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Daily Mail, Friday, August 16, 2019(^) TELEVISION
the city cop who, stranded in a small
Mississippi town, is arrested — because
he is a stranger and black. Co-star Rod
Steiger won one of the film’s Oscars.
Born Romantic, 12.35am, BBC1
BRITISH comedy following the dancers at
a salsa club as they step up to matters of
the heart. David
Morrissey,
Jimi Mistry,
Craig Ferguson
(pictured
with Olivia
Williams) and
Adrian Lester
are among
the hopeless
romantics —
more hopeless than romantic — who
find a new lease on love in the exotic
rhythms of Latin America.
DON’T MISS TOMORROW’S
WEEKEND MAGAZINE —
WITH ITS 52-PAGE GUIDE
TO NEXT WEEK’S TV
It’s Mind Your Language for 2019...
with a few 1970s gags thrown in
DECENT CHAP OF THE DAY:
Earlier this year, presenter Ben
Fogle pledged his fee from this
week’s morning show Animal
Park Summer Special (BBC1) to
fund free TV licences for the
over-75s. How many celebs
copied his example? Er... none!
O
f all the most
toe-curling, outdated
sitcoms of the Seven-
ties, the ones we
cringe to admit once
made us hoot with laughter,
Mind Your language is near
the top of the list.
The half-hour ITV comedy, which
aired at Saturday teatime between
1978 and 1979, was set in a london
evening class where an assortment
of jolly immigrants came to improve
their English.
Writer Vince Powell used to insist
that, far from being racist as
po-faced critics claimed, this
was an equal opportunities
sitcom. It took the mickey out of
every nationality.
In one typical set-up, Pakistani
ali (Dino Shafeek) thought he’d
won half a million quid on the
‘football puddles’, as he called the
pools. Suddenly, everyone wanted
to be his best mate — even Ranjeet
Singh (albert Moses), the Sikh who
usually wouldn’t even look at ali.
‘We are practically bloody
brothers!’ declared Ranjeet. ‘Oh
yes, I am loving Muslims —
especially when they have half a
million pounds.’
The show was so popular that it
earned a comeback in 1986, and a
remake called What a Country!
proved a smash-hit in the States.
Still, no one could revive that
scenario now... could they?
Well, Irish actress aisling Bea has
found a way, with a pungent
comedy about the pain of the per-
petual outsider, This Way Up (C4).
Bea, who also wrote the series,
stars as aine, a woman from Cork
adrift in the English capital and
tormented by mood swings that
can send her wisecracking
manically one day, speechless
and prostrate with depression
the next.
aine teaches English to immi-
grants. Cue lots of Mind Your lan-
guage gags, such as the confusion
over when to use ‘may’ instead of
‘can’. One baffled but polite East
European asks carefully: ‘Can I
have a may of Coke, please?’
Though aine makes ill-judged
attempts at a Jamaican accent,
and one of her Chinese students
rants about how ignorant Indians
are, this isn’t race-based comedy.
Golly goodness me, no. It has a
Brexit twist, you see, so that means
it’s satire.
It also has the outstanding
Sharon Horgan as aine’s big sister,
Shona, desperately juggling a high-
powered job in the City with the
demands of caring for a fragile
sibling who is prone to meltdowns
This Way Up HHHHI Fake Or Fortune HHHHI
CHRISTOPHER
STEVENS
LAST NIGHT’S TV
at any moment. The scene where
Shona breaks off from a crucial
meeting to take a call from a
hyper-ventilating, disintegrating
aine will touch a nerve with any-
one who has tried to have their
own life while offering 24-hour
support to a needy loved one.
This Way Up is fragmented,
with scenes strung together
rather than woven. It sometimes
spirals so deep into aine’s
anguish that it forgets even the
most self-absorbed sitcom must
have jokes. But when it remem-
bers to be funny, it offers plenty
of old-fashioned laughs.
The family that brought an
18th century Venetian canvas to
Fake Or Fortune (BBC1) didn’t
have many reasons to laugh.
Publisher Nick Hopkinson hoped
the picture, purchased by his
great-grandfather 100 years ago,
would prove to be by Canaletto’s
contemporary francesco Guardi
and worth £10 million.
By the time the experts had
finished X-raying, carbon-dating
and spectrum-analysing the
work — wielding lab equipment
including the marvellously nick-
named ‘Gun of Truth’ — Nick
had found out a lot of things he
really didn’t want to hear.
It turned out that great-gran-
dad knew perfectly well when he
bought it at auction that this
was no Guardi, but faked the
evidence — and even spun the
family a tall tale. This is such a
marvellous show for exposing
old lies. Roll on the next series.
ypp
than romantic who
CHANNEL 5
6.00 Milkshake! Peppa Pig (R,HD) 6.05
Peppa Pig (R,HD) 6.10 Peppa Pig (R) 6.15 Ben
and Holly’s Little Kingdom (R) 6.30 Olly the
Little White Van (R,HD) 6.35 Noddy: Toyland
Detective (R,HD) 6.45 Fireman Sam (R,HD)
6.55 Thomas & Friends: Big World! Big
Adventures! (R,HD) 7.05 Shane the Chef
(R,HD) 7.20 Peppa Pig (R) 7.30 Peppa Pig
(R,HD) 7.40 Top Wing (R,HD) 7. 5 5 Paw Patrol
(R,HD) 8.05 Digby Dragon (R,HD) 8.20 Little
Princess (R,HD) 8.40 Shimmer and Shine
(R,HD) 8.55 Floogals (R,HD) 9.10 Sunny
Bunnies (HD)
9.15 Jeremy Vine (HD)
11.15 GPs: Behind Closed Doors
(AD,R,HD)
12.10 5 News Lunchtime (HD)
12.15 GPs: Behind Closed Doors
(AD,R,HD)
1.10 Access (HD)
1.15 Home and Away (AD,HD)
1.45 Neighbours (AD,HD)
2.15 Dating to Kill (2019) (12) ● (HD)
Premiere. Thriller, starring Clare
Kramer and David Fumero.
4.00 Friends (R,HD)
4.30 Friends (R,HD)
5.00 5 News (HD)
5.30 Neighbours (AD,R,HD)
6.00 Home and Away (AD,R,HD) Tori is
anxious about Robbo’s parents.
6.30 How You Can Save the Planet:
5 News Tonight (HD)
7.00 Cricket on 5: The Ashes (HD)
England v Australia.
Action from day three of
the Second Test at Lord’s.
(Followed by 5 News Update)
8.00 Draining Alcatraz: The
Impossible Escape (R,HD) A look
at the floor of San Francisco Bay
surrounding the infamous prison.
(Followed by 5 News Update)
9.00 Celebrity 5 Go Barging (HD)
Michael, Shaun, Amanda, Anita
and John head into Shakespeare
country. Last in series.
See Critics’ Choice.
10.15 Cher: The Greatest Showgirl
(HD) Intercut with dramatised
extracts, this documentary
relives the meteoric highs and
devastating lows of the singer and
actress’s career in showbusiness.
See Critics’ Choice.
12.20 Greatest Ever Movie Blunders
(R,HD) 2.05 Access (HD) 2.15 The
21.co.uk Live Casino Show (HD) 4.15
GPs: Behind Closed Doors (AD,R,HD)
5.10 Great Scientists (BSL,R)
5.35 Wildlife SOS (BSL,R)
(^) ▲ Particularly liable to offend
WELSH TV VARIATIONS
BBC1: 1.30pm BBC Wales Today; Weather. 6.30 BBC
Wales Today; Weather. 7.30 Weatherman Walking:
Crickhowell and Bala. Derek Brockway tries out
barefoot walking in the hills above Crickhowell.
10.25 BBC Wales Today; Weather. 10.35 Tudur’s TV
Flashback. Tudur Owen sets out to to discover the
truth about drink. 11.05 Kevin Bridges: The Brand
New Tour. The comedian gives his take on the
modern world. 12.05am New Tricks. The team
reinvestigates the 1956 disappearance of a police
officer. 1.05 Murdered for Being Different.
S4C: 6.00am Cyw. 12noon Newyddion S4C a’r
Tywydd. 12.05 Parti Bwyd Beca. 12.30 Heno. 1.00
Dylan ar Daith. 2.00 Newyddion S4C a’r Tywydd.
2.05 Prynhawn Da. 3.00 Newyddion S4C a’r Tywydd.
3.05 Huw Stephens: Cofiwch Dryweryn. 4.00 Awr
Fawr: Olobobs. 4.05 Awr Fawr: Da ’Di Dona. 4.15 Awr
Fawr: Bach a Mawr. 4.30 Awr Fawr: Stiw. 4.45 Awr
Fawr: Deian a Loli. 5.00 Stwnsh. 6.00 Bwyd Epic
Chris. 6.30 Heno. 7.30 Newyddion S4C. 7. 5 5 Sgorio.
10.00 Straeon Tafarn. 10.35 Oci Oci Oci.
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