The Times - UK (2022-04-09)

the times | Saturday April 9 2022 saturday review 23

t v & ra di o

Best of the rest

Full seven-day listings & previews

Podcast choice

Taking on Putin

John Sweeney — whose

previous podcast was the

gripping Hunting Ghislaine,

about the search for Ghislaine

Maxwell — ensured he was in

Kyiv, ready for Putin’s invasion.

And episode one of Taking on

Putin is promising: an ominous

dispatch in Sweeney’s foghorn

of a voice. James Marriott

Critic’s choice

Gentleman Jack

Sun, BBC1, 9pm

When it first swung into town
in 2019, Gentleman Jack was
universally described as
“rollicking”, “roistering” or
“romping”. It was unavoidable,
because this drama about the
pioneering lesbian landowner
Anne Lister could at times
seem almost drunk on its own
barrelling energy.
Viewers loved it, series
two is here and, as Lister,
Suranne Jones continues her
barnstorming performance.
Dressed like an imperious
black crow as she strides
about Halifax (she does a lot
of this), the character remains
an often irresistible force of
nature — if you don’t find her
too OTT.
Local menfolk cross her at
their peril as she conducts her
business buying properties
and quarries, although her
romantic life is more
complicated — a love triangle
with (now wife) Ann Walker
(Sophie Rundle) and former
flame Mariana Lawton (Lydia
Leonard). Sally Wainwright’s
script is witty and always
on the move and it’s all
impeccably produced, but
really this remains very much
the Suranne Jones show.
James Jackson

Radio choice

Talking About

Silence

Mon, Radio 3, 10.45pm

Diarmaid MacCulloch, emeritus

Oxford professor of the history

of the church, Reformation

expert and one of our

country’s most interesting

thinkers, is guiding us through

Holy Week with nightly essays

on the subject of silence.

In what is described as “a

personal pilgrimage around an

enjoyable paradox” (because,

he says, you understand the

subject better by talking

about it) he reflects on what

he has learnt about silence

in his six-decade academic

career, be it from monasticism

or the radical thinking of

Martin Luther.

Silence was a feature of

MacCulloch’s happy but

isolated Suffolk rectory

childhood, but as a gay

teenager he was acutely

aware of things not being said,

making him an expert in hints

and codes and listening to

silences, which has become a

“professional skill”. They can

be tactful, they can even be a

true expression of the divine,

but sometimes silences need

to be broken, he says.

“My whole career writing

and teaching history has been

devoted to showing up the

emperors with no clothes: the

smug, the pretentious, the

impostors, the liars,” he says

in his first essay. “In other

words, ending silences that

really need ending, for the

sake of everyone’s health.”

It’s cracking stuff.

Ben Dowell

The best films

Suranne Jones as

Anne Lister in

Gentleman Jack

Julia

Tue, Sky Atlantic/Now, 9pm

Sarah Lancashire, below,

cooks up a storm as the

Sixties culinary icon Julia

Child, with David Hyde

Pierce as her husband,

Paul; that’s a cast

curious enough to

merit a look at this

perky drama about

her career and

their marriage.

Derry Girls

Tue, Channel 4, 9.15pm

The hit Nineties-set comedy

is back for a final series of

rites of passage against a

backdrop of the Troubles,

and the girls are in a tizz

about their GCSE results.

Gazza

Wed, BBC2, 9pm

A two-part documentary about

the footballer turned tabloid

fodder begins in 1988 to

cover the Spurs years

and the tears of a

clown at Italia 90.

Why Didn’t They

Ask Evans?

Thu, Britbox

Will Poulter is the golf caddy

trying to uncover the mystery

of a man’s dying words (of the

title) in Hugh Laurie’s loving

Agatha Christie adaptation.

Dinosaurs: The Final Day

with David Attenborough

Fri, BBC1, 6.30pm

An apocalyptic start to Easter

as Attenborough travels back

65 million years, with the help

of CGI, to witness doomed

Cretaceous beasts, while we

hear the latest finds from a

dig site offering new clues

about the dinosaurs’ demise.

Anatomy of a Scandal

Fri, Netflix

Rupert Friend is the cheating

Tory minister accused of a

terrible crime and Sienna

Miller his appalled wife,

in a glossily gripping

Westminster melodrama. JJ

Great Expectations (PG)

Today, BBC2, 2pm

Not just the most atmospheric

Dickens adaptation, with that

eerie opening scene in the

churchyard, but one of

the best British films.

The Favourite (15)

Today, Channel 4, 9.15pm

Olivia Colman and

Rachel Weisz are

curiously, oddly

amusing in

an offbeat

tragicomedy

about the fall of

Queen Anne.

Whiplash (15)

Sun, BBC3, 9.45pm

JK Simmons is alarmingly

ferocious as the music

teacher demanding perfection

and tormenting Miles Teller’s

jazz-drummer student.

The Remains of

the Day (U)

Thu, BBC4, 8pm

Forever moving drama

with Anthony

Hopkins, left, as the

butler putting

service before

any chance of

romance with

Emma Thompson’s

housekeeper. JJ