68 LISTENER AUGUST 3 2019
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT
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Sport
The week’s best live action
Hypothetical, Thursday.RUGBY
As a warm-up to the Rugby World Cup in September, the
2019 Pacific Nations Cup has been expanded to six teams:
Canada and the US join Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Japan in a
tournament that will be played in four countries. The US
would have to be a favourite, although Fiji are always formi-
dable. There’s live coverage this week of Fiji v Canada and
Tonga v Japan (Sky Sport 1, Saturday, 5.05pm and 10.00pm).
While the All Blacks look towards their next game in the
Rugby Championship (against Australia in Perth on August
10), the domestic rugby season is kicking off. The 2019
Mitre 10 Cup features a 10-week regular season, starting on
Thursday with Southland v Northland in Invercargill (Sky
Sport 1, 7.30pm) and Auckland v North Harbour at Eden Park
on Friday (Sky Sport 1 and Prime, 7.30pm). In the women’s
game, the 2019 Farah Palmer Cup has been boosted to 13
teams and starts on August 31.other British panel show, gives
guests a hypothetical situation
for which they must come up
with the most inventive or
amusing solution. Sometimes,
acting is involved. The lovely,
loopy James Acaster is his
sidekick, doling out the rules
and the points. You might also
recognise the guest comedians
from every other British panel
show, including Romesh Ran-
ganathan, Sara Pascoe, Nish
Kumar, Dara Ó Briain and ...
Rose Matafeo.FRIDAY AUGUST 9
The Victorian House of Arts
& Crafts (Sky Arts, Sky 020,
8.30pm). It’s like The Block:
Firehouse, but with stupidly
long frocks and no
electricity. The Arts
and Crafts move-
ment that emerged
in late 19th-century
Britain is given a
modern twist with a
competition reality
series: six “craft-
ers” are tasked with
decorating rooms in
Wyndcliffe Court, a
Victorian house in
the Welsh Hills. This
means using the
tools of the day andmaking everything by hand.
In the first episode, woodwork
designer Abdollah makes a
reproduction of a Morris & Co
Sussex Chair, starting with a
length of tree, turning pieces
on a foot-powered lathe and
carving the decorative mark-
ings. An embroiderer weaves
the rush seat from reeds.
Abdollah estimates it took
him more than 80 hours and
he had only five or six days
to do it. If you’d also like to
see a designer hand-print a
William Morris-style wallpa-
per with wooden blocks or
a metalworker drill 50 holes
for a silver dish in the style of
Charles Robert Ashbee, then
you’re in the right place.The Victorian House of
Arts & Crafts, Friday.GOLF
In 2018, Georgia Hall became the first
Englishwoman to win the Women’s Brit-
ish Open in 14 years and, at just 23, was
awarded an MBE in this year’s Queen’s
Birthday Honours. She has something to
live up to, then, when the Open returns
to the Woburn Golf Club in Milton
Keynes for the 11th time. Lydia Ko, who
was 11th last year, is in the hunt, along
with China’s first World No 1, Shanshan
Feng, US stars Lexi Thompson, Michelle
Wie and Jessica Korda, and British golf-
ers Charley Hull and Catriona Matthew.
Round 3 is live on Saturday (Sky Sport
3, 11.00pm) and round 4 follows on
Sunday (Sky Sport 3, 11.00pm).CYCLING
They’re having a summer of sport in Britain, for sure: the
2019 RideLondon-Surrey Classic, Britain’s only UCI World
Tour event, is a one-day dash from the historic Bushy Park
in south-west London to Box Hill in Surrey, which riders
will climb five times before returning to London to whizz
by Buckingham Palace and finish in The Mall. Live cover-
age is on Monday morning (Sky Sport Pop-up 5, 1.00am).Mitre 10 Cup captains.Jessica Korda