44 saturday review Saturday December 4 2021 | the times
● UTV As ITV except: 7.30pm-8.00
Keepers of the Lough 11.20 Saving Money
at Christmas: The Big Squeeze? Tonight
11.45-12.40am Love Your Garden (r)
● BBC Scotland 7.00pm The River (r) 7.30
Grand Tours of Scotland’s Rivers (r) 8.00
Scotland’s Best Dog 8.30 Landward 9.00
The Nine 10.00 Billy Connolly: Made in
Scotland (r) 11.00-Midnight Talent (r)
● S4C 6.00am Cyw 9.35 Pablo (r) 9.45
Byd Tad-Cu (r) 10.00 Bing (r) 10.10
Halibalw (r) 10.20 Stiw (r) 10.35 Anifeiliaid
Bach y Byd (r) 10.45 Cei Bach (r) 11.00
Tatws Newydd (r) 11.05 Guto Gwningen
(r) 11.20 Da ’Di Dona (r) 11.30 Patrôl
Pawennau (r) 11.45 Sbarc (r) 12.00 News
12.05pm Bywyd y Fet (r) 12.30 Heno Aur
(r) 1.00 Pysgod i Bawb (r) 1.30 Adre (r)
2.00 News 2.05 Prynhawn Da 3.00 News
3.05 Cefn Gwlad (r) 4.00 Awr Fawr:
Anifeiliaid Bach y Byd (r) 4.10 Jamborî (r)
4.20 Da ’Di Dona (r) 4.30 Stiw (r) 4.45
Sigldigwt (r) 5.00 Stwnsh: Bernard (r)
5.05 Dreigiau: Gwarchodwyr Berc (r) 5.30
Lolipop (r) 5.55 Ffeil 6.00 Codi Pac (r)
6.30 Rownd a Rownd (r) 6.57 News 7.00
Heno 7.30 News 8.00 Pobol y Cwm 8.25
Rownd a Rownd 8.55 News 9.00 Gwesty
Aduniad 10.00 Y Ffair Aeaf (r) 11.00-11.35
Richard Holt: Yr Academi Felys (r)
(r) repeat (SL) In-vision signing● BBC1 N Ireland As BBC1 except:
10.35pm The View 11.15 Question
Time 12.15am Newscast 12.50 Superman
& Lois (r) 1.50-6.00 BBC News
● BBC1 Scotland As BBC1 except:
11.15am Bargain Hunt (r) 12.00-1.00pm
First Minister’s Questions
● Channel/ITV Meridian As ITV except:
11.20-11.45pm The Last Word
● ITV Anglia As ITV except:
11.20-11.45pm Anglia Late Edition
● ITV Border/ITV Tyne Tees As ITV
except: 11.20-11.45pm Around the House
● ITV Central As ITV except:
11.20-11.45pm Central Lobby
● ITV Granada As ITV except:
11.20-11.45pm The Granada Debate
● ITV London As ITV except:
11.20-11.45pm The Late Debate
● ITV Wales As ITV except: 11.20pm Face
to Face 11.45-12.40am The Murder of Alex
Rodda: Social Media Murders (r)
● ITV West Country As ITV except:
11.20-11.45pm The Westcountry Debate
● ITV Yorkshire As ITV except:
11.20-11.45pm Last Orders
● STV As ITV except: 7.30pm-8.00
Scotland Tonight 11.05 STV News
11.15-11.45 Saving Money at Christmas:
The Big Squeeze? Tonight. Money-saving
tips 4.05-5.05am Unwind with STVThe Stonehenge
Enigma
Channel 5, 9pm
Rob Bell fronts yet another
documentary purporting to
reveal unknown secrets about
the most recognisable
prehistoric monument in
Europe. This time it’s a
subterranean ring 20 times the
size of Stonehenge. Created
more than 4,000 years ago,
until now it has remained
hidden. Two miles east of
Stonehenge, a team of
archaeologists led by the
landscape archaeologist Vince
Gaffney investigate this ring of
underground anomalies. Are
they man-made? If so, how did
the neolithic people create this
monument? Joe Clay
And Just Like That
Sky Comedy/Now, 9pmThere were no previews for
the much-hyped Sex and the
City revival, but what we do
know is that the Manhattan-
set comedy drama will run for
ten episodes, following Carrie
(Sarah Jessica Parker),
Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and
Charlotte (Kristin Davis) as
“they navigate the journey
from the complicated reality
of life and friendship in their
thirties to the even more
complicated reality of life and
friendship in their fifties”.
Conspicuous by her absence
is Samantha, played by Kim
Cattrall, but there is still much
to intrigue. So pour yourself a
cosmopolitan and get ready
as the story continues... JCAdrienne
Sky Documentaries/Now, 9pmAdrienne Shelly was the
indie-movie siren and muse
of the director Hal Hartley
(she starred in his classic films
The Unbelievable Truth and
Trust). She had embarked on
her own career as a writer/
director and was in the process
of making the acclaimed film
Waitress when, in November
2006, she was murdered in
her New York office by a
construction worker after she
complained about the noise
he was making in the building.
In this deeply personal
documentary her husband,
Andy Ostroy, who found her
dead, sets out on a journey
to bring her back to life by
telling her story. JCHow to Make It
on OnlyFans
Channel 4, 10pmOnlyFans is a subscription-
based online platform known
for its adult content (videos
and photographs from sex
workers and porn stars).
Pitching herself as “the one-
woman Trinny and Susannah
for slags”, the former glamour
model Alex Sim-Wise has set
up a consultancy to help
people to emulate her success
on the platform (she makes
£10,000 a month). One client
is Zoe, a sales worker with
distinctive feet. “If you could
make a few hundred pounds’
extra spending money a month
from your feet,” she says,
“why the f*** not?” JCThe Manchurian Candidate (15, 1962)
BBC4, 9pm
John Frankenheimer’s dark, intelligent and prophetic Cold War
conspiracy thriller is full of hypnotic twists and turns. Laurence
Harvey stars as Raymond Shaw, a US soldier brainwashed by
North Korean intelligence, then sent home as a hero and political
assassin. Frank Sinatra co-stars as Bennett Marco, a fellow veteran
plagued by bad dreams and wary of Shaw’s story. It was allegedly
the film that Lee Harvey Oswald watched days before shooting
John F Kennedy, and it was withdrawn for 24 years after the
assassination, apparently as a mark of respect by Sinatra. The
2004 remake stuck close to the plot of the original film, but it was
reimagined for the Gulf war era, with Denzel Washington stepping
into Sinatra’s shoes. (126min) Wendy IdeFilms of the day
Blood & Wine (15, 1996)
Talking Pictures TV, 9pm
Michael Caine was on the verge of quitting acting when his friend
Jack Nicholson convinced him to take a part in Bob Rafelson’s noir-
tinged crime thriller. Caine plays Victor, a British safe-cracker, who
helps Nicholson’s debt-ridden Miami wine merchant Alex Gates to
pull off a risky heist. The job involves stealing a valuable diamond
necklace from the house of Alex’s clients, the Reese family, where
his Cuban mistress Gabriela (Jennifer Lopez) works. However,
things get messy when Alex’s alcoholic wife, Suzanne (Judy Davis),
and his son, Jason (Stephen Dorff), become involved. Rafelson has
stated that the film forms the final part of his unofficial trilogy with
Nicholson, with whom he made Five Easy Pieces and The King of
Marvin Gardens in the 1970s. (101min) Joe ClayRegional programmes
Catch
up
Agatha and the
Truth of Murder
Britbox
In 1926 Agatha Christie
went missing for 11
days. It’s a mystery
worthy of one of
her novels, and
this decent
drama, first
shown on
Channel 5 in
2018, speculates
what the crime
writer got up to
during those
missing days —
turning sleuth to
try to solve themurder of Florence Nightingale
Shore (the goddaughter of the
nurse), who was bludgeoned
to death on a train. Ruth
Bradley, below, plays
Christie, who, with her
personal life in tatters
and her writing career
in crisis, tries to unmask
the murderer while
speculation about
her disappearance
reaches fever
pitch. Christie is
assisted by
Florence’s
partner, Mabel
(Pippa
Haywood),
and a gruff
police
inspector
played by
Ralph Ineson.
Joe ClayThursday 9 | Viewing guide
Critic’s choice
Touching the Void
Sky Arts/Now, 9pm
One of the most visceral stage
hits of the past few years is
brought to the small screen
with the help of binaural
sound and a multicamera rig.
Filmed at Bristol’s Old Vic, this
mountain-climbing disaster
tale is stunningly inventive.
By now, the story of Joe
Simpson’s ordeal as a climber
in the Peruvian Andes in the
1980s is well known. He wrote
a bestselling memoir about
the experience, and the
superb dramatised
documentary film won no end
of plaudits. How can a play
compete with that? The
answer is by inviting us to use
our imagination. David Greig,
the playwright, and Tom
Morris, the director, have done
the theatrical equivalent of
tackling Everest in tennis
shoes and T-shirts. Instead of
a rock face and glaciers, Ti
Green, the designer, supplies
upturned tables and chairs as
well as a fragile, futuristic
snow-white frame from which
the two men dangle. As Joe
and his climbing partner
Simon, Josh Williams, right,
and Angus Yellowlees, left, are
headstrong young men who
set off on their South
American expedition with
insouciance. But after Joe,
who has already injured his
leg in a fall, tumbles out of
sight, his exhausted friend has
to cut the rope holding them
together. Even if you’re
familiar with the story, Greig
and Morris find a new path
through it. In the book,
Simpson explains how an
inner voice helped him
through an agonisingly
painful trek to safety. Here,
that voice belongs to his
sister, Sarah, played as part-
angel, part-harpie, urging and
bullying him onwards. No less
imaginative is the framing
device, which asks us to
imagine that he might not
have survived. Clive Davis