28 saturday review Saturday April 9 2022 | the times
Catch
up
Slow Horses
Apple TV+
Mick Herron’s novels about
a dilapidated outpost of
MI5 in the Barbican have
become a cult success.
The popularity of
their main
character means
that they have
stopped being
known as
Slow Horses
thrillers, but
rather as
Jackson
Lamb ones.
Lamb is the
acerbic, flatulentintelligence chief who presides
over a team of misfits while
slumped with his holey-socked
feet up on the desk. It’s the
kind of character that needs a
big performance. Step forward
Gary Oldman, below, who
looks suitably unhealthy; in
fact, you can almost
smell his stench of
Scotch and sweat.
While a long way from
George Smiley, he is
brilliant and one
step ahead of the
other spies, such
as the sleek Diana
Taverner (Kristin
Scott Thomas)
and his hotshot
new charge, River
Cartwright (Jack
Lowden), a
disgraced agent.
James JacksonThatcher & Reagan:
A Very Special
Relationship
BBC2, 9pm
Charles Moore concludes his
look at the relationship
between the former prime
minister Margaret Thatcher and
the US president Ronald
Reagan. Moore has access to
Reagan’s diaries, in which he
disclosed in 1983: “I don’t think
US/UK relations have ever been
better”. Yet, as Moore reveals,
“No relations between any two
leaders of any two countries
will always be harmonious.”
This would be proven as they
tried to find a way to end the
Cold War and clashed over the
US invasion of Grenada. JC
Alvin Ailey: A
Legend of
American Dance
BBC4, 9pmIn this documentary portrait of
the choreographer Alvin Ailey
(who died in 1989), the director
Jamila Wignot intercuts the
creation of Lazarus — a dance
routine from Rennie Harris
inspired by Ailey — with the
story of the dancer’s life and
work, narrated by colleagues,
admirers and Ailey himself. The
results are often fascinating,
especially when they concern
Ailey’s early years, a near-
drowning and his sense that
dance allowed him to access
“dark deep things, beautiful
things inside me”. Kevin MaherSunday 10 | Viewing guide
Critic’s choice
Gentleman Jack
BBC1, 9pm
A welcome return for Sally
Wainwright’s perky period
drama about the lesbian
landowner and industrialist
Anne Lister, striding through
19th-century Halifax in a cape
and top hat. Suranne Jones
was deservedly Bafta-
nominated for her
swaggering, fourth-wall
breaking turn as Lister,
shaking up her home town,
Poldark-style, as she tried to
turn round the fortunes of her
fading ancestral home,
Shibden Hall. She also found
time to flirt with (and bed) the
drippy heiress next door, Ann
Walker (Sophie Rundle, right
with Jones). You might
remember that it caused
quite a stir when the first
series aired in 2019, with an
intimacy co-ordinator hired to
choreograph the sex scenes.
Wainwright’s script, based on
diaries kept by the real-life
Lister, had a wry, modern wit,
and as well as the powerhouse
performance from Jones, the
cast includes Timothy West
and Gemma Whelan as Lister’s
father and sister respectively,
and Vincent Franklin as her
slimy cousin/nemesis
Christopher Rawson. If you
didn’t watch the first series
(it’s on BBC iPlayer), spoilers
ahead... In the final episode,
Lister and Walker exchanged
vows and, as we rejoin them,
they are shacked up together
in Shibden Hall under the
pretence that the delicate
Walker is continuing her
rehabilitation after an illness.
The couple plan to combine
their estates and become
Halifax’s most powerful
couple. As much as the tone is
jaunty, there is a dangerous
undercurrent — an
unconventional, plain-
speaking free spirit such as
Lister (and a woman to boot)
is never going to be
universally popular...
Joe ClayMuhammad Ali
BBC2, 10pm/10.50pmA double bill of Ken Burns’s
exhaustive profile of the boxer
begins with “Cassius Clay”
determined to become the
youngest world heavyweight
champion by taking on the
“unbeatable” Sonny Liston. But
before he can get in the ring
with Liston he must fight other
contenders, including one
Henry Cooper. The episode
also looks at his mastery of
“verbal warfare” and how he
became a confidant of
Malcolm X. In the second
episode (and third overall), he
adopts the name Muhammad
Ali and for three years
dominates the heavyweight
ranks. But then comes the
Vietnam War... JC● BBC Scotland 12.40pm-3.00 Live
Women’s Six Nations: Scotland v France
(Kick-off 1.00) 7.00 The Seven 7.15
Sportscene 8.15 Beechgrove Repotted (r)
8.30 Fish Town (r) 9.00 Paramedics on
Scene. A footballer suffers a double
fracture to his lower leg 10.00 Still Game
(r) 10.30 Raiders of the Lost Archive (r)
11.00-Midnight Seven Days
● S4C 6.00am Cyw: Ahoi! (r) 6.15 Sam Tân
(r) 6.25 Cei Bach (r) 6.40 Sbridiri (r) 7.00
Fferm Fach (r) 7.15 Patrôl Pawennau (r)
7.30 Gwdihw (r) 7.45 Bach a Mawr (r) 7.55
Rapsgaliwn (r) 8.10 Blero yn Mynd i Ocido
(r) 8.20 Pablo (r) 8.35 Cacamwnci (r) 8.50
Penblwyddi Cyw 9.00 Garddio a Mwy (r)
9.30 Sain Ffagan (r) 10.00 Yr Ynys (r)
11.00 Yr Ocsiwniar (r) 11.30 Dechrau Canu
Dechrau Canmol (r) 12.00 Yr Wythnos
12.30pm Bwrdd i Dri (r) 1.00 Waliau’n
Siarad (r) 2.00 Parti Bwyd Beca (r) 2.30
Parti Bwyd Beca (r) 3.00 3 Lle: Ffion Dafis
(r) 3.30 Caeau Cymru (r) 4.00 Caeau
Cymru (r) 4.35 Ty am Ddim (r) 5.35
Ffermio (r) 6.10 Pobol y Cwm (r) 7.15 News
7.30 Dechrau Canu Dechrau Canmol 8.00
Iaith ar Daith. New series. The Rev Kate
Bottley embarks on a linguistic road trip
9.00 Cymry’r Titanic (r) 10.00 Cynefin (r)
11.00-11.35 Y Byd ar Bedwar (r)
(r) repeat (SL) In-vision signing● BBC1 Wales As BBC1 except: 4.20pm
Weatherman Walking. Derek Brockway
explores the South Wales Valleys (r)
4.50-5.20 Snowdonia: A Year on the
Farm. The farmers call on friends
to help gather hundreds of sheep
from the mountain slopes (r)
● BBC1 N Ireland As BBC1 except:
10.00am Sunday Politics Northern
Ireland 10.30 Pilgrimage: The Road to the
Scottish Isles. Seven celebrities set out to
learn about St Columba (r) 11.30-12.15pm
Animal Park Easter Special (r)
● BBC2 N Ireland As BBC2 except:
10.00pm Ar Scáth an Cheoil. New series.
Traditional and folk music show 10.30
Sunday Politics Northern Ireland (r)
11.00 Muhammad Ali. The boxer aims
to become the youngest world
heavyweight champion, taking on the
supposedly unbeatable Sonny Liston
11.50-12.10am Barra on the Bann (r)
● BBC1 Scotland As BBC1 except:
11.40pm Sportscene 12.40am FILM Out
of Sight (1998) 2.35 Weather for the
Week Ahead 2.40-6.00 BBC News
● STV As ITV except: 11.55am Paul
O’Grady: For the Love of Dogs (r)
12.25pm-12.55 Sean’s Scotland. Sean
Batty explores Wester Ross (r) 6.15-6.30
STV News 3.50-5.05am Unwind with STVWhiplash (15, 2014)
BBC3, 9.45pm
In many ways this triple Oscar-winner is Full Metal Jacket set in an
elite music conservatory in New York, as a brutal sergeant-type
breaks down a rookie recruit. JK Simmons, who won the Academy
award for best supporting actor, is the music teacher Terence
Fletcher. He looks like a military killer, with veins popping in his
shaved head, black shirts and bulging biceps. Fletcher’s raw meat
is the 19-year-old percussion student Andrew Neiman, brilliantly
played by Miles Teller, below with Simmons, in a stew of sweat and
ambition. Within seconds of Neiman starting his performance
Fletcher tells him the tempo is wrong. Again and again. The
tension is electric and there will be blood, sweat, tears and mildly
antisemitic insults by the end of term. (106min) Kate MuirThe Cane Field Films of the day
Killings
Channel 4, 10.30pmIn this gritty South African
crime thriller, Kim Engelbrecht
plays Reyka Gama, a criminal
profiler who is investigating a
string of brutal murders in the
sugar cane fields of KwaZulu-
Natal. Like the majority of TV
detectives, Reyka has a dark
and troubled past — she was
kidnapped when she was 11
by a farmer (Iain Glen), who
abused her for four years.
However, Reyka uses this
trauma to get inside the minds
of the killers and the drama
switches between her past and
present. The component parts
are familiar, but the setting
gives it a freshness. JCRegional programmes
My Cousin Rachel (12, 2017)
Channel 4, 12.35am
Roger Michell’s adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s 1951 novel is
a gothic thriller with dreamy Hitchcockian undertones and
regular emotional wallops. Sam Claflin plays the 19th-century
orphan-turned-Cornish estate owner Philip. He loves Cornwall and
nature and is uninspired by education and city life. He has no
interest in women and loves only his benefactor and ostensibly
adoptive father, Ambrose Ashley (an off-screen presence in Italy).
When Philip learns that Ambrose has died, possibly at the hands of
Ambrose’s devious new half-Italian, half-Cornish wife, Rachel
(Rachel Weisz), and that she is making her way from Italy to
Cornwall, the stage is set for a monumental smackdown. It doesn’t
disappoint. (102min) KM