- The Guardian
18 Friday 30 August 2019
The b arrister Rob Rinder has more or less
shed the gimmicky “Judge” mantle of his
ITV daytime programme, and these days
seems to be one of those TV performers
for whom the best format is no format at
all, so long as they can just be themselves
as uninhibitedly as possible. Rinder’s
new four-part series follows a basic
topical satire/interview template, using
this week’s news as the excuse to tell
certain celebrities and politicians face to
face whether or not they are doing what
they should.
Jack SealeFosse/Verdon
9pm, BBC Two
The latest instalment of
the Broadway biopic fi nds
the producers of Chicago
breathing down Bob
Fosse’s neck. He is forced
to stay up all night, fuelled
by speed, sex and spirits,
as he labours to fi nish
editing Lenny. Super-
organised Gwen tends
to him when he fi nally
collapses, but is she in
time to save him?
Mike BradleyLethal Weapon
9pm, ITV
How did Stifl er from
American Pie become a
CIA badass? The latest
episode of the odd-
couple cop show fi lls in
the backstory of Seann
William Scott’s eager-
to-please Cole while he
delves into a slick bank
robbery with his cranky
partner Murtaugh (Damon
Wayans). It is violent fl uff ,
with some gnarly stunts.
Graeme VirtueCelebs Go
Motorhoming: Back
on the Road
10pm, Channel 5
In 2017, Five stuff ed Lesley
Joseph, Don Warrington,
Melvyn Hayes, Nick
Heyward and Cleo Rocos
into a motorhome and sentthem into the beautiful
Welsh countryside. This
catch-up series sees Lesley
reminisce with Cleo about
their jaunt – and shares
some unaired footage.
Ali CatterallBBC Proms: Homage to
Nina Simone
10.25pm, BBC Four
The Metropole Orkest is
graced with Ledisi, Lisa
Fischer and other singers
in a tribute to the jazz and
blues great Nina Simone
recorded at the Royal
Albert Hall earlier this
month. Expect standards
such as Feeling Good
and I Put a Spell on You.
Classical fans can enjoy
Strauss, Sibelius and
Prokofi ev in an earlier
prom at 7.30pm. MBMr Pickles
11.50pm, E4
Season three of the dark
cartoon about a family and
their murderously loyal
border collie, Mr Pickles.
This double bill opens
with an episode in which
Grandpa fi nds his long-
dead wife alive, followed
by a hopeless attempt to
teach Sheriff how to be a
man instead of a momma’s
boy. Wolf-sex and kitten-
killing feature, while
Brooke Shields is among
the voice cast. MBXi Jinping ...
creating a cult of
personalityThe Rob Rinder Verdict
10pm, Channel 4
And
another
thingGood news!
Another
Jane Austen
story been
discovered. And
Andrew Davies
is adapting it
into a 12-part
series. Even
though she was
two when she
wrote it and it’s
terrible. Only
kidding!Review China: A New World
Order, BBC Two
but also to have learned from a nurse that women were
given injections that had the same eff ect as the drink
Tursun took. “They stop your periods and seriously
aff ect reproductive organs,” she said.
China, we learned, denies these charges and claims to
be committed to protecting ethnic minority identities.
What its critics call detention camps, Beijing describes as
“vocational education and training centres” resembling
“boarding schools”. We cut to offi cial footage of
drawing, dancing and a class singing in English “If you’re
happy and you know it, shout ‘Yes sir!’” Which, while
not proof of genocidal policy, was grim enough viewing.
But without doubt, since 2013 when X i Jinping
became president and there was an attack in Tiananmen
Square in which Uighur terrorists killed fi ve people
and injured 38 , Beijing has cracked down on what it
perceives as an Islamist threat from the province. That
crackdown has included using smartphones and street
cameras to create a surveillance state for Uighurs.
Should Britain roll out the red carpet to a country
charged with crimes against humanity, of undermining
freedom of speech and democracy in Hong Kong, of
crushing freedom movements in Beijing, of – it was
suggested here – creating a cult of personality around
Xi the likes of which have not been seen since Chairman
Mao? “Better we engage with them so we can infl uence
them,” said the former chancellor George Osborne.
But does the UK have any infl uence? “Very few
countries have any leverage at all, ” said Jeremy Hunt, the
former foreign secretary. The rest of the world shrinks
from criticising China because we’re awed by its economic
power and how we benefi t from it, argued Panetta.
This fi rst of a three-part series did what politicians dare
not do, namely to raise hard questions, not just of Beijing,
but of us. Are we so in thrall to consumerism, to buying
cheap goods made by cheap labour , so intimidated by
Chinese military and economic might, that we connive
with what may amount to a criminal dictatorship?
One day in 2015, while Xi was being charmed by the
Queen and David Cameron, a bookseller from Hong Kong
set off to see his girlfriend. Suddenly, Lam Wing -kee
recalled, he was surrounded by 31 people. He spent the
next fi ve months in solitary confi nement and was released
only after he admitted to selling illegal books. “I am very
remorseful,” he told his captors, clearly under duress. “I
hope the Chinese government will be lenient .” The books
he had mailed from his shop to customers in mainland
China included those critical of the constitutional
change that allows Xi to remain president for life.
Forget morality, it’s time for more cloudy drinks.
While Lam Wing -kee sat in solitary, Cameron and
Xi went to the pub for ye venerable nightmare of ye
photo-op. Neither waited for their pints to settle, for
clouds to resolve into clarity. Instead, both precipitately
drank what, had the cameras not been there, I feel sure,
neither would have touched. An emblem of Sino-British
relations in the 21st century.★★★★☆
TV and radio
T
he drink Mihrigul Tursun’s captors off ered
her was strangely cloudy. It resembled,
she said, water after washing rice. After
drinking it, the young mother recalled
in China: A New World Order , her period
stopped. “It didn’t come back until fi ve
months after I left prison. So my period stopped seven
months in total. Now it’s back, but it’s abnormal.”
We never learned why Tursun was detained – along with
an estimated 1 million other Uighurs of Xinjiang province ,
in what the authorities call re-education centres – but we
heard clearly her claims of being tortured. “They cut off my
hair and electrocuted my head,” Tursun said. “I couldn’t
stand it any more. I can only say please just kill me.”
Instead of murdering one Uighur mother, critics
of Beijing contend, China is attempting to eliminate
a people. “There’s a widely held misunderstanding that
genocide is the scale of extermination of human beings,”
said the former UN human rights envoy Ben Emmerson
QC. “That’s not so. The question is: is there an intention
to wipe off the face of the Earth a distinct group, a nation,
a people?” This, Emmerson and Barack Obama’s former
CIA director Leon Panetta claimed, is what is happening
to the Islamic people of Xinjiang.
Independently verifying Tursun’s treatment is
scarcely possible, but this documentary heard claims
of similar treatment in the province. A teacher and
Communist party member told how she had been sent to
teach Chinese at a detention camp for 2,500 Uighurs. She
claimed not only to have heard detainees being tortured,Has our love of
consumerism led
us to connive in
genocide?
Stuart Jeff ries
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