10 April 2022 35THE BEST TV FROM PRIME VIDEO AND BEYOND... MONDAY 11 APRIL
Nigel Kneale on BFI Player
The British screenwriter
Nigel Kneale — esteemed for
his horror and sci-fi tales —
was born in 1922, and the
BFI’s subscription site has
added three films to mark his
centenary. The Abominable
Snowman (1957) joins
two movies based on BBC
series by Kneale: 1955’s The
Quatermass Xperiment
(also on Talking Pictures TV
on Tuesday, 12.05am) and
1957’s Quatermass II. His
BBC work also included a
1954 adaptation of Orwell’s
Nineteen Eighty-Four,
which is available to buy
on Amazon Prime Video
and Apple TV. There’s more
Kneale celebration on Free
Thinking (Tuesday, Radio
3, 10pm), when Mark Gatiss,
Steven Moffat and Una
McCormack discuss The
Quatermass Experiment.
Edward PorterYoung Sherlock Holmes
(Film4, 11am)
Chris Columbus, who went
on to direct the first two
Harry Potter films, wrote the
screenplay for this look at
the great detective’s teenage
years, and you don’t need
to be a genius sleuth to spot
resemblances between those
later movies and what we have
here: the story of a uniquely
gifted pupil (Nicholas Rowe)
at an old-fashioned boarding
school. The film’s tale may not
involve out-and-out magic,
but there is a strong touch
of the fantastical (helped by
pioneering special effects)
in its lively escapism.
Dir: Barry Levinson (1985)Wildlife (BBC2, 11.40pm)
Set in Montana in the 1960s,
the first film directed by
the actor Paul Dano makes
evocative use of its backdrop
to enhance its well-acted
drama. Carey Mulligan plays
a woman growing apart
from her volatile husband
( Jake Gyllenhaal) and edging
towards a new life. (2018)
Edward PorterSplit personalities (C4, 8.30pm) Nicholas Rowe (Film4, 11am)FILM CHOICE
ON DEMAND
Hacks (Amazon Prime Video)
If you have finished The
Marvellous Mrs Maisel and are
in need of another moreish
American drama about a
pioneering female comic, then
the gods are smiling on you.
This deceptively simple ten-
part comedy drama stars the
superb Jean Smart (Frasier,
Parallels (Disney+)
Created by Quoc Dang Tran,
the writer/producer who
brought us the brilliant Netflix
horror series Marianne, this
French-language teen drama
is a kind of family-friendly
cross between Stranger Things
and Dark. It should be a
definite recommendation but
the Disney+ app makes it hard
to watch foreign dramas in
their original language.
Andrew MaleOur House (ITV Hub)
You enter into a contract
with a certain kind of ITV
drama. You will discount the
silliness if the story is gripping
enough. Take this domestic
thriller in which Tuppence
Middleton plays a woman
who discovers her estranged
husband (Martin Compston),
has sold their home to
another couple. It is paranoid
suburban noir at its most
absurd, yet utterly addictive.Amélie (Disney+)
Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s story
of a do-gooding young
Frenchwoman is a patisserie
of a movie — full of colourful
sweetness. Plenty of viewers
have found it too much, but its
many fans have good reasons
to love it. Its story-book vision
of Paris is energetic and
superbly crafted, and Audrey
Tautou’s witty performance in
the title role adds a touch of
spice to the film’s sugar. EPWatchmen) as Deborah Vance,
a once-groundbreaking Las
Vegas stand-up, too long in
the game, who is forced to
work with a young, down-on-
her-luck comedy writer
(Hannah Einbinder) in LA.
From this zoomer-v-boomer
generation-gap comedy
emerges an acerbically witty
and touching drama about
family, failure and friendship.
This reviewer devoured it all
in one sitting.Lucy Jarvis waited two hours to be taken to hospital after being injured in 2017 (ITV, 9pm)Worlds Collide — The
Manchester Bombing
(ITV, 9pm)
Marking next month’s fifth
anniversary of a tragedy
in which 22 people were
murdered and 1,017 injured,
ITV’s first-rate two-part
documentary interweaves
the opposed “worlds” of its
title: on the one hand, it has
affecting interviews with
Ariana Grande fans and their
loved ones; on the other,
CCTV footage shows the
suicide bomber Salman
Abedi’s movements on
May 22, 2017, and his life
is charted from his Libyan
family’s arrival in Manchester
in the 1990s. It notes that
there were many missed
opportunities to identify
him as a terrorist, both by
police and staff that night,
and MI5 over four years.
Part two is on Thursday.
John DugdaleStacey Dooley Sleeps Over
(W, 10pm)
Stacey Dooley stays with the
glamour model Carla Bellucci,
described by some tabloids as
“Britain’s most hated woman”
thanks to the outrageous
headlines she generates about
herself and her family (such as
claiming she faked depression
to receive free cosmetic surgery,
for example). The empathetic
but fearless Dooley — Luton
Theroux — asks all the right
questions as Bellucci combines
her 40th-birthday party with
her fourth child’s “gender
reveal” — although viewers
might be more worried
about her teenage daughter’s
desire for plastic surgery.
Even if you’ve never heard of
Bellucci, it’s a sharp exposé of
a thoroughly modern mindset.
Victoria Segal
Travel Man (C4, 8.30pm)
The comedian and actress
Aisling Bea, having previously
taken up Richard Ayoade’s
offer of a weekend in
Budapest, now gives new host
Joe Lycett the nod for a couple
of days in Split. Both are eager
tourists and quickly fall in
love with Croatia, marking
a significant change of tone
for this latest iteration.House Of Maxwell
(BBC2, 9pm)
In the wake of the patriarch’s
death in 1991, this compelling
series finds whispers of
financial improprieties
becoming furious shouts as
Mirror pensioners realise they
have been robbed. With her
brothers in court, Ghislaine
declared to the US media: “I
don’t feel diminished at all.”Police Custody USA
(C4, 10pm)
“In Kansas, it’s as common
to have a gun in your bag as
a wallet”, says Mark Bundy, a
cop investigating a double
killing. “But it still surprises
me how quickly people will
escalate to use a firearm.” The
format is familiar, but viewers
might share the sentiment.
Helen StewartCRITICS’ CHOICE
A hundred
years of horror