JUNE 8 2019 LISTENER 65
SATURDAY JUNE 8
The Little Drummer Girl (TVNZ
1, 9.10pm). Happy day, the
John le Carré spy thriller has
arrived on “linear” telly after
first being available on TVNZ
OnDemand. The production
company behind that other
le Carré adaptation, The Night
Manager, has a penchant
for choosing directors not
usually associated with this
kind of mate-
rial – Danish
director
Susanne Bier
helmed The
Night Manager,
and here, Korean
director Park Chan-
wook, known for his lush
aesthetic, dark humour and
intense violence, takes on
a political spy thriller set in
- It’s a convoluted story
in which reality blurs into fic-
tion and back again – Israeli
spymaster Martin Kurtz and
fellow intelligence officer
Gadi Becker train a young
British actress, Charlie Ross,
to infiltrate a Palestinian
terror cell; their methods are
at times brutal and question-
able. Just as well there is an
excellent cast to keep the
suspense going: Florence
Pugh, Michael
Shannon and
Alexander
Skarsgård as
Charlie, Kurtz
and Becker.
TVNZ 1 is screen-
ing two more series
this week that were first
available on demand: Man-
hunt (Wednesday, 8.30pm),
starring Martin Clunes, is
based on the investigation
into the murder of 22-year-
old Amélie Delagrange in
2004 that was linked to
several other unsolved mur-
ders, and Catch-22 (Sunday,
9.30pm), the George Clooney-
produced reboot of the classic
American novel.
SUNDAY JUNE
Cold Case (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm).
Four more unsolved crimes
will be picked over by a team
of experts that includes the
ment
the outbreak of Ebola that is
occurring in the Democratic
Republic of Congo.
“This is something that can
threaten humanity. It’s very,
very important to try to make
sure it doesn’t get into cities,
it doesn’t get on a plane and it
doesn’t land in your town, my
town or anyone else’s town.”
Cunningham also didn’t
research life in Africa. He
didn’t need to – before he
became an actor, he worked
as an electrician in Zimbabwe.
“So, part of my research, I
actually lived.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly,
The Hot Zone has made him
paranoid about viruses. “I see
people carrying around those
hand sanitisers and it’s very
tempting to put one of those
in my pocket.” l
The Little
Drummer Girl,
Saturday.
The Best of the Week
Television
The Hot Zone, Monday.
Good
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Manhunt, Wednesday.