The Sunday Times - UK (2021-12-19)

19 December 2021 73

THE BEST TV FROM ITV HUB AND BEYOND... MONDAY 27 DECEMBER

The death last month of

Stephen Sondheim sadly

means a festive bonus on

the BBC today for fans of the

greatest composer of modern

musicals. In West Side

Stories — The Making Of

A Classic (BBC2, 3.35pm),

Bruno Tonioli looks at the

Broadway musical West Side

Story, with a screening of

the 1961 movie adaptation

on the channel at 4.35pm.

At 7pm, BBC4 screens the

BBC Proms celebration of

Sondheim’s 80th birthday,

followed by Sondheim

At The BBC (9.05pm),

featuring archive footage of

performances of his songs. At

10.05pm, Omnibus follows

Sondheim during his spell as

visiting professor of drama

at Oxford University, and

finally, the composer goes

Face To Face with Jeremy

Isaacs at 10.55pm.

Clair Woodward

To the slaughter: Breeds (Alibi, 9pm)

ON DEMAND

Elves (Netflix)
Critics have disparaged this as

little more than a Scandi stew

of Gremlins and ET. It’s not

quite up to the standards of
either, but it is a subversively

spooky treat for the doldrums

between Christmas and

New Year. Sonja Steen is
appropriately wide-eyed as

Knowing Me Knowing Yule

(Britbox)

A-ho-ho-ho! Open the mulled

wine and Boaster biscuits

and join Alan Partridge at his

mock-up Christmas party in

his mock-up home, as his BBC

future hangs in the balance.

From 1995, and forgotten in

the context of other Partridge

fare, it is tense and hysterical

and captures the social hell of

enforced festive get-togethers.

Andrew Male

the teenage girl who discovers

the strange small creatures

during a festive family holiday

on a remote Danish island,

and the whole thing unfolds

as an authentically uncanny

mystery that will beguile and

unsettle any young adults in

the household. The biggest

surprise, however, is the high

quality of the model work,

investing the titular sprites

with a charmingly horrible

believability.

They’re having a laugh: it’s all a matter of geothermics for Joe Lycett and Bill Bailey (C4, 8pm)

Travel Man (C4, 8pm)

Joe Lycett replaces Richard

Ayoade in a one-off deviation

from the series’ usual brisk

breaks. He and fellow

comedian Bill Bailey already

have the rapport of an

established double act as

they begin their jaunt in

Reykjavik, where it is clearly

freezing outside but (you

infer) most indoor places are

ruled out. After passing the

time there in people-free

attractions, they belatedly

head off to the countryside,

catch a plane into the Arctic

Circle and enjoy a spot of

geothermal bathing. While

the trip bodes well for

Lycett’s reign as host, it

suggests the city-based series

will never be any good at

whole countries — the recent

Iceland episode of Amazing

Hotels was a far more

enticing guide.

John Dugdale

Not Going Out

(BBC1, 11.30pm)

The panto-themed episode

can be the final refuge of the
struggling Christmas TV

scriptwriter, but, happily, it

rather suits this wisecracking

Gen X Terry & June, which is
already prone to staginess and

oh-no-it-isn’t “banter”. Angry

at accusations that he does

no housework, and jealous
about Lucy (Sally Bretton)

yearning to see Jason

Donovan in pantomime, Lee

(Lee Mack) spends a night
dreaming he’s in Cinderella.

There are special guests and

crazy costumes, while the

jokes are thrown out like
handfuls of sweets to an

audience “desperate for

a sexual innuendo until

you give them one.”
Victoria Segal

Great British Landmark

Fixers (Yesterday, 8pm)

“Sewage absolutely never

stops,” says maintenance man

John Clifton, proudly touring

the Mogden Water Treatment

Works to demonstrate his fight

against the sanitary wipes and

cotton buds that Bazalgette’s

pipes were never designed to

meet. A visit to the Tideway

super sewer offers hope.

Jon & Lucy’s Christmas

Sleepover (C4, 9pm)

Married comics Jon Richardson

and Lucy Beaumont invite

chums Roisin Conaty, Romesh

Ranganathan and Rob Beckett

to their home for a semi-

scripted television sleepover.

Expect moaning from the

miserly Richardson about how

much it costs to keep Beckett’s

enormous mouth fed.

Clarice (Alibi, 9pm)

A year after her run-in with

the serial killer Buffalo Bill in

The Silence of the Lambs, this

gritty television series finds

FBI agent Clarice Starling (here,

Rebecca Breeds) press-ganged

into joining a specialist unit.

It is stylish and evocative but

has, unfortunately, failed to

find an audience in America.

Helen Stewart

CRITICS’ CHOICE

Send in

Sondheim

Horrible Histories —

The Movie (BBC1, 3pm)

Although it has Roman Britain

as its setting, this supplement

to the popular television

series is not quite a sword-

and-sandals epic. It largely

sticks with the usual cheap

and cheerful silliness, and this

proves as entertaining as ever.

The film’s guest stars — among

them Derek Jacobi and Kim

Cattrall — do add a hint of

showbusiness glamour, and

its young lead actress, Emilia

Jones, has lately made her way

to Hollywood. Dir: Dominic

Brigstocke (2019)

A Star Is Born

(BBC2, 10.05am)

Fans of the 2018 version with

Lady Gaga (which BBC1 is

showing on Wednesday 29)

should not neglect this earlier

take on the old story of fame

and fate. Judy Garland gives

a blazing performance as an

actress married to a former

matinee idol ( James Mason).

Dir: George Cukor (1954)

Real thing: Gosling (BBC2, 9pm)

FILM CHOICE

Blade Runner 2049

(BBC2, 9pm)

The ambition and flair Denis

Villeneuve showed this year in

his movie of Frank Herbert’s

Dune were also on display in

his previous treatment of an

established sci-fi property:

this sequel to Ridley Scott’s

1982 thriller about lifelike

artificial beings. Sceptics

might think the film (starring

Ryan Gosling) is itself a

contrived replica of a true

original, yet the results are

vibrant and persuasive.

Superb design work extends

the first movie’s visions. (2017)

Wings Of Desire

(Film4, 1.20am)

The angels imagined by

Wim Wenders in this fantasy

tale are refreshingly free of

Christmas glitter. They are

ordinary-looking guardians

who can do little to change

our lives, and the film’s rich,

poetic drama is grounded in a

kind of realism. Its lead angel

(played by Bruno Ganz and

based in Berlin) yearns to live

as a human. (1987)

Edward Porter