The Daily Telegraph - 16.08.2019

34 ***^ Friday 16 August 2019 The Daily Telegraph

Last night on television Gabriel Tatete

Cher: the Greatest

Showgirl

CHANNEL 5, 10.15PM



This biopic opens

with a dramatisation

of a phone call between

Cher and film director

George Miller. Apparently,

Miller tried to fire her

from his movie The

Witches of Eastwick with

cruel comments like “Jack

Nicholson and I think

you’re too old”. Miller

failed, but the scene shows

the hard knocks that Cher

has endured throughout

her 50-year career,

particularly while

reinventing herself from

singer to actress in the

Eighties. It gives a flavour

of this extravaganza: it’s a

hagiography exploring

how she has succeeded

in spite of a traumatic

childhood that left her

riddled with insecurities

that even a slew of awards

has done nothing to allay.

Cher’s battles with nearly

every film director she’s

ever worked with are

glossed over, however.

The story is told by a

clutch of Cher’s non-

famous friends (including

one of Sonny Bono’s

ex-wives, interestingly), so

don’t come expecting

Vegas-style sequins and a

claws-out gossip-fest – this

tribute is as warm as they

come. The film is let down

by laughable

reconstructions of pivotal

moments in Cher’s life by

lookalikes in bad wigs, but

overlook that and it’s a

serviceable celebration

that will appeal to diehard

fans. Vicki Power

Documentary

Woodstock: Three Days

That Defined a Generation

BBC FOUR, 10.00PM

 Fifty years ago this

weekend, 400,000 hippies

descended on a dairy

farmer’s field in upstate

New York for a celebration

of free love and music from

artists such as Jimi Hendrix,

Joan Baez and The Who.

This vibrant film reminds

us how different it was

from today’s slick, corporate

festivals – with new footage

and comments from

attendees, it celebrates

the festival-goers’ optimism

and the local heroes who

helped the event to be a

success. VP

Drama

Mindhunter

NETFLIX, FROM TODAY

 The second season of

David Fincher’s acclaimed

criminal drama sees new

horrors faced by the special

FBI agents, who in the

Seventies developed the

strategy of criminal

profiling. This series, the

caseload of emotionally

fragile agent Holden Ford

(Jonathan Groff ) and his

team includes the 1979-81

Atlanta Child Murders and

dealings with notorious

killers Son of Sam and

Charles Manson. VP

Fosse/Verdon

BBC TWO, 9.00PM

 This engaging drama

about the co-dependent

relationship of Bob Fosse

and Gwen Verdon (Sam

Rockwell and Michelle

Williams) tonight focuses on

Verdon. As 1972 dawns, she

and Fosse have split and

What to watch

Radio choice Clair Woodward

On the hunt: members of the Met Police’s Extradition Unit featured in the BBC’s Fugitives

A compelling account of

police trace and capture

‘A

cross the world,

thousands of fugitives are

on the run, crossing

borders, fleeing from

justice.” The introduction

to Fugitives (BBC One)

had the unmistakable tang of a

daytime show fronted by Rav Wilding

or Dom Littlewood, transposed to

prime-time and looking woefully out

of its depth. With its packed cast of

coppers and NCA agents, plus five

cases to cover in an hour, Fugitives

never aspired to the intimacy or depth

of, say, The Detectives or 24 Hours in

Police Custody. Bathetic voice-over

aside (“across Britain, drugs are a

major problem, blighting many of our

towns and cities”), though, there were

compelling stories here, intelligently

intercut and just unpredictable

enough to hold the attention.

The most absorbing was also its

saddest. Cardiff woman Nadine Aburas

had been strangled to death by New

Yorker Sammy Almahri, a man she met

online and whose controlling nature

dominated a long-distance

relationship that staggered on for two

years before Nadine’s brothers stepped

in. Inveigling his way back into her life

one final time, Almahri killed Nadine

before going on the run, his taunts-by-

telephone to the police inadvertently

exposing his flight to Tanzania, where

he was caught. It was a sad, strange

and sordid tale, but well told and with

a horribly compelling protagonist.

Others never quite delivered on

their promise for this inveterate

rubbernecker: a Brazilian armed

robber was taken without fuss from

his Thetford house (and then allowed

to stay), while a Slovakian wanted for

perverting the course of justice was

arrested in his pants – even the

producers seemed to lose interest in

this one early on. Their families were

treated as footnotes and their fates

elicited little more than a shrug.

Not so David McDermott, a

Crimewatch poster boy flushed out

when 400kg of cocaine (value: £70 m)

was seized at a port. After “a crisis

meeting in a retail park on

Merseyside”, McDermott fled to Accra,

shacking up with the daughter of the

governor of the Ghanaian National

Bank. With that sort of profile, he was

easy to locate, but sufficiently well

connected to require careful handling.

Yet he too came quietly, leaving

behind a family and a national scandal.

For all the hi-tech methods

of trace and capture it depicted,

Fugitives felt like a throwback: ropy

reconstructions, graphics from a

late-90s video game and portentous

soundtrack. Those TV schedules aren’t

going to fill themselves, I suppose.

S

adcoms are fast overtaking

sitcoms on British television.

Aisling Bea’s This Way Up

(Channel 4) is the latest but not the

first to face the challenges of the

genre. With the tricky opener out of

the way, this second episode

distributed the com and sad more

equally, allowing other characters to

grow alongside Bea’s Aine, balancing

wobbly mental health with a

determination to crack on, and Sharon

Horgan’s concerned sister and

budding entrepreneur, Shona.

Indira Varma, for example, was

charm personified as Shona’s potential

business partner, while Ekow Quartey

was a fine workplace foil as Aine’s

kindly boss. There was a real, tentative

charm to Aine’s TEFL classes,

undercut by Aine’s misdiagnosis of

a head injury to her burly Bulgarian

student Victor (Todor Jordanov); what

she had assumed to be a racist attack

(“that’s xenophobic,” counselled

Shona, helpfully) was in fact the result

of a falling brick on a building site.

This rush to judgment caused her to

miss her first session tutoring Etienne

(Dorian Grover), a sensitive, smart

young French boy grieving his mother

and now in the care of Richard, his

emotionally distant father who

referred to himself as the poor boy’s

legal guardian. Richard was played by

Tobias Menzies, whose trademark

deadpan reserve sharpened the

sarcasm and sexual tension with Aine,

the latter humming almost audibly

during their many awkward silences.

Aine’s silly voices, lame impressions

and painful jokes were, more than

ever, a self-defence mechanism for

someone trying hard to convince

herself and others that everything was

back to normal – whatever that means.

The occasional moment of panic and

hyperactivity established this was far

from the case, but underpinning it all

was, once again, a totally persuasive

portrait of sisterly love and concern

from Horgan and Bea, just as happy

bantering about Jon Motson as they

were spilling out their souls. The

laughs will likely get bigger and the

emotional sucker punches more

brutal, but This Way Up is on its feet

and heading in the right direction.

We’ve Got a Pill For That

RADIO 4, 11.30AM

 I doubt if there’s ever

been a comedy set in a small

biotech company before,

but if you’ve been waiting

for one, then here it is.

Stephen Mangan plays the

boss of a firm looking for

investment in new drugs

whilst trying to manage his

staff. Success will mean

they hit the big time.

There’s a pretty high laugh

rate in this one-off comedy,

which is basically an

updated workplace sitcom

with plinky-plonky music

to indicate modernity,

and lines such as “I met

him at the liver disease

cocktail reception” to

indicate science.

Japan’s Never-Ending War

RADIO 3, 10.00PM

 When can a nation put

a major war behind it? This

is what Rana Mitter asks as

he visits Tokyo to talk to

directors, critics and

students about how

today’s Japan tells itself

the story of the Second

World War Two through

its films. In east Asia, the

war is still being debated

through movies, some of

which focus on Japanese

suffering in its later

stages, some of which are

percieved as venerating

participants such as

kamikaze pilots – and

some of which express fears

that Japan is returning to

a more war-like mindset.

while his star is on the rise,

her attempts to break into

straight acting are belittled

and cause painful memories

to surface. VP

Entertainment

Kevin Bridges: The

Brand New Tour

BBC ONE, 10.35PM; WALES, 11.05PM

 The Glasgow comedian’s

2018 stand-up tour, his first

in three years, shows

comedy skills as strong as

his accent. He riffs on topics

including social media,

anxiety and religion,

imagining the Bible’s Joseph

as a builder, naively telling

his mates about Mary’s

impending virgin birth. VP

Edinburgh Nights

with Nish Kumar

BBC TWO, 11.05PM

 Nish Kumar is back for a

second year of cherry-

picking his hot tips from the

world’s biggest arts festival.

Among tonight’s picks are

My Land, the Hungarian

“cirque danse” show, and

a new partnership of

gospel singers The Blind

Boys of Alabama and

Afro-pop artists Amadou

and Mariam. VP

Factual

Mortimer & Whitehouse:

Gone Fishing

BBC TWO, 8.00PM

 The thread on which

tonight’s episode is hung

is Bob Mortimer’s long-

harboured dream of

catching a salmon. It

provides an excuse for

glorious drone shots

of Scotland’s River Tay

and scenes of the funnymen

exchanging banter about

chia seeds. VP

Fugitives ★★★

This Way Up ★★★★

Woodstock

Mortimer & Whitehouse

Turning back time: a retrospective of the singer’s career

Radio 1

FM 97.6-99.8MHZ

6.00am Weekend Breakfast with Matt

and Mollie 10.00 Radio 1 Anthems

with Maya Jama 11.00 Maya Jama

12.45pm Newsbeat 1.00 Dev and

Alice 4.00 The Official Chart Show

with Scott Mills 5.45 Newsbeat 6.00

Radio 1’s Dance Anthems with Scott

Mills 7.00 Radio 1’s Dance Party with

Danny Howard 9.00 Pete Tong 11.00

Eats Everything 1.00am Radio 1’s

Essential Mix 3.00 Radio 1’s Drum &

Bass Mix 3.30 Annie Mac in the Mix

4.00 Radio 1’s Wind Down with Kelsey

Lu 5.00 - 6.00am Radio 1’s Wind

Down

Radio 2

FM 88-90.2MHZ

6.30am The Amol Rajan Breakfast

Show 9.30 Ken Bruce 12.00 Jeremy

Vine 2.00pm Steve Wright in the

Afternoon 4.15 Steve Wright in the

Afternoon – Serious Jockin’ 5.00

Vanessa Feltz 7.00 Tony Blackburn’s

Golden Hour 8.00 Friday Night Is

Music Night 10.00 Sounds of the 80s

with Gary Davies 12.00 The Pick of

Radio 2 with Anneka Rice 2.00am

Barry Manilow – They Write the Songs

3.00 The Santana Story 4.00 -

6.00am Huey Morgan

Radio 3

FM 90.2-92.4MHZ

6.30am Breakfast 9.00 Essential

Classics 11.00 Edinburgh

International Festival 2019 1.00pm

News 1.02 Composer of the Week:

Debussy 2.00 Afternoon Concert 4.30

The Listening Service 5.00 In Tune

7.00 In Tune Mixtape. An eclectic non-

stop mix of music 7.30 BBC Proms

2019. Live from the Royal Albert Hall
      10.00  Japan’s Never-Ending War.
      See Radio choice 10.45 The Essay:
      Secret Admirers 11.00 Music Planet
      12.30am Music Planet World Mix
      1.00 - 7.00am Through the Night

Radio 4

FM 92.4-94.6MHZ; LW 198KHZ

6.00am Today 9.00 Desert Island

Discs 9.45 Book of the Week:

Mudlarking 9.45 LW: Daily Service

10.00 Woman’s Hour 10.00 LW:

Woman’s Hour 10.30am LW: Test

Match Special 11.00 The Syrians and

the Kindertransport Kids 11.30 

We’ve Got a Pill for That. See Radio

choice 12.00 News 12.01pm LW:

Shipping Forecast 12.04 Ulverton

12.04 LW: Test Match Special 12.18

You and Yours 12.57 Weather 1.00

The World at One 1.45 Breakdown

2.00 The Archers 2.15 Drama: The

Tiny Problem 3.00 Gardeners’

Question Time 3.45 The Poet and the

Echo 4.00 Last Word 4.30 Feedback

4.55 The Listening Project 5.00 PM

5.54 LW: Shipping Forecast 5.57

Weather 5.57 LW: Test Match Special.

England v Australia 6.00 Six O’Clock

News 6.30 Lobby Land 7.00 The

Archers 7.15 Front Row 7.45 The

Latvian Locum 8.00 Any Questions?

8.50 A Point of View 9.00 A History of

Delusions 10.00 The World Tonight

10.45 Book at Bedtime: Ulverton

11.00 Great Lives 11.25 The Untold

11.55 The Listening Project 12.00

News and Weather 12.30am Book of

the Week: Mudlarking 12.48 Shipping

Forecast 1.00 As World Service 5.20

Shipping Forecast 5.30 News Briefing

5.43 Prayer for the Day 5.45 -

6.00am Four Thought

Radio 5 Live

MW 693 & 909KHZ

6.00am 5 Live Breakfast 9.00 Your

Call 10.00 Chiles on Friday 1.00pm

Elis James and John Robins 3.00

Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review 5.00

5 Live Drive 7.00 5 Live Sport: The

Friday Football Social 10.00 Stephen

Nolan 1.00am Up All Night 5.00 5

Live Boxing 5.30 - 6.00am Robbie

Savage’s Premier League Breakfast

Classic FM

FM 99.9-101.9MHZ

6.00am More Music Breakfast 9.00

John Suchet 1.00pm Anne-Marie

Minhall 5.00 Classic FM Drive 7.00

Smooth Classics at Seven 8.00 The

Full Works Concert. A programme full

of musical comedy for Tell a Joke Day

10.00 Smooth Classics 1.00am Lucy

Coward 4.00 - 7.00am Jane Jones

World Service

DIGITAL ONLY

6.00am Newsday 8.30 Business Daily

8.50 Witness History 9.00 The Real

Story 10.00 World Update 11.00 The

Newsroom 11.30 World Football

12.00 News 12.06pm The 5th Floor

1.00 The Newsroom 1.30 Heart and

Soul 2.00 Newshour 3.00 News 3.06

Tech Tent 3.30 World Business Report

4.00 BBC OS 6.00 News 6.06 The 5th

Floor 7.06 The Newsroom 7.30 Sport

Today 8.00 News 8.06 HARDtalk 8.30

CrowdScience 9.00 Newshour 10.00

News 10.06 Trending 10.30 World

Business Report 11.00 News 11.06

The Newsroom 11.20 Sports News

11.30 World Football 12.00 News

12.06am The Real Story 1.00 News

1.06 Business Matters 2.00 News

2.06 The Newsroom 2.30 The Cultural

Frontline 3.00 News 3.06 The Fifth

Floor 4.00 News 4.06 The Real Story

5.00 News 5.06 The Newsroom 5.30

Trending 5.50 - 6.00am 50 More

Things That Made the Modern

Economy

Radio 4 Extra

DIGITAL ONLY

6.00am Daughters-in-Law 6.30 The

Green Children of Woolpit 7.00

Secrets and Lattes 7.30 Cooking in a

Bedsitter 8.00 The Burkiss Way 8.30

Steptoe and Son 9.00 Who Goes

There? 9.30 Mr Finchley Goes to Paris

10.00 The Shocking Tale of Margaret

Seddon 11.00 Podcast Radio Hour

12.00 The Burkiss Way 12.30pm

Steptoe and Son 1.00 Daughters-in-

Law 1.30 The Green Children of

Woolpit 2.00 I Saw a Man 2.15 A

Brief History of Mathematics 2.30

Betsy and Napoleon 2.45 Forensics –

The Anatomy of Crime 3.00 The

Shocking Tale of Margaret Seddon

4.00 Who Goes There? 4.30 Mr

Finchley Goes to Paris 5.00 Secrets

and Lattes 5.30 Cooking in a Bedsitter

6.00 Planet B 6.30 Off the Page 7.00

The Burkiss Way 7.30 Steptoe and Son

8.00 Daughters-in-Law 8.30 The

Green Children of Woolpit 9.00

Podcast Radio Hour 10.00 Comedy

Club 12.00 Planet B 12.30am Off the

Page 1.00 Daughters-in-Law 1.30 The

Green Children of Woolpit 2.00 I Saw

a Man 2.15 A Brief History of

Mathematics 2.30 Betsy and Napoleon

2.45 Forensics – The Anatomy of

Crime 3.00 The Shocking Tale of

Margaret Seddon 4.00 Who Goes

There? 4.30 Mr Finchley Goes to Paris

5.00 Secrets and Lattes 5.30 -

6.00am Cooking in a Bedsitter

Television & radio

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