The Times - UK (2022-06-11)

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the times | Saturday June 11 2022 saturday review 23

t v & ra di o


Best of the rest


Full seven-day listings & previews


Podcast choice


Londongrad
A brilliant new Tortoise Media
podcast about how Russian
money flowed into the UK,
funded some great parties and
corrupted the establishment.
The mental image of Salman
Rushdie, Mikhail Gorbachev
and Orlando Bloom on the
dancefloor will stay with you.
James Marriott

Critic’s choice


Sherwood


Mon/Tue, BBC1, 9pm


The long shadow of the 1984
miners’ strike is an inescapable
presence in this superior new
detective series from James
Graham (Brexit: The Uncivil
War). It turns what could be a
standard northern gloom-fest,
set in a north Nottinghamshire
town, into a series with much
to say about the wounds
that persist in red wall
communities. Families
remain divided; friendships
are for ever broken; the word
“scab” is still freighted with
raw emotion.
Resentment lingers
everywhere, like a polluting
slick of oil on the surface of
an otherwise ordinary
neighbourhood. It means it’s
less important whether or not
you care much who has
committed the murder of a
community stalwart.
David Morrissey is the
detective in charge, Robert
Glenister the Met copper up
from London (he has a past,
being one of the policemen
billeted there in 1984), while
Lesley Manville, Adeel Akhtar
and Alun Armstrong offer
high-calibre support. It’s crime
drama as social commentary,
and more rewarding for it.
James Jackson


Radio choice


Geoff Norcott:


Well Classy


Tue, Radio 4, 6.30pm


When Geoff Norcott was at
home in Cambridgeshire,
leafing through a quality
newspaper (hi, Geoff),
munching a breakfast brioche
and plunging his cafetière, he
had a terrible realisation: he
had become middle class, the
thing he hates most. It made
him want to rush out and eat
bacon “that is 92 per cent
water” and drink tea “the
colour of sadness”.
There are few comics today
who can make us squirm and
laugh as Norcott does. And
because he is politically right-
of-centre one often feels that
many of the liberals roaming
the corridors of Broadcasting
Houseb tolerate his presence
with gritted teeth. I suspect he
knows it too, given the fun he
has. When, in this enjoyable
special, he asks the audience
what their class is, he reminds
those who lay claim to being
working class that they are at
a Radio 4 recording in
Chiswick.
There’s a fair bit of similar
chippiness here, alongside
some interesting ideas, not
least that middle-class people
are now an easy target for
mockery, despite, Norcott
argues, increasingly earning
less money and having less
social caché than plumbers.
Norcott wants to remain in the
working-class tribe, he says,
but, with the breakfasts he
enjoys in his large house, that
may no longer be possible.
Ben Dowell

The best films

David Morrissey,
Lesley Manville
and Robert
Glenister

Our Falklands War: A
Frontline Story
Sun, BBC2, 9pm
To mark the 40th anniversary
of the end of the Falklands
conflict, ten veterans recall
their experiences in vivid,
unblinking detail. Some for
the first (and last) time share
their memories of Goose
Green, the Sir Galahad and
Mount Tumbledown in what is
a harrowing, essential record
for the ages.

Soccer Aid for Unicef
Sun, ITV, 6.30pm
Always an occasion, here’s the
annual charity match from
London Stadium, with Damian

Lewis and Mo Farah among
those in an England team
going up against a World XI
including Usain Bolt, Cafu and
the Scottish dynamo Martin
Compston (the actor was once
a professional footballer).

Tumbledown
Wed, BBC4, 10pm
Richard Eyre’s
drama is likely to
have lingered in the
memory of anyone
who saw it when it was
first broadcast in 1988. It
stars Colin Firth as the
Falklands veteran Robert
Lawrence, who lost 43 per
cent of his brain after

being shot (Lawrence also
contributes to Our Falklands
War, see left). Rarely
repeated, the film retains
its contentious power.

The Lazarus Project
Thu, Sky Max, 9pm
Paapa Essiedu, left, is
the bewildered hero
(although not half
bewildered enough)
who is picked to be
part of a secret elite
team that can rewind
time to prevent global
extinction events. It’s all very
high-octane, high-concept,
time-slippy stuff, but with a
youthful sense of humour. JJ

21 Bridges (15)
Today, BBC1, 10.20pm
Chadwick Boseman is a tough
police officer shutting down
the bridges of Manhattan to
hunt down a pair of cop killers
in a nocturnal noir.

Open Range (12)
Sun, Channel 5, 3.45pm
From 2003, a decent
western matinee cut
from the old cloth with
Annette Bening, right,
and Kevin Costner as
a taciturn cowpoke
forced to take up
his gun again.

The Long, Hot Summer
(PG)
Sun, Great Movies Classic,
4.10pm
Based on works by William
Faulkner, the sultry 1958
drama has Paul Newman
as a drifter in a Mississippi
town upsetting a family
headed by Orson Welles.

Sully: Miracle on the
Hudson (12)
Sun, BBC1, 10.30pm
A bit of all-American
heroism as Chesley
“Sully” Sullenberger
(Tom Hanks) lands
his Airbus in the
Hudson River. JJ
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