The Observer
25.08.19 57Thursday Friday Saturday Radio By Stephanie Billen
Pick of the Day
China: A New World Order
BBC Two, 9pm
The fi rst episode in a new three-part series
about President Xi Jinping’s controversial
six-year rule in China forms another
grim reminder of the persecution of
ethnic minorities outlined in ITV’s recent
Undercover: Inside China’s Digital Gulag.
As well as revisiting the sad plight of the
Uighur people, director Richard Cookson’s
searching fi lm questions Xi’s controversial
anti-corruption campaign and reveals
evidence of what some believe to be
monstrous crimes against humanity.Pick of the Day
Carnival Row
Amazon Prime
Director Jon Amiel’s neo-noir fantasy/
murder mystery is Amazon’s latest bid to
garner a share of the post-Game of Thrones
fantasy market. Set in an early 1800s
world, it follows fairy folk forced to fl ee
their homelands by the evil forces of The
Pact and take (unwelcome) refuge in the
city of The Burgue. If it sounds unlikely,
don’t be put off as Orlando Bloom and
Cara Delevingne combine superbly in an
electric mix of high drama and humour
enhanced by an intelligent racial narrative.Pick of the Day
Darkness: Those Who Kill
BBC Four, 9pm & 9.45pm
The next Danish crime thriller off the rank
announces itself with stunning fi lmic
opening credits that give way to the noirest
of Scandi-noir plots involving detective
Jan Michelsen (the hunky Kenneth M
Christensen) who discovers a link between
the missing persons case he’s investigating
in the suburbs of Copenhagen and a
similar case which occurred nearby almost
10 years previously. Is he on the trail of a
serial killer? Find out as Ina Bruhn’s dark
tale opens with a gripping double bill.Picks of the Week
Remembering the past helps us change
the present. Prom 49 (Sunday, Radio 3,
5.30pm) is a musical celebration of
The Lost Words, a 2017 book by Robert
Macfarlane and artist Jackie Morris
highlighting how once familiar nature
terms like “acorn” and “bramble” are
disappearing from children’s vocabulary.
The volume’s spell-poems and illustrations
seek to revive them. This family-friendly
concert featuring The Lost Words: Spell
Songs folk group, the National Youth
Choir of Great Britain and the Southbank
Sinfonia includes book extracts, new
compositions and classics like Beethoven’s
“Pastoral” Symphony and Vaughan
Williams’s The Lark Ascending.
Our House (Monday, Radio 4, 1.45pm)
is a thought-provoking week-long
series in which a young couple with a
combined income of more than £40,000
try to understand their inability to buy
a fi rst home in Brighton by imagining
how they would have fared in previous
decades. The fi rst episode whisks Tacita
and Charlie back to 1968. Economists
and academics help them deconstruct
a time when society was much poorer
with some dwellings lacking basic
amenities, yet twenty somethings
could buy their own places.
Motown Covered (Monday, Radio 2,
6pm) offers an enticing marriage of old
and new as Ken Bruce celebrates 60 years
of the record company by inviting artists
to play exclusive covers on the grand
piano that Sir Elton John donated to
Radio 2. Highlights include Emeli Sandé’s
tremulous Baby Love, Jack Savoretti’s
Heard It Through the Grapevine and
Ward Thomas’s intensely beautiful
Who’s Lovin’ You.
Lyse Doucet’s Her Story Made History
(Friday, Radio 4, 9am) concludes with
a candid interview with Michelle
Bachelet, who became Chile’s fi rst
elected female president and is now UN
high commissioner for human rights.
We hear how she was a student when
General Pinochet took over in a coup and
how her father was tortured by the regime.
When she eventually became president
she felt a “historical responsibility” to get
it right, knowing that “If a man is not a
good president nobody will say he is not
a good president because he is a man.” As
Doucet acknowledges, all the remarkable
women in this series have made history.
The fact that they are willing to talk about
their experiences so openly may well help
others do the same.World War Speed: The
Drugs That Won WWII
BBC Four, 10pm
Historian James Holland investigates the truth
behind the use of synthetic stimulants such
as the methamphetamine Pervitin during the
second world war and reveals how it sparked
the fi rst pharmacological arms race as both
Nazis and allies scrambled to benefi t from
the new edge promised by drugs. Excellent.
Brassic
Sky One, 10pm
Star/creator Joe Gilgun’s love letter to This
Is England continues with an entertaining
episode that sees Ash take up the challenge of
a bare-knuckle bout against against a feared
opponent from a rival family of Travellers. Of
course, things get out of hand, leaving Vinnie
(Gilgun) struggling to salvage the gang’s
honour. Great plot, great script, great fun. MB
Film
Snake Eyes
(Brian De Palma, 1998)
Film4, 11.10pm
Violence, fetishism, unapologetic objectifi cation
of women: Brian De Palma’s work has all the
ingredients that would theoretically make him
very much yesterday’s man. But his auteur
stamp is so distinctive that his renown refuses
to fade. This double bill begins with one of his
most obtrusively fl ashy movies, laden with
elaborate long-take camerawork: a political
thriller set in an Atlantic City arena, with
Nicolas Cage as a cop investigating sniper
activity at a boxing match; Carla Gugino has
fun as a femme fatale disguise artist. Then at
1.15am The Fury, DePalma’s rarely screened
1978 follow-up to Carrie: an espionage-horror-
science-fi ction hybrid with Kirk Douglas as a
CIA agent whose son has psychic powers. JR
International Rugby Union
BBC Two, 7pm
Wales v Ireland Live coverage of the World
Cup warm-up fi xture from the Principality
Stadium in Cardiff, scene of the recent
humbling of an arrogant England side by
Warren Gatland’s better organised Wales. The
Welsh coach is starting to look like the most
astute home nations tactician. Joe Schmidt is
no slouch but Ireland had better watch out!Proms Encore
BBC Two, 7pm
Katie Derham celebrates the 150th birthday
of Proms co-founder and erstwhile
conductor Henry Wood as she explores his
legacy in the company of jazz pianist Monty
Alexander, conductor Ilan Volkov and music
historian Dr Hannah French. Plus, Tom
Service’s maestro in the Maestro is Heritage
Orchestra conductor Jules Buckley. MBFilm
Bad Times at the El Royale
(Drew Goddard, 2018)
Sky Cinema Premiere, 11.35am & 8pm
This thriller somewhat fi zzled on release
because the ads suggested a glossy piece of
faux-Tarantino that had missed its moment. It’s
certainly old-fashioned, but very entertaining.
It’s a 1970s-set ensemble piece about a bunch
of suspicious characters crossing paths in a
near-abandoned hotel with a glamorously
shady past. Writer-director Goddard devises
a knowing confection that suggests Agatha
Christie and James Ellroy collaborating on
a Broadway drama. Dakota Johnson, Chris
Hemsworth and Jon Hamm give their money’s
worth, but the show absolutely belongs to
Cynthia Erivo, as a fugitive soul singer; her taut
but tender playoff with an elderly priest (Jeff
Bridges, terrifi c) gives the fi lm its heart. JRThe Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance
Netfl ix
This is a 10-part prequel to Jim Henson’s 1982
cult-hit puppet movie The Dark Crystal. The
TV version is equally dark and fantastic and it
tells a new story in which the world of Thra is
slowly dying as a result of a sickness spread by
the evil Skeksis. Cue: three brave Gelfl ing who
vow to restore the power of the crystal at the
heart of Thra and heal the planet. Quirky.Proms: A Homage to Nina Simone
BBC Four, 10.25pm
Led by Jules Buckley and accompanied
by Ledisi and Lisa Fischer, the Metropole
Orkest pay tribute to enigmatic jazz genius
Nina Simone. Expect interpretations of the
standards she transformed so dazzlingly –
Feeling Good, My Baby Just Cares for Me, I Put
a Spell on You – and even her “fi rst civil rights
song”, the anthemic Mississippi Goddam. MBFilm
Dracula
(Tod Browning, 1931)
TCM Movies, 7.25pm
The original and the greatest – although
there’s room for argument. In fact, FW Murnau
had already unoffi cially adapted Bram Stoker’s
novel in his peerless Nosferatu (1922). So this
is the fi rst legit screen Dracula, and the fi rst
talking one – immortalising the menacing
tones of Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi, who
had played the role on Broadway, and who
here established the tradition of vampires as
sticklers for formal evening wear. Director
Browning – whose oeuvre includes Freaks and
deranged Lon Chaney vehicle The Unknown –
lays on the atmosphere in what would become
an enduring template for big-screen gothic.
Also featuring – bizarrely – armadillos, plus
Dwight Frye’s legendarily loopy Renfi eld. JRA hymn
to nature:
Prom 49.
BBC