24 April 2022 55THE BEST TV FROM SKY AND BEYOND... THURSDAY 28 APRIL
Shakespeare On Film
It was Will’s 458th birthday
on Saturday, so, as a belated
celebration, why not watch
Arena: All The World’s A
Screen (BBC iPlayer) — be
quick, it disappears after the
bank holiday — and ponder
how directors as varied as
Orson Welles, Laurence
Olivier, Baz Luhrmann and
Vishal Bhardwaj have adapted
the works of Stratford-upon-
Avon’s finest. As ever, it is
a constant push and pull
between reverence and
iconoclasm, and sometimes
it is the most unusual
revamps that feel most in
keeping with the Bard’s
original intentions. As such,
our personal choice would
be Akira Kurosawa’s modern
day Hamlet, The Bad Sleep
Well (BFI Player), and Gil
Junger’s high-school romcom
rethink of The Taming of the
Shrew, 10 Things I Hate
About You (Prime Video).
Andrew MaleLaura (TPTV, 6.15pm)
Set in a world of fashionable
New Yorkers, this Otto
Preminger classic is silky
smooth in its presentation:
a celebrated score by David
Raksin enhances the vintage
Hollywood suavity on show.
Yet the movie is a film noir,
and its tale of jealousy is
full of bitter and seething
desires. Proceeding from the
murder of the title character,
an ad executive played by
Gene Tierney, it features two
unusual suspects — Clifton
Webb’s aesthete and Vincent
Price’s playboy — along with
a cop (Dana Andrews) who is
rather too fascinated by the
dead woman. (1944) B/WUpgrade (Film4, 9pm)
Leigh Whannell’s nifty and
violent action movie takes you
on a ride with a protagonist
(Logan Marshall-Green) who
can’t always be sure where his
body is going. Controlled by
an implanted microchip, he
becomes a vicious fighter who
always has a bewildered look
on his face. (2018)
Edward PorterExcellent: Leonard (Prime Video) Logan Marshall-Green (Film4, 9pm)FILM CHOICE
ON DEMAND
Muhammad Ali
(BBC iPlayer)
Exhaustive, but never
exhausting, Ken Burns’s eight-
part life-story of the greatest
boxer who ever lived retells
many stories we might already
know (Ali’s conversion to
Islam, his opposition to the
Vietnam War, his comeback
White Hot: The Rise & Fall Of
Abercrombie & Fitch (Netflix)
There is a point in this concise
dismantling of the uber-cool
late-1990s lifestyle clothing
brand when you realise
you are watching the worst
excesses of corporate
America, a company happy
to equate “great American
values” with blond, Waso, all-
white faces. It all culminated
in a class action suit.
Andrew MaleAbout The Art Of The Album
Cover (Sky/Now)
The history of pop and rock is
also a history of 20th-century
art and design, yet whoever
commissioned the script for
this welcome series on great
artists behind iconic LP covers
clearly thought that wasn’t
exciting enough. So we are
assaulted by nonsense phrases
about iconoclastic boundary
pushers. The artists deserve
better. Give them your time.Choose Or Die (Netflix)
Netflix’s latest cheap horror
movie nods to the 1980s in its
tale of an ancient computer
game that creates real-world
terrors for two modern
youngsters (Iola Evans and
Asa Butterfield). If you are
old enough to remember that
decade, though, you might
not find much to thrill you in
Toby Meakins’s film. Its rough,
grisly scares are meant for
teenagers. (2022) EPfight against George Foreman)
but it tells them with an
emphasis on the man rather
than the event, always looking
for the humanity behind the
performance and constantly
asking who Ali was as a
human being. Along the way,
we are told the history of
black America in the 20th
century and gain insight
into how Ali was shaped by
his country and how he
influenced it in return.Her toughest uphill trek yet: walk a mile tonight with Julia Bradbury (ITV, 9pm)Julia Bradbury — Breast
Cancer And Me (ITV, 9pm)
Julia Bradbury learnt of her
diagnosis in the autumn,
while presenting a series on
woodlands for This Morning.
This intimate, poignant film
charts her experiences in the
run-up to her mastectomy
(the operation itself is not
shown) and after it, with
a new prosthetic left
breast. Although she keeps
a video diary, the focus
throughout is on the
“shrapnel effect on everyone
else”, especially her three
young children — how much
to tell them? Bradbury
gets the balance exactly
right — revealing her own
emotions but also taking a
more journalistic, external
approach — in a documentary
that will help other women
and families menaced by
life-threatening illnesses.
John DugdaleRebuilding Notre Dame
— The Next Chapter
(BBC2, 8pm)
“I’ve worn lots of different
costumes, outfits for telly over
the years, never one quite like
this,” says the historian Lucy
Worsley zipping herself into
an Emma Peel-style protective
onesie and stepping into the
“dirty zone” of the ruined
cathedral. The world watched
as the fire ripped through the
roof in 2019, and if President
Macron has his way it will
watch again as it opens in time
for the Paris Olympics in 2024.
On the basis of this fascinating
documentary, bonne chance
Manu — there remains much
to be done just cleaning toxic
lead dust from the brickwork.
There are, unsurprisingly, fire
extinguishers everywhere.
Helen Stewart
Ten Percent (Prime Video)
Fans of the French series Call
My Agent might approach this
version nervously, but there’s
no reason to fear: while there
is an inevitable lack of Parisian
insouciance, it is by no means
the Holby Talent Agency. It
stars Jack Davenport and the
excellent Lydia Leonard,
replacing Camille Cottin.
See this week’s cover feature.Nick Knowles’ Big House
Clearout (C5, 8pm)
Close in spirit to Stacy
Solomon’s Sort Your Life Out,
this decluttering show offers
householders a makeover in
exchange for a huge clearout.
Here, while Nick Knowles and
team reimagine their space,
a mother and daughter drag
their stuff to a Portsmouth
dancehall for winnowing.Bat Superpowers
(PBS America, 8.50pm)
Forget the hair-tangling and
blood-sucking, the reputation
of bats plunged further with the
suspicion they were the source
of Covid-19. Yet as this shows,
these flying virus reservoirs
are wonders who could lead
to medical breakthroughs.
Includes actual belfry.
Victoria SegalCRITICS’ CHOICE
The play’s the thing