10 April 2022 31THE BEST TV FROM NETFLIX AND BEYOND... SUNDAY 10 APRIL
Music For Holy Week
BBC Radio has a wide
selection of music in
celebration. The Euroradio
day of Holy Week Music
(Today, Radio 3, 1pm)
celebrates Palm Sunday with
European stations. Monday’s
Lunchtime Concert (Radio
3, 1pm) features Andrew
Carwood’s early-music vocal
ensemble in a programme of
works for Passiontide. Haydn
is Composer Of The Week
(Monday–Friday, Radio 3,
12 noon), with Donald
Macleod exploring his little-
known Seven Last Words of
Our Saviour on the Cross.
In The Studio (Tuesday, BBC
World Service, 11.30am)
looks at Glyndebourne’s
new production of Handel’s
Messiah. In Concert
(Wednesday, Radio 3, 7pm)
is Bach’s St Matthew Passion,
from Cardiff ’s St. David’s Hall.
Clair WoodwardOut Of Sight (BBC1, 11.40pm;
Scotland, 12.40am)
After a few faltering steps
as he made the initial move
from television stardom to
lead roles in films, George
Clooney found his feet
when he played a bank
robber in this thriller. Steven
Soderbergh’s Elmore Leonard
adaptation has a lovely
nonchalant style that brings
out the star’s roguishness.
An even greater asset is the
rapport Clooney shares with
Jennifer Lopez, who plays a
US marshal on the crook’s tail.
She takes a shine to the man
she is supposed to take down,
and their scenes together
always crackle. (1998)Early Man (Sky Cinema
Animation, 1.15pm/12.30am)
Imagining football in Bronze
Age Britain, this Aardman
movie is only a mid-table
contender by the studio’s
standards, but it can still
count on happy supporters.
It has the silly wit and good
spirits we expect from its
director, Nick Park. (2018)
Edward PorterKim Engelbrecht (C4, 10.30pm) Game for a laugh (SCA, 1.15pm)FILM CHOICE
ON DEMAND
This Is Going To Hurt
(BBC iPlayer)
The praise is justified. In the
hands of the directors Lucy
Forbes and Tom Kingsley,
Adam Kay’s darkly
misanthropic 2017 memoir
of his time as a junior doctor
becomes a witty, charming,
hectic account of the NHS in
Funeral For A Dog (Sky/Now)
Based on Thomas Pletzinger’s
semi-autobiographical 2008
novel about a journalist’s hunt
for an enigmatic author, this
German-language series does
not play by the rules of TV
drama. Deceptive, slow-paced,
labyrinthine, with a narrative
like a matryoshka doll, it is a
complex tale that demands
close attention and patience,
but the rewards are plenty.
Andrew MaleStath Lets Flats
(All4/Britbox)
Jamie Demetriou’s sitcom is an
acquired taste that becomes
an addiction. Over three series
it has grown from a lampoon
of the London flat-rental
world into something far
odder, Demetriou’s titular
Greek-Cypriot letting agent
evolving from a 21st-century
Mr Bean into something
located within the world of
surreal performance art.Spider-Man — No Way Home
(Buy as stream/download)
Jon Watts’s brazen treat for
Spider-Man fans is a bumper
edition in which Tom
Holland’s Spidey is not the
only arachnid-powered
swinger in town. The
contrivances that set up the
story are irksome if you stop
to think about them, but the
film’s many attractions are
well designed to keep you
from doing so. (2021) EPextremis. Yes, the book’s
misogyny and class contempt
is still present, often
uncomfortably so, but as
portrayed by the brilliant
and utterly adorable Ben
Whishaw, Kay becomes a far
more complex figure, deeply
flawed rather than simply
unpleasant, and Forbes
and Kingsley bring a three-
dimensionality to the working-
class patients that is sorely
lacking in Kay’s world view.Ladies and gentlemen: the unconventional Sophie Rundle and Suranne Jones (BBC1, 9pm)Gentleman Jack
(BBC1, 9pm)
“Ah, here you are. Good,”
says Suranne Jones as Anne
Lister, her gimlet eyes staring
into the camera. As the new
series begins, it is four weeks
since she and the pallid Miss
Ann Walker (Sophie Rundle)
plighted their private troth at
church and already Lister is
renovating Shibden Hall for
the couple to live in. Jones
seems less swashbuckling,
less obviously attractive,
with heavy brows, James and
the Giant Peach Aunt Spiker
hair and waspish tone. She
is also preoccupied with
controlling her new lover
and fending off an old one.
It is only when Mrs Mariana
Lawton (Lydia Leonard)
dispenses with convention
to break her own fourth wall
that writer Sally Wainwright’s
game is truly afoot.
Helen StewartThe Olivier Awards
(ITV, 10.15pm)
The theatre awards return
to the Royal Albert Hall after
being cancelled in 2021, with
Cabaret the most nominated
show. Lily Allen, Jessie Buckley,
Emma Corrin, Cush Jumbo,
Beverley Knight and Eddie
Redmayne are among the
stars vying in a ceremony
whose 26 (!) gongs embrace
craft, dance and opera
categories — though ITV’s
highlights usually focus on
plays and musicals. It may
seem surprising that a prize-
giving for the London (not
British) stage is still on national
television, but the Oliviers has
the advantage of being a gala as
well, with performances from
all the shortlisted musicals.
Jason Manford hosts.
John Dugdale
The Read: The Lonely
Londoners (BBC4, 8pm)
Danielle Vitalis performs Sam
Selvon’s 1956 novel The Lonely
Londoners, an account of life
for the Windrush generation.
The powerful storytelling is
heightened by this intimate
production, with archive film,
modern locations and Vitalis’s
fiercely charismatic reading
animating Selvon’s words.SAS — Who Dares Wins
(C4, 9pm)
A gang of new recruits heads
to Wadi Rum in Jordan for
this overheated series of war
games. With Ant Middleton
now gone, former US Marine
Rudy Reyes is chief instructor,
in charge of shouting 20 men
and women into battle-ready
shape as they cross ravines
and try to escape CS gas.The Cane Field Killings
(C4, 10.30pm)
This dankly atmospheric South
African crime drama features
a genre stalwart: the criminal
profiler granted insight by a
traumatic past. Kim Engelbrecht
stars as Reyka, hunting a serial
killer in KwaZulu-Natal’s sugar
cane fields. Iain Glen plays
her childhood abductor.
Victoria SegalCRITICS’ CHOICE
Heaven knows
where it’s from