48 saturday review Saturday December 4 2021 | the times
Gardeners’ World
Winter Specials
BBC2, 8pm
How can you look after your
garden over winter? Gardeners’
World is here to help. There is
advice on planting trees and
shrubs that provide shelter
and food in the form of berries
including hawthorn, ivy, rose
hips and holly, and the plants
favoured by pollinators such as
mahonia, daphne and clematis.
Nick Bailey extols the virtues of
evergreens for when the days
are short, while Adam Frost
finds a wonderful world of
planting for the colder months
at Cambridge University
Botanic Garden. If all this
doesn’t inspire you to get
outdoors, nothing will. JJ
Grayson’s Art Club:
An Exhibition
for Britain
Channel 4, 8pmIn the gloomiest periods of
lockdown Grayson Perry’s Art
Club was a tonic simply for
encouraging people to exercise
their artistic instincts. The
public sent in their efforts
(17,000 of them) based on
various themes, and now we
have a culmination of sorts as
Perry takes viewers behind the
scenes at his new Art Club
exhibition at Bristol Museum
and Art Gallery. This will house
the best of this public art and
form a lasting artistic record of
the experiences of the nation
this year. JJGavin & Stacey
Christmas Special
BBC1, 8.25pmGiven the astonishing success
of this revival from 2019, we’ll
surely one day have another
Gavin & Stacey Christmas
special, but not this year. In the
meantime, here’s a repeat of
that eventful festive knees-up
with the families from Essex
and Barry Island united by
lovebirds Gavin (Mathew
Horne) and Stacey (Joanna
Page). Apart from Rob Brydon
singing Fairytale of New York,
it features the show’s writers,
James Corden and Ruth Jones,
reprising their roles as wideboy
Smithy and the deadpan Nessa,
whose child together is proving
to be a chip off both blocks. JJNick Cave:
Idiot Prayer
BBC4, 9pmForget the usual Friday night
rock docs, this musical
experience is something else
altogether. Just Nick Cave
alone at a grand piano in
Alexandra Palace for 90
minutes singing songs full of
soul-baring regret, or perhaps
catharsis, given the tragedy
that Cave has endured in
recent years. The lighting is
understated yet beautiful, and
the performance of Cave,
dressed in a dark Gucci suit,
is the antithesis of Adele’s
recent showbiz special. This
is a true artistic statement.
For something so stark, it is
riveting. JJCatch
up
Only Murders in the Building
Disney+
The ten episodes of this
intriguing light drama
about a trio of podcast
obsessives investigating
the death — is it suicide
or murder? — of a man
in their New York
apartment
building are
eminently
bingeable. One
of its many
joys is the
generational
mismatch,
with Steve
Martin (whoco-created this) teaming up
with his fellow comedy veteran
Martin Short and the millennial
superstar singer Selena Gomez.
Martin, below, is Charles-Haden
Savage, a washed-up actor who
once enjoyed fame in a terrible
1980s cop show, Short’s
Oliver is a Broadway
director also struggling
for work and money
whose flash apartment
is, he says, all he has.
Gomez’s Mabel is
perhaps an even
bigger mystery
who, we quickly
learn, had a
much closer
relationship to
the dead man
than she tells
her new
friends.
Ben DowellFriday 10 | Viewing guide
Critic’s choice Vienna Blood:
The Melancholy Countess
BBC2, 9pm
There’s nothing wrong with
old-fashioned drama when it’s
done with care and attention,
and Vienna Blood is proof.
Back after a quietly successful
debut in 2019 — when it flew
under the radar — tonight
starts a trilogy of episodes
with the story of the White
Countess. Once again the
drama catches your attention
with its elegant recreation of
high society in 1907 Vienna,
then draws you in further
through the whodunnit
aspect, there to be cracked
by the show’s double act,
psychiatrist Dr Max
Liebermann (Matthew Beard)
and bowler-hatted detective
Oskar Rheinhardt (Jürgen
Maurer, right with Beard).
Yes, this is a bit Holmes and
Watson in some regards, but
more Austrian in feel and
more psychoanalytical in
method; in other words,
Sherlock Holmes meets
Sigmund Freud. This time the
fresh-faced Liebermann —
Beard can look a touch
milquetoast, yet he works —
has the added complication of
labouring under a disgraced
reputation. One of his
patients, a depressed
Hungarian countess, appears
to have committed suicide in
the bath of her hotel suite.
Liebermann’s new-fangled
therapeutic methods are
being blamed so he has to
clear his name by solving the
riddle of the countess’s death
with the help of his gruff
counterpart, Rheinhardt.
Along the way Liebermann
has to recall the melancholic
dreams of his late patient,
allowing for atmospheric
sequences. As crime dramas
go, this is a world away from
voguish social realism (such
as Mare of Easttown); instead,
this doesn’t feel the need to
be fashionable, and that turns
out to be its strongest suit.
James JacksonKick-Ass (15, 2010)
BBC1, 12.10am
Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Dave, aka masked vigilante Kick-Ass,
below, and Chloë Grace Moretz plays Mindy, aka schoolgirl bad-ass
Hit-Girl, in this amateur-superhero movie. Dave is a comic book
nerd in a flashy customised wetsuit with little other than higher-
than-average pain tolerance to qualify him as a superhero. Yet he
has the will and, in the indomitable Hit-Girl, a formidable wing
woman. Hit-Girl and her father, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), are
a crime-fighting duo with skills that are rather more honed than
Dave’s have-a-go technique. All three meet their match when the
son of a local crime boss (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) dons his cape
and mask to become Red Mist, the evil arch-nemesis of our ad hoc
heroes. It’s boisterous fun, but really violent. (117min) Wendy IdeFilms of the day
Shot Caller (15, 2017)
Film4, 12.55am
Fans of Breaking Bad and Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet will find
resonances in this prison drama about a clean-living, kind-hearted
stockbroker called Jacob (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), who drinks too
much at dinner one night, accidentally kills his best friend in a car
crash on the way home and is put in the slammer. There, Jacob,
obviously, becomes a fighter, stabber, hider of drugs and,
ultimately, murderous neo-Nazi (it’s a journey from white collar
to white supremacist). Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister from
Game of Thrones) never convinces as anything other than
a handsome guy underneath a hefty moustache, while the movie
recalls Tom Selleck’s schlocky 1989 prison drama An Innocent
Man. (120min) Kevin Maher● S4C 6.00am Cyw 6.40 Gwdihw (r) 6.55
Ynys Broc Môr Lili (r) 7.05 Nico Nôg (r)
7.15 Patrôl Pawennau (r) 7.30 Deian a Loli
(r) 7.45 Sion y Chef (r) 8.00 Olobobs (r)
8.05 Jen a Jim a’r Cywiadur (r) 8.20
Tomos a’i Ffrindiau (r) 8.30 Twt (r) 8.45
Llan-ar-goll-en (r) 9.00 Timpo (r) 9.10
Octonots (r) 9.20 Bach a Mawr (r) 9.30
Blero yn Mynd i Ocido (r) 9.45 Sbarc (r)
10.00 Peppa (r) 10.05 Hafod Haul (r)
10.20 Digbi Draig (r) 10.35 Nos Da Cyw (r)
10.40 Ben Dant (r) 11.00 Shwshaswyn (r)
11.10 Sion y Chef (r) 11.20 Loti Borloti (r)
11.35 Y Crads Bach (r) 11.40
Cymylaubychain (r) 11.50 Byd Tad-Cu (r)
12.05pm News 12.15 Datganiad Covid-19
1.00 Nyrsys (r) 1.30 Sain Ffagan (r) 2.00
News 2.05 Prynhawn Da 3.00 News 3.05
Priodas Pum Mil (r) 4.00 Awr Fawr:
Olobobs (r) 4.05 Cymylaubychain (r) 4.15
Ben Dant (r) 4.30 Sion y Chef (r) 4.45 Byd
Tad-Cu (r) 5.00 Stwnsh: Dennis a
Dannedd 5.10 SpynjBob Pantsgwâr (r)
5.20 Ci Da (r) 5.40 Rygbi Pawb (r) 5.55
Ffeil 6.00 Codi Hwyl (r) 6.30 Richard Holt:
Yr Academi Felys (r) 6.57 News S4C 7.00
Heno 7.30 News 8.00 Aled Jones:
Dychwelyd Adre (r) 8.55 News 9.00 Mwy
o’r Busnes Cerdd Dant ’Ma 10.00 Miwsig
Fy Mywyd (r) 11.00-11.35 Caryl a’r Lleill (r)
(r) repeat (SL) In-vision signing● BBC1 Wales As BBC1 except:
3.00pm-3.45 Bargain Hunt (r) 11.25 Age
of Outrage 11.45 In My Skin (r)
12.30-2.20am FILM Kick-Ass (2010)
● BBC2 Wales As BBC2 except:
11.05-12.05am Turkey with Simon Reeve.
The first of two programmes in which the
presenter explores the country (r)
● BBC1 N Ireland As BBC1 except:
10.35pm The Blame Game 11.05 The
Graham Norton Show 11.55 FILM Kick-Ass
(2010) 1.45-6.00am BBC News
● BBC1 Scotland As BBC1 except:
7.30pm-8.00 Landward (r) 11.25 Question
of Sport 11.55 In My Skin 12.40am FILM
Kick-Ass (2010) 2.30 Weather for the
Week Ahead 2.35-6.00 BBC News
● STV As ITV except: 10.55-11.10pm STV
News 4.05-5.05am Unwind with STV
● UTV As ITV except: 8.00pm-8.30
UTV Life. An eclectic mix of stories and
studio guests 11.10 Gino’s Italian Family
Adventure (r) 11.40-12.05am Griff’s
Great New Zealand Adventure
● BBC Scotland 7.00pm The Seven 7.30
Live Sportscene: Friday Night Football.
Ayr United v Hamilton Academical
(Kick-off 7. 4 5) 10.00 Still Game. An old pal
turns up (r) 10.30 Best of Only an Excuse
(r) 11.00 Limmy’s Other Stuff (r) 11.30-
Midnight The Karen Dunbar Show (r)Regional programmes