3 April 2022 31THE BEST TV FROM NETFLIX AND BEYOND... SUNDAY 3 APRIL
Peaky Blinders (BBC1, 9pm)
After nine years and six
seasons, Tommy Shelby’s
end is drawing near, the
former war hero turned
gangster and Labour
politician desperate to set his
world in order yet marked
for death by his enemies
and a brain tumour. When
it began in 2013 it seemed
ridiculous that a BBC series
could aspire to the heights of
The Sopranos or Boardwalk
Empire, yet thanks to writer
Steven Knight, its star, Cillian
Murphy, and a cast and crew
willing to embrace operatic
grandiosity, it has, like
Tommy himself, remained
fearless in the face of brutal
competition. The question
of what was it all for hung
over last week’s episode,
delivered with withering
Scouse sarcasm by Stephen
Graham’s Hayden Stagg.
Finally, in tonight’s feature-
length episode, we find out.
Andrew MaleAll The President’s Men
(BBC2, 11.10pm)
Most of the events covered
in this account of The
Washington Post’s exposure
of the Watergate scandal took
place in 1972. Half a century
on, some of the details of
Bob Woodward and Carl
Bernstein’s work are esoteric,
and the film’s unflashy
storytelling might not rivet
as many viewers as it once
did. Alan J Pakula’s movie is
still impressive, though, in its
many strong scenes: tricky
encounters between the two
journalists and people in the
know. Through it all, Robert
Redford and Dustin Hoffman
make a great team. (1976)Move Over, Darling
(BBC2, 2.40pm)
Doris Day, who would have
turned 100 today, has a well-
fitted role in this comedy.
Playing a woman who returns
from a stay on a desert island
to find that her husband ( James
Garner) has a new wife, she
is full of perky defiance. Dir:
Michael Gordon (1963)
Edward PorterWhere they belong (BBC1, 1.50pm) Honey, I’m home (BBC2, 2.40pm)FILM CHOICE
ON DEMAND
The Wednesday Play: Up
The Junction (BBC iPlayer)
There are numerous reasons
to welcome this repeat
showing of Ken Loach’s 1965
television play. Adapted from
Nell Dunn’s 1963 collection
of short stories, it reveals the
then 28-year-old director to
already be a polemicist of rare
Lost On Everest (Disney+)
Structured around the hunt
for the camera belonging to
British mountaineers George
Mallory and Sandy Irvine, a
camera that will prove if they
were the first men to “summit”
Everest back in 1924, this
utterly gripping documentary
also examines the conflicted
relationship modern climbers
have with that mountain and
the industry that surrounds it.
Andrew MaleIs It Cake (Netflix)
It started as a 2020 internet
meme, where everyday items
— hats, shoes, human limbs —
were cut with a knife and
revealed to be delicious
gateaux. That it now works
as a gameshow is thanks to
the adorable camaraderie
between the guests and manic
glee exhibited by presenter
Mikey Day every time he cuts
into one of those incredible
illusionary bakes.The Electrical Life
Of Louis Wain
(Buy as stream/download)
The hero of Will Sharpe’s
biopic became famous in
late-19th-century Britain with
his fanciful pictures of cats.
The film responds to this fey,
mentally fragile protagonist
(played by Benedict
Cumberbatch) with its own
form of eccentricity: a style
that blends modern quirkiness
and Victorian gusto. (2021) EPand poetic style. Secondly, it
is a tale of poverty, back-street
abortions and three working-
class young women sidelined
by male society, and remains
deeply powerful, thanks in
part to the raw, angry and
vulnerable performances from
Geraldine Sherman, Carol
White and Vickery Turner.
Hopefully, a repeat showing
of White and Loach’s next
work together, Cathy Come
Home, is also on the cards.A springwatch in her step: Michaela Strachan gives us her 42nd Street (ITV, 7.30pm)All Star Musicals
(ITV, 7.30pm)
John Barrowman, his hair
dyed chestnut and infamous
“tomfoolery” confined to a
tight shiny suit, opens the
ITV celebrity talent show
with a safely fun Grease
number for which judges
Elaine Paige, Samantha Barks
and Trevor Dion Nicholas
provide the rama-lama-
ding-dongs. Mentoring the
nervous contestants, Paige
is a fantastic diva, openly
wincing as one pitchy soap
star belts out her Sally
Bowles (“Less is more” she
says firmly) and another
honks a nasal Let It Go (“Try
and sing the second one in
your chest voice,” she says,
quite having given up on
the first line). But of course
it’s all “Darling you were
marvellous!” by the
breathless finale.
Helen StewartMuhammad Ali
(BBC2, 10.20pm)
Ali, who was born in Kentucky
80 years ago, had a record
three reigns as world
heavyweight boxing
champion. Benefitting from
the availability of footage of
his early fights, the first film
in Ken Burns’s excellent
biography takes him from the
segregated 1940s South, via a
gold medal as a teenager in
the 1960 Rome Olympics, to
the start of his professional
career and a global fame that
owed much to a verbal wit as
brilliant as his razzle-dazzle in
the ring. Still to come, in the
1960s alone, are his first title
and his conversion to Islam,
and the refusal to serve in
Vietnam that made him
America’s most hated man.
John Dugdale
The Boat Race (BBC1, 1.50pm)
To be specific, it’s plural. Back
where they belong after moving
to the River Great Ouse at
Ely because of Covid, the
167th men’s and 76th women’s
races between Oxford and
Cambridge Univerities grace
the 6.8km stretch from Putney
to Mortlake on the Thames.
Cambridge defend both titles.
Brian SmythDynasties II (BBC1, 8pm)
Be warned: we encounter
some really graphic
wildebeest-eating in this
natural-history show, as Sir
David Attenborough tells the
story of a cheetah mother and
her cubs fighting to survive
on Zambia’s plains. A noble
beast — but watch out for a
scene-stealing cameo from
a plucky mole rat.Inside The Superbrands
(C4, 8pm)
A little bit Inside the Factory, a
little bit corporate-video Blue
Peter, this looks at how Heinz
came to be a billion-dollar
business. Beans dominate, but
Helen Skelton also finds out
how the company are courting
new consumers with vegan
recipes and Ed Sheeran.
Victoria SegalCRITICS’ CHOICE
The end of the road