New Zealand Listener – June 08, 2019

JUNE 8 2019 LISTENER 65

SATURDAY JUNE 8

The Little Drummer Girl (TVNZ

1, 9.10pm). Happy day, the

John le Carré spy thriller has

arrived on “linear” telly after

first being available on TVNZ

OnDemand. The production

company behind that other

le Carré adaptation, The Night

Manager, has a penchant

for choosing directors not

usually associated with this

kind of mate-

rial – Danish

director

Susanne Bier

helmed The

Night Manager,

and here, Korean

director Park Chan-

wook, known for his lush

aesthetic, dark humour and

intense violence, takes on

a political spy thriller set in

1979. It’s a convoluted story
      in which reality blurs into fic-
      tion and back again – Israeli
      spymaster Martin Kurtz and
      fellow intelligence officer
      Gadi Becker train a young
      British actress, Charlie Ross,
      to infiltrate a Palestinian
      terror cell; their methods are
      at times brutal and question-
      able. Just as well there is an
      excellent cast to keep the
      suspense going: Florence

Pugh, Michael

Shannon and

Alexander

Skarsgård as

Charlie, Kurtz

and Becker.

TVNZ 1 is screen-

ing two more series

this week that were first

available on demand: Man-

hunt (Wednesday, 8.30pm),

starring Martin Clunes, is

based on the investigation

into the murder of 22-year-

old Amélie Delagrange in

2004 that was linked to

several other unsolved mur-

ders, and Catch-22 (Sunday,

9.30pm), the George Clooney-

produced reboot of the classic

American novel.

SUNDAY JUNE

Cold Case (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm).

Four more unsolved crimes

will be picked over by a team

of experts that includes the

ment

the outbreak of Ebola that is

occurring in the Democratic

Republic of Congo.

“This is something that can

threaten humanity. It’s very,

very important to try to make

sure it doesn’t get into cities,

it doesn’t get on a plane and it

doesn’t land in your town, my

town or anyone else’s town.”

Cunningham also didn’t

research life in Africa. He

didn’t need to – before he

became an actor, he worked

as an electrician in Zimbabwe.

“So, part of my research, I

actually lived.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly,

The Hot Zone has made him

paranoid about viruses. “I see

people carrying around those

hand sanitisers and it’s very

tempting to put one of those

in my pocket.” l

The Little

Drummer Girl,

Saturday.

The Best of the Week

Television

The Hot Zone, Monday.

Good

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Manhunt, Wednesday.