The Observer - 04.08.2019

56

The Observer

04.08.19

Television

Today Monday Tuesday Wednesday

Can You Beat the Bookies?

BBC Three, from 10am

Wagering £7,500 of BBC money across a

spread of different sports, comedian/Soccer

AM presenter Lloyd Griffi th (who regrets

appearing in a recent Ladbrokes ad) tries

an experiment to see if the odds are always

stacked against the punter. An eye-opening

fi lm that meets cheats and exposes the awful

truth about the industry. Doc of the week.

The Mind of Herbert Clunkerdunk

BBC Two, 10pm & 10.10pm

Modern-day Kenny Everett Spencer Jones

launches a gently eccentric and very funny

series of shorts with a double bill about

stumblebum hero Clunkerdunk’s (Jones)

struggles to invent a jingle for a Plumstead

cab company and record an audition tape

for a musical, all the while being plagued by

his surreal, hyper-musical imagination. MB

Film

The Wicked Lady

(Leslie Arliss, 1945)

Talking Pictures TV, 9pm

A prime exhibit from Britain’s Gainsborough

Pictures, and defi nitive star vehicle of Margaret

Lockwood – the reigning femme fatale of

UK costume drama, until she told J Arthur

Rank she was “sick of sinning”. In this ripe

17th-century swashbuckler, she plays bored

Lady Barbara Skelton, who fi nds distraction in

a secret life as a pistol-toting highwaywoman

• and in the affections of Michael Rennie as
  decent, dashing Kit, and James Mason as the
  considerably racier stand-and-deliver merchant
  Captain Jerry. The fi lm was a huge hit in the
  UK and an object of scandal in the US, where
  its generous cleavage quotient fell foul of the
  Hollywood Production Code. Fans of Poldark-
  style heritage steaminess, it all starts here. JR

Pick of the Day

The Misadventures of

Romesh Ranganathan

BBC Two, 9pm

Thanks to Joanna Lumley’s Trans-Siberian

exploits and endless eagle-hunting docs,

Mongolia is fast becoming less of a niche

destination. In this inviting portrait, the

host’s attempt to wrestle in a pair of red

budgie-smugglers diverts our attention

from polluted capital Ulaanbaatar, and

beyond the city limits we enjoy “vegan

eagle-hunting”, a riotously unconvincing

audience with a shaman and a visit to

the buddhist “energy centre of Earth”.

Pick of the Day

Who Do You Think You Are?

BBC One, 9pm

Jack & Michael Whitehall An unpredictable

investigation into Michael’s side of the

family proves both enlightening and

surprising for comedian/actor Jack

Whitehall and his father/double-act

partner as the pair discover that they’re

not quite as upper-crust as they’d thought.

Rather than putting them off, it just makes

them hungrier for more information on

a journey that takes them to orphanages

and psychiatric hospitals. You do wonder,

though, what about the maternal side?

Pick of the Day

Euphoria

Sky Atlantic, 10pm

Sure to be the most talked about American

import of the week, Sam Levison’s latest

show is accurately billed as a “coming-

of-age drama offering a fresh look at the

complexities of teenage life in a social

media -obsessed world” and it’s great.

Seventeen-year-old Rue Bennett (Zendaya,

below) has just left rehab and feels adrift

in a youth culture obsessed with sex, drugs

and violence. Watch her life transform

when she meets put-upon kindred spirit

transgender girl Jules. Skins on MDMA.

Pick of the Day

Sacred Wonders

BBC One, 9pm

A tour of the world’s most sacred places

yields new perspectives in an intelligently

devised opening programme that travels

to the ghostly abandoned temple complex

of Angkor Wat, in Cambodia, attends the

Easter parade through the the Spanish city

of Málaga and follows the acrobatic path to

ordination of a buddhist monk (and kung

fu master) at China’s Shaolin Temple. A

swirling orchestral score complements a

grand tour that focuses on slightly random

points of interest but is still worth a look.

The Chefs’ Brigade

BBC Two, 9pm

Travelling to Bergen in Norway, Jason

Atherton’s brigade of hopefuls are introduced

to this week’s opposition at Lysverket, the

restaurant run by new star of Nordic cuisine

Christopher Haatuft, who specialises in

minimalist creations concocted from local

produce. Can Jenny and Jay and co get their

heads round his “less is more” approach?

I Am Hannah

Channel 4, 10pm

Dominic Savage’s drama anthology ends with

the most heartrending episode to date in

which Gemma Chan (Humans) impresses with

her improvisation as singleton Hannah whose

mother is nagging her to start a family before

the (body-)clock runs out. Cue: a succession of

desperate dates involving selfi sh men that is

ultimately rewarded with a fl icker of hope. MB

Film

Shutter Island

(Martin Scorsese, 2010)

Sky Cinema Greats, 11.40am & 8pm

Scorsese goes gothic with this 1950s-set thriller

based on a Dennis Lehane novel and starring

Leonardo DiCaprio as a lawman investigating

mysterious goings-on at a secluded mental

hospital. A teasingly labyrinthine mind-bender,

it shows Scorsese tipping his hat to the great

1940s chiller cycle of Val Lewton. Intensely

atmospheric, often genuinely scary, with Laeta

Kalogridis’s script pulling carpet after carpet

from under us, the fi lm also makes bold use

of a Shining-esque modernist soundtrack

including such composers as Penderecki and

John Cage. A superb character cast includes Ben

Kingsley, Patricia Clarkson and Max von Sydow

• and if you ever doubted DiCaprio’s ability
  to convey troubled depth, think again. JR

Stacey Meets the IS Brides

BBC One, 8.30pm

Panorama Arriving in Kurdish-controlled

northern Syria, recently announced “offi cial

face of the BBC” Stacey Dooley meets western

women who left to join Islamic State. Some

still support IS while others just want to

come home regardless of the consequences.

What will become of them and the European

children in the Kurdish holding camps?

Born Famous: Gordon Ramsay

Channel 4, 10pm

This mildly interesting new series is actually

about what it’s like being the offspring of

a celebrity, starting with Jack Ramsay, who

spends time on a council estate to investigate

what life could have been like had he not been

born to loudmouthed chef Gordon. Still to

come: the kids of Spice Girl Mel B, footballer

Paul Ince, and entrepreneur Michelle Mone. MB

Film

Model Shop

(Jacques Demy, 1969)

Sony Movie Channel, 11.35pm

A profoundly strange LA fi lm, and not what you

might expect from the director of gorgeously

baroque modern musicals like Les parapluies

de Cherbourg. But Demy originally dreamed of

all his fi lms being interconnected, and this one

brings back Anouk Aimée’s showgirl character

from 1961’s Lola. Here, Lola poses in a seedy

LA photo joint, where she fascinates an

alienated young man ( 2001 ’s Gary Lockwood).

Hippie culture is represented by a soundtrack

and cameo by the band Spirit, but this is a

disenchanted vision of LA: behind the dream

world, desolate expanses of industry. Demy’s

romanticism is coupled with melancholic

realism, prefi guring Wim Wenders’s later US

visits; Aimée is magnifi cently poignant. JR

Remarkable Places to Eat

BBC Two, 8pm

For his fi nal foodie expedition Fred Sirieix

accompanies Nisha Katona (CEO of Mowgli

Restaurants) to San Sebastián, in northern

Spain, where they sample the world’s most

treasured tortilla and visit hallowed temple of

gastronomy Mugaritz (ninth best restaurant

in the world), where Zen chef Andoni treads a

fi ne line between haute cuisine and vulgarity.

Der Pass

Sky Atlantic, 9pm

The Red Season The promising Austro-

German crime drama amps up the intrigue

as an entrepreneur is found slain beside a

chilling drawing of a Satanic grin, along with

a message referring to “The Red Season” –

enough to convince Stocker and Winter it’s

the work of the same killer who arranged the

border pass corpse as if for a pagan ritual. MB

Film

The Bling Ring

(Sofi a Coppola, 2013)

Film4, 1.25am

Based on a Vanity Fair article by Nancy Jo Sales,

Coppola’s glossy pop-sociology drama is about

a group of young LA residents who burgle

the homes of Beverly Hills celebrities, taking

luxury items that carry a touch more than

just the usual aura; Paris Hilton’s own home

is used here, although you wonder whether

the real place is quite so full of narcissistic

Hiltonia. Slightly affectless, as befi ts the world

it portrays, the fi lm is both sparky and snarky,

yet overall a little throwaway – especially

after the more emotionally nuanced study of

Hollywood lifestyle in Coppola’s Somewhere.

Emma Watson and Leslie Mann excel as a

dysfunctional mother-daughter duo trying to

get beyond the New Age schooling methods. JR

The week’s highlights

By Mike Bradley

Films by

Jonathan Romney

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