility where Elisa works. You’ll either be charmed by Hawkins’s ethereal, wordless performance or you won’t, but Del Toro’s use of a vivid colour palette would impress anyone. Del Toro’s own breathing was recorded and used as part of the Amphibian Man’s vocalisation. (123min) Chris Bennion
Oranges and Sunshine (15, 2010)
BBC1, 12.45am
Jim Loach, son of Ken, directs the real-life story of Margaret Humphreys, a social worker who uncovered an international scandal. In 1986 she looked into the case of a woman who wanted to find out who she was before, aged four, she was loaded on to a ship with hundreds of other children and transported from Britain to Australia. Humphreys discovered that vulnerable children were shipped to the other side of the world to live in orphanages. The film’s standout asset is Emily Watson in the role of Humphreys. She absorbs the stories of the children who were taught to believe they had no worth, her eyes flickering with the tears they no longer know how to shed. (105min)
Radio choice, by Ben Dowell
Howl’s Moving Castle
Radio 4, 3pm
Diana Wynne Jones’s 1986 children’s fantasy book was adored by the pre-Harry Potter generation and is here turned into an exquisite radio drama narrated by the Cold Feet actor Robert Bathurst. In the land of Ingary, a menacing-looking flying castle belching black smoke has appeared above the town of Market Chipping. It’s rumoured to be owned by a dark wizard called Howl who spends his time collecting young girls and sucking out their souls. Yet when young hat shop worker Sophie Hatter is transformed into an old woman by a witch, the castle may just provide the key to lifting the curse.