24 saturday review Saturday January 1 2022 | the times
Call the Midwife
BBC1, 8pmThe hardy perennial returns
for its 11th series with no sign
of slowing down (series 12 and
13 have been commissioned).
Rather incongruously, the new
run begins at Easter. There’s an
array of cute babies in Easter
bonnets, spring lambs and
a jolly pastel colour palette.
However, the episode soon
takes a darker turn when
during demolition work at a
nearby tenement block the
builders discover the remains
of a baby wrapped in a
nightgown. The police are
called in and the trail leads
back to Nonnatus House...
Elsewhere there is more levity,
with a Eurovision plotline and
a joyful birth or two. JC10.45 Growing Up Scottish: Festive
Special. Scotland’s comedians remember
past New Year’s Eves 11.00-Midnight
Seven Days: Review of the Year. A look
back on events from July to December
● S4C 6.00am Cyw: Bing (r) 6.10
Cymylaubychain (r) 6.20 Meic y Marchog
(r) 6.35 Sbridiri (r) 6.55 Sali Mali (r) 7.00
Jen a Jim Pob Dim (r) 7.15 Guto Gwningen
(r) 7.30 Gwdihw (r) 7.45 Cei Bach (r) 8.00
Blero yn Mynd i Ocido (r) 8.10 Amser
Maith Maith yn Ôl (r) 8.25 Pablo (r) 8.35
Ahoi! (r) 8.50 Penblwyddi Cyw 9.00
Cymru Wyllt (r) 10.00 Gwesty Aduniad (r)
11.00 Byd o Liw: Cestyll (r) 11.30 Dechrau
Canu Dechrau Canmol (r) 12.00 Cymro
Cryfa’ (r) 1.00pm Caru Siopa (r) 1.30
Dudley: Cymru ar Blât (r) 2.00 Dudley:
Cymru ar Blât (r) 2.25 Cynefin (r) 3.25
Codi Hwyl (r) 3.50 Noson Lawen (r) 5.15
Pobol y Cwm Omnibws (r) 7.15 News 7.30
Dechrau Canu Dechrau Canmol. Ryland
Teifi presents a compilation of highlights
from the series 8.00 Canu gyda Fy Arwr.
Rhys Meirion makes more musical
dreams come true, with a little help from
guests including Caryl Parry Jones and
Non from the group Eden 9.00 Enid a
Lucy. New series 10.00 Cefn Gwlad (r)
11.00-11.35 Sain Ffagan (r)
(r) repeat (SL) In-vision signing● BBC2 Wales As BBC2 except: 6.00pm
Scrum V Sunday. Action from the United
Rugby Championship and Welsh
Premiership 6.45-7.00 A to Z of TV
Gardening. Carol Kirkwood looks at
subjects beginning with the letter Q (r)
● BBC2 N Ireland As BBC2 except:
7.00pm-8.00 Daniel O’Donnell: The Boy
from Donegal. A look back at the singer’s
career as he celebrates his 60th birthday
(r) 9.00 Paula McIntyre’s Hamely Kitchen.
The chef prepares recipes inspired by her
own Ulster-Scots heritage (r) 9.30 FILM
Mary Queen of Scots (2018) Drama
starring Saoirse Ronan and Margot
Robbie 11.25-11.40pm Gardening
Together with Diarmuid Gavin. The
horticultural designer sows wildflowers
as a surprise gift for his mother (r)
● BBC1 Scotland As BBC1 except:
11.50pm Sportscene 1.05am Weather for
the Week Ahead 1.10-6.00 BBC News
● STV As ITV except: 6.20-6.30pm STV
News 4.05-5.05am Unwind with STV
● BBC Scotland 4.30pm-5.15 Sportscene
Results 7.00 The Seven 7.15 Sportscene.
Highlights of recent events 8.30 The
Forest. The people who live and work in
Galloway Forest Park (r) 9.00 FILM Rory’s
Way (2018) Drama starring Brian Cox,
Rosanna Arquette and Tim MathesonMary Queen of Scots (15, 2018)
BBC2, 9pm
The ambition and the betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots is brought
vividly to life in this rousing political melodrama about the
contrasting fates of two very different queens. Saoirse Ronan,
below, is on savagely strong form as Mary Stuart, the eponymous
heroine who, as the film begins (in 1561), has returned from Europe
with flawless French, some progressive ideas and a claim to the
thrones of Scotland and England. Mary’s royal ambitions, naturally,
ruffle the feathers of her distant cousin Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie)
so the action unfolds as a dance of sorts, as each of them aims for
complete supremacy while negotiating with their treacherous
male advisers. The theatre director Josie Rourke’s film debut is a
bravura screen biography of the finest kind. (121min) Kevin MaherFilms of the day
Saving Private Ryan (15, 1998)
Channel 5, 10.30pm
The 24-minute sequence at the start of Steven Spielberg’s
Second World War drama is one of the greatest pieces of
combat cinema yet made. Spielberg flings the audience
into the chaos and slaughter of the Normandy landings.
Bullets fizz past the camera into the boiling sea. It’s a living hell,
evoked with unavoidable clarity. By comparison, the rest of the
film is rather more conventional — Spielberg milks the sentiment
of the story of Private Ryan (Matt Damon), whose three brothers
have been killed in a week and who is to be brought home,
at a considerable cost to the men sent to fetch him. The cast
includes Tom Hanks, Ted Danson, Paul Giamatti and Edward
Burns. (170min) Wendy IdeThe Man Who
Bought Cricket
Sky Documentaries/Now, 9pmStuart Bernard’s three-part
documentary tells the
stranger-than-fiction story of
the Texan billionaire banker
Allen Stanford, who in 2008
landed on the hallowed turf of
Lord’s with a Perspex box filled
with $20 million in cash and
a plan to revolutionise cricket.
He had convinced the England
hierarchy to let the national
team play a West Indies team
for eye-watering sums, with
gimmicks such as players
receiving $1 million for a single
catch. However, it soon turned
out that he was nothing more
than a conman running an
elaborate Ponzi scheme. JCRegional programmes
Catch
up
Landscapers
Sky/Now
In October 2013 the bodies
of two elderly people were
discovered buried in a garden
in Nottinghamshire,
with police attention
turning to the dead
couple’s daughter,
Susan Edwards, and
her husband,
Christopher,
who were
living in
France.
What this
strange HBO
four-part
fictionalretelling of that story lacks in
dramatic jeopardy, it makes
up for by being a fascinating
portrait of a very odd central
pair. Olivia Colman plays Susan,
who masks her dark nature
with mousy, pleasant-seeming
airs. David Thewlis, below
with Colman, plays Christopher
like a taut spring, a loyal and
obedient spouse living under
obvious strain. The police
investigators that the
couple give themselves
up to are led by Daniel
Rigby’s hard-swearing
lead, DCI Collier.
Their puzzled,
slightly crude
behaviour
serves almost
as a comic
foil to the
pair. Ben
DowellAround the World
in 80 Days
BBC1, 6.20pm/7.10pm
As we rejoin David Tennant’s
Phileas Fogg and his colleagues
— French valet Passepartout
(Ibrahim Koma) and journalist
Abigail “Fix” Fortescue (Leonie
Benesch) — it’s day 16 of their
quest and they are on a ship
approaching the Suez Canal.
“I’ve got a very, very good
feeling about this,” Fogg says.
“Sun on our backs, technology
on our side, India waiting
for us... Nothing can stop
us now!” However, the mood
soon sours when the threat of
pirates leaves them stranded
on Yemen’s west coast and
Fogg decides on a foolhardy
desert crossing. JC
The Great Pottery
Throw Down
Channel 4, 7.45pmTwelve more amateur potters
spin their wheels during timed
challenges at the Middleport
pottery in Stoke-on-Trent, the
spiritual home of British
ceramics. The host Siobhán
McSweeney (Derry Girls) has
broken her leg, so Ellie Taylor
from The Mash Report is
her stand-in. The star turn is
the emotional master potter
Keith Brymer Jones, whose
tears over the creations are the
equivalent of a Paul Hollywood
handshake. For their first
challenges the talented
amateurs must make a
children’s crockery set and
ceramic milk bottles. JCSunday 2 | Viewing guide
Critic’s choice
Anne
ITV, 9pm
Maxine Peake, right, delivers
a towering performance as
the inspirational Hillsborough
campaigner Anne Williams,
who lost her son, Kevin, 15, in
the disaster on April 15, 1989.
Williams fought for more than
two decades to prove that
Kevin, who was crushed inside
the Leppings Lane enclosure,
could have been saved if the
emergency services had
moved more swiftly. Her
argument was that the finding
by the original coroner — that
each of the 94 victims who
died at the FA Cup semi-final
(the 97th victim died of his
injuries this year) was dead
or beyond saving by 3.15pm
— was the result of a corrupt
process designed to cover up
the disastrous response of
police and other emergency
services. This powerful four-
part drama, on consecutive
nights, is written by Kevin
Sampson, a screenwriter and
novelist who was at the match
on that fateful day, but was
one of the lucky ones. The
opening scenes are hard to
watch as we see young Kevin,
a passionate Liverpool fan,
begging his parents to let him
go to the match. The tragedy
is shown from the perspective
of Anne and her husband and
daughter watching it unfold
on TV, and it’s gut-wrenching
when the couple travel to
Sheffield to find out if Kevin
survived. It’s a distressing but
essential watch and the series
follows Williams’s quest for
justice, seeking out new
medical opinions, tracking
down witnesses who had tried
to revive Kevin on the pitch
and lobbying ministers for
new inquiries. Williams died of
cancer in 2013 so did not live
to see the day in 2016 when
the inquest jury ruled that the
96 people who died were
unlawfully killed. This series
is a fitting tribute to her.
Joe Clay