CRITICS’ CHOICE
They called it acieed
The Agony & The Ecstasy (Sky Arts, 9pm)
Britain had its own Summer of Love in 1988, and Norman Jay knows what it was about. The “real story” of rave, he earnestly insists, was simply “music and dance” — however, Jay soon vanishes for a while and seems to be rudely contradicted by the film he nominally presents. Drugs were also important, it swiftly concedes, as it sets out a biblical origin narrative: the original Mediterranean collective epiphany; the evangelists (“the Ibiza four”) who brought the acid-house gospel back to Britain; the cult’s secret gatherings in fields and warehouses.
Although Jay pops up again, this first instalment of a three-part chronicle is mostly a collage of interviews with DJs. There are far too many of them, but the plethora of enthusing voices may be needed to compensate for the dearth of evocative images: surprisingly little footage of the emergent scene was shot, it seems, and what there is here is grey and uninspiring.
John Dugdale
Dicte — Crime Reporter (More 4, 9pm)
All of the obvious crime story tropes are in evidence in this Danish drama; the jail scenes, the murdered women, the car chases, but they are delivered in a soft Scandinavian manner that feels fresh even to audiences fed on The Killing. As Dicte, Iben Hjejle (who starred with John Cusack in High Fidelity) skilfully weaves family and work stories to a satisfying conclusion as the second series ends. (HS)
Teach My Pet To Do That (ITV, 8pm; not STV)
Alexander Armstrong teams up with the animal trainers Jo-Rosie Haffenden and Nando Brown to open a pet school in the country. The animals may be small but their brains are huge, and while the show does not address the amount of grey matter possessed by the owners, they are certainly keen. Tonight, can Eric the dog and miniature horse Aslan learn how to open a door? Is this even wise? (HS)
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Friday Night Football (Sky Sports Main Event, 7pm)
Last season saw the introduction of matches on Friday nights, and now the Premier League kicks off in this slot — not Saturday afternoon — for the first time ever. The 2016-7 FA Cup winners entertain the 2015-6 champions, with two new signings — Arsenal’s £52m striker, Alexandre Lacazette, and Leicester’s centre-back, Harry Maguire, just acquired for £17m from Hull — up against each other. (JD)
BBC Proms (BBC4, 8pm)
Katie Derham presents a long Prom devoted to Oklahoma!, the first Rodgers and Hammerstein collaboration and a fusion of drama, song and dance credited with changing musicals. John Wilson conducts his own orchestra, and the semi-staged production’s cast is led by Nathaniel Hackmann, Scarlett Strallen, Robert Fairchild and Lizzy Connolly. Look out for Marcus Brigstocke as “Persian pedlar” Ali Hakim. (JD)
FILM CHOICE
Contraband (2012)
C4, 12 midnight
A thriller about a former seagoing smuggler (Mark Wahlberg) forced by a family crisis to risk one more voyage, Baltasar Kormakur’s film is certainly not guilty of conveying hidden subtexts within its simple packaging. It is very much the sort of movie it declares itself to be: a basic consignment of entertaining hokum.
The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes (1970)
TCM, 8.30am
Billy Wilder’s final noteworthy film is an impish but reverent take on Conan Doyle’s hero (played by Robert Stephens). Through a story involving Loch Ness and Queen Victoria, it pokes fun at the barminess of Holmes’s usual exploits, but it also reveals — with much poignancy — the great man’s vulnerable side.
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Lost In Translation (2003)
Sky Cinema Select, 10pm
Playing lonely souls who become friends while adrift in a Tokyo hotel, Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson give tender performances in Sofia Coppola’s drama, and the director shows similar finesse in her main achievement in the film: creating a series of resonant, shimmering moods.
Strictly Ballroom (1992)
BBC1, 11.05pm
Baz Luhrmann’s tuneful romcom about two rebellious dancers (Paul Mercurio and Tara Morice) takes the mickey out of ballroom’s fake-tanned silliness while staying true to the art form’s essence: it stages a happy show and sprinkles glitter everywhere.
Previews by Edward Porter
Radio pick of the day
BBC Proms (Radio 3, 7.30pm)
Live from the Royal Albert Hall, John Wilson and his orchestra perform Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, the landmark Broadway musical immortalised by its opening number, Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’. Nathaniel Hackmann and Belinda Lang and lead the cast. Friday Night Is Music Night (R2, 8pm) celebrates another great American musical figure — George Gershwin.
Paul Donovan
Sports choice
T20 Cricket (SS Cricket, 6pm)
Football Partick Thistle v Celtic (BT Sport 1, 7.15pm)
You say
Was the letter from Chris Bainbridge printed just to be provocative? To suggest getting rid of Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time (Radio 4) in order to improve audience figures is wrong on so many levels.
Glenn Baker
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Chris Bainbridge claims the figures must be dire. It pulls in 2m and the podcast reaches 3.5m.
Andrew Chisholm
It is arguably the best programme on radio. It’s sometimes difficult to understand — but isn’t that the point? You might actually learn something.
Hugh Pearson
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