6 February 2022 35THE BEST TV FROM PRIME VIDEO AND BEYOND... MONDAY 7 FEBRUARY
John Williams Week
(Classic FM)
The soundtrack composer
celebrates his 90th birthday
on February 8, and Classic
FM devotes five nights
(Monday-Friday) to his work.
Regular programming will
include Williams’s music,
but the highlight of the week
is tomorrow, when The
Concert features a show
in which Williams conducts
the Berlin Philharmonic in
a programme featuring all
his biggies, from Star Wars
and Superman to Harry
Potter and Indiana Jones
(the concert is also available
on BBC iPlayer). Andrew
Collins’s Saturday Night
At The Movies (Saturday,
Classic FM, 7pm) is dedicated
to Williams, while an episode
of Sounds Of Cinema (BBC
Sounds) concentrates on his
lesser-known film scores.
Clair WoodwardRed Joan (BBC2, 11.15pm)
Starring Judi Dench as a quiet
Englishwoman suddenly
unmasked as a former Soviet
asset, Trevor Nunn’s film
becomes a period drama
when flashbacks reveal what
its protagonist (here played by
Sophie Cookson) got up to in
the 1940s. You might wish some
of these backstory scenes had
remained classified, allowing
the film’s investigation to
focus on Dench; in its own
way, though, the inquiry
into the heroine’s past is
watchable. We see her as a
physicist in a world of male
boffins and discover the array
of events that shaped her
loyalties. (2018)Coogan’s Bluff (ITV4, 10pm)
Three years before he starred
in Dirty Harry, Clint Eastwood
worked with that movie’s
director, Don Siegel, on
another thriller about a terse
agent of the law. Coogan is a
deputy sheriff from Arizona
visiting New York, and there
is a streak of comedy in his
responses to city life. (1968)
Edward PorterTaking ownership: Tina (C4, 10pm) Red under the bed (BBC2, 11.15pm)FILM CHOICE
ON DEMAND
The Puppet Master (Netflix)
This three-part true-crime
series about British conman
Robert Hendy-Freegard is a
chilling viewing experience.
A former barman and car
salesman who would pass
himself off as an MI5 agent in
order to control and destroy
the lives of men and women,
The Righteous Gemstones
(Sky/Now)
With its second season, Danny
McBride’s satirical attack on
American Christianity corrects
the main failing of season one:
it is funnier. A drama about a
family of televangelists, with
John Goodman as the widowed
patriarch overseeing his three
immature kids, it is loud,
buffoonish and violent, and its
core message is a simple one.
Andrew MaleIndia’s Frontier Railways
(BBC iPlayer)
Times have changed. Once
upon a time, a documentary
with this title would have been
a romantic historical survey of
the achievements of empire.
Gerry Troyna’s three-part
series focuses on the present,
looking at how these ancient
passenger routes survived
after partition and following
the lives of the people who
work and travel on the lines.The Hunt (Netflix)
Craig Zobel’s satire on
America’s culture wars puts
the emphasis on war rather
than culture. Its concept —
liberals abducting blue-collar
conservatives and hunting
them for sport — does come
with flashes of wit. Mainly,
though, it provides cues for
violent thrills and spills.
The film’s highest form of art
is the verve that runs through
the mayhem. (2020) EPHendy-Freegard is portrayed
as a loathsome individual, and
the documentary’s matter-of-
fact cataloguing of his crimes
and manipulations causes
the blood to boil. Undeniably
well made, it shuffles between
numerous timelines and
victims to create an almost
head-spinning narrative of
psychological cruelty. The
knowledge that he is now
once again at large is both
angering and terrifying.What the parents don’t know ... Michael Jibson and Sheridan Smith get a shock (ITV, 9pm)No Return (ITV, 9pm)
As in Four Lives, Sheridan
Smith again plays a mother
battling for justice for her
son, in her third series of- The difference here
is that 16-year-old Noah
(Louis Ashbourne Serkis)
is still alive but facing a
Turkish jail sentence for an
offence allegedly committed
after a late-night beach party.
With their family holiday
now a nightmarish ordeal,
Kathy (Smith) and Martin
(Michael Jibson) are angry
and bewildered, not least
because it is clear that Noah
hid his private life from
them. Bribery looks like
the only option open,
their lawyer suggests, but
headstrong Kathy is intent
on confronting the accuser,
while her sister, Megan
(Siân Brooke), evidently
has another plan.
John Dugdale
Boobs (C4, 10pm)
That this witty and warm
documentary’s working title
was once The Story of Breasts
rather tells its own tale,
doesn’t it? Before occupying
space in the evening schedule,
a film with an avowedly
female gaze has been coerced
by unseen forces to announce,
as Wonderbra once put it:
“Hello Boys!” Elizabeth
Sankey’s emotional report
brings women of all shapes
and sizes together for
revealing interviews that
quickly shed embarrassment
(and garments) to celebrate
the form shared by 51% of the
population. “What do you
think is sexy?” she asks, and
an elegant grandmother
replies: “The person herself.”
Anyway, Boobs it is.
Helen Stewart
Britain’s Best Young Artist
(CBBC, 6pm)
Radio 1 presenter Vick Hope
and the Kaiser Chiefs singer
(and former art teacher)
Ricky Wilson welcome three
children to an airy studio in
the first round of an art contest
that mimics the cake-baking
and pot-throwing contests that
pepper television these days.
Charming, fun, educational.60 Days With The Gypsies
(C4, 9pm)
Seasoned explorer and former
Army captain Ed Stafford is
making a convincing move
into journalism with films
such as 2019’s 60 Days on the
Streets and this latest, where
he joins families of Gypsies
and Travellers at a time when
legislation is proposed to limit
freedom to establish camps.Imagine (BBC1, 10.35pm)
The best-selling Irish novelist
Marian Keyes gets the Yentob
treatment, annoying those
who might look down their
noses at “chick lit” (a term the
subtle, amusing chronicler of
women’s issues does not much
like). Keyes reveals a personal
history that speaks to the
redemptive power of writing.
Helen StewartCRITICS’ CHOICE
From Star Wars
to Indiana Jones