32 saturday review Saturday April 30 2022 | the times
Rachita Ray (Parminder Nagra,
right) is eyeing up some wine
in a convenience store when
a fellow customer mistakes
her for someone who works
there. This, we are invited to
think, is probably not the first
time she has been the victim
of unwitting prejudice. Soon
after she is nearly knocked
down by a disturbed motorist
who flees with a knife and
stabs a policeman. Ray rushes
to help. She is a copper, and
quite a good one at that, given
how sensitively this
potentially horrific situation
is resolved. Ray is rewarded
with a promotion to the
murder squad, but even that
has its problems. The senior
officer giving her the job
makes an unfortunate, racially
insensitive remark and on
her first day at work she is
given the lanyard belonging to
a PC with another Asian-
sounding name. Her
colleagues, she feels, believe
she is a token hire, and it
seems no accident that her
first case is what we are
told is now being called a
“culturally specific homicide”.
It concerns a Muslim man who
has been stabbed to death,
and her new team (led by
Gemma Whelan’s DCI Kerry
Henderson) believe the
culprits are two brothers of a
young woman whom he may
have been romantically
involved with. Ray isn’t so
sure, and we suspect she may
be on to something. This peek
inside an underexplored area
of policing certainly feels
fresh, even if the sensitive
subject matter isn’t always
served by the occasionally
heavy-handed dialogue. Yet
the plotting (overseen by the
executive producer Jed
Mercurio no less) is handled
skilfully enough for us to
believe that this cop show
may well have potential.
Ben DowellMarried to a
Psychopath
Channel 4, 10pmIn 2011 a nurse called Malcolm
Webster was found guilty of
murdering his first wife, Claire
Morris, in 1994. He drugged her
and let her burn in a 4x4 by the
side of a rural Aberdeenshire
road. His motive? Grubby
financial gain. Believing he had
evaded justice, five years later,
in New Zealand, he tried to kill
his new wife Felicity Drumm
with the same method. This
programme about his almost
unbelievable crimes hears how
a rural-based Scottish detective
called Charles Henry helped to
bring him to justice in an
extraordinary manhunt that
spanned several continents. BD● UTV As ITV except: 6.25-6.30pm
Party Election Broadcast
● BBC Scotland 2.00pm Sign Zone: Fish
Town (r) 2.30 Sign Zone: Inside Central
Station (r) 3.30-4.00 Sign Zone:
Beechgrove (r) 7.00 The Seven 7.30
Fish Town (r) 8.00 Born to Be Wild (r)
9.00 The Mystery of Anthrax Island (r)
10.00 River City 10.30 Two Doors Down
(r) 11.00 Raiders of the Lost Archive
(r) 11.30-Midnight Legit (r)
● S4C 6.00am Cyw 12.00 Cymry ar
Gynfas (r) 12.30pm Heno (r) 1.00 Codi
Pac (r) 1.30 Sgwrs Dan y Lloer (r) 2.00
News 2.05 Prynhawn Da 3.00 News
3.05 Ffit Cymru (r) 4.00 Awr Fawr:
Blociau Rhif (r) 4.05 Octonots (r) 4.20
Halibalw (r) 4.30 Blero yn Mynd i Ocido
(r) 4.45 Amser Maith Maith yn Ôl (r) 5.00
Stwnsh: Dreigiau: Marchogion Berc (r)
5.20 Angelo am Byth (r) 5.30 Bwystfil (r)
5.40 Sgorio 5.55 Larfa 6.00 Dim Byd i’w
Wisgo (r) 6.30 Darllediad Gwleidyddol
Gan y Ceidwadwyr Cymreig 6.35 Rownd
a Rownd (r) 6.57 News S4C 7.00 Heno
7.45 News 8.00 Y Byd ar Bedwar 8.25
Garddio a Mwy 8.55 News 9.00 Ffermio
9.30 Welsh Whisperer: Ni’n Teithio Nawr
10.00 Teulu’r Castell (r) 11.00-11.35
Arfordir Cymru: Sir Benfro (r)
(r) repeat (SL) In-vision signing● BBC1 Wales As BBC1 except:
6.55pm-6.58 Party Election Broadcast (r)
8.00 Rookie Cops 8.30-9.00 Families
Fleeing War. The story of a mother and
her children hiding out in Mariupol
● BBC1 N Ireland As BBC1 except:
6.55pm-6.58 Party Election Broadcast (r)
7.00-7.30 Home Ground 10.40 Belfast’s
Victory in Vienna: A Footballing Odyssey
11.10 Imagine: Jacob Collier — In the
Room Where it Happens 12.25am
Have I Got a Bit More News for You (r)
1.10-1.40 Celebrity Catchpoint (r)
● BBC2 N Ireland As BBC2 except:
7.00pm The One Show 7.30 Live Snooker:
The World Championship 10.00 NIFL
Premiership Highlights 10.30 FILM The
Two Faces of January (2014) 12.00
Couples Therapy 12.25-12.50am News
● BBC1 Scotland As BBC1 except: 6.55pm-
6.58 Party Election Broadcast (r) 8.00
Landward 8.30-9.00 Scotland’s Home of
the Year 11.50 Attenborough and the
Mammoth Graveyard (r) 12.50-1.35am
Have I Got a Bit More News for You (r)
● ITV Wales As ITV except: 6.25-6.30pm
Party Election Broadcast
● STV As ITV except: 6.25pm-6.30
Party Election Broadcast 11.10 Against the
Odds (r) 12.05-3.00am Teleshopping
4.05-5.05 Unwind with STVThe Two Faces of January (12, 2014)
BBC2, 10pm
The immediate parallel here is The Talented Mr Ripley — both films
are based on Patricia Highsmith stories and deal with American
expats in Europe. While this cool, crisp thriller may not have the
complexity and polish of Anthony Minghella’s film, it does have a
lean, increasingly urgent economy of storytelling that makes for a
watchable yarn. The photogenic backdrop is Greece in 1962. The
American tour guide and occasional conman Rydal (Oscar Isaac) is
struck by a glamorous couple. Chester and Colette MacFarland
(Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst, below) are gilded by wealth
and effortless charisma, but they are not all they seem, and soon
Rydal is helping them to go on the run. The sexual tensions
between the central characters are palpable. (97min) Wendy IdeFilms of the day
Die Hard with a Vengeance (15, 1995)
Channel 5, 11.05pm
The third film in the Die Hard series represents a slight dip in
quality, although the dedication to implausible, explosive action
set pieces demonstrated by the first two pictures remains
unchanged. John McClane (Bruce Willis) is going through a sticky
period. His wife has left him, he has taken to drink and he has been
suspended from his new job with the NYPD. To make matters
worse, a psychotic terrorist called Simon (Jeremy Irons) who has a
grudge against McClane wants to play a high-stakes game of
“Simon says”, taunting him with cryptic messages about the
whereabouts of his latest bombing campaign. With the unwilling
help of a Harlem shopkeeper called Zeus (Samuel L Jackson)
McClane must work out where Simon will strike next. (131min) WIImagine
BBC1, 10.40pmWhen Jacob Collier posted his
extraordinary a capella
harmonies on YouTube, music
greats including Herbie
Hancock and Quincy Jones
were dazzled. Record deals
soon followed and he won
Grammy awards for each of his
first four albums, which is
better than the Beatles
managed. The film shows Alan
Yentob travelling to Collier’s
studio in his mother’s north
London house where the
magic is still made. As well as
offering a fascinating technical
insight into his skills, the praise
from figures such as Hans
Zimmer, Jools Holland and
Stormzy is as boundless as the
27-year-old’s talents. BDRegional programmes
Monday 2 | Viewing guide
Critic’s choice
DI Ray
ITV, 9pm
Agatha Raisin
Sky Max/Now, 8pmAshley Jensen’s PR-turned-
private detective is being
whisked away by her on/off
lover James (Jamie Glover) for
a surprise weekend to
somewhere she is told is
associated with the Napoleonic
Wars. She’s hoping for
Mauritius, “or at the very least
Belgium”, not the actual
destination: a place called
Snoth-on-Sea. Naturally,
dastardly crime soon enters
this feature-length story, as well
as a rather neatly handled
ghostly subplot. Once again, it’s
so light and silly it makes
Midsomer Murders feel like
King Lear, but if you’re in the
mood for an escapist cheer-up,
Snoth is the place to find it. BDSex, Mind and
the Menopause
Channel 4, 9pmWhen Davina McCall was
44 she was working on a
photoshoot in Prague when
she suddenly found that she
couldn’t sleep. Later, she was
in a make-up chair and had
such a hot flush she wondered
if the chair was heated. It then
dawned on her what was
happening. She has made a
programme on menopause
before for C4, but in this
follow-up she focuses on how
it can affect the mind as well
as the body and discovers
that, for many women,
symptoms such as memory
loss and brain fog can mean
losing your job. BDCatch
up
Gazza
BBC iPlayer
The former
footballer
Paul “Gazza”
Gascoigne, is an
irresistible
subject for
documentary film-
makers, although
this recent two-
parter looking
back over his
rollercoaster life is just as
concerned with the tabloids’
interest in him as his skills. So
while there is plenty of
footage of Gazza in his pomp
(the story of Italia ‘90,culminating in “Gazzamania”
and those famous tears will
never get old — and they have
even dug out the clip of
Gazza scoring in his sock
against Arsenal on his
home debut for Spurs),
with previously
unbroadcast archive
and home videos,
this is a
curiously
unedifying
tale about
this tortured soul.
“No one understands
how I feel,” Gascoigne
once told a reporter. “No
one in the world knows
what it’s like.” After two
hours, we’re none the
wiser, but this is still an
enjoyable watch for
all football fans.
Joe Clay