44 saturday review Saturday April 30 2022 | the times
● S4C 6.00am Cyw: Crads Bach y Traeth
(r) 6.05 Jamborî (r) 6.15 Abadas (r) 6.30
Bach a Mawr (r) 6.45 Sbarc (r) 7.00
Olobobs (r) 7.05 Timpo (r) 7.15 Y Diwrnod
Mawr (r) 7.30 Pablo 7.45 Awyr Iach (r)
8.00 Shwshaswyn (r) 8.10 Halibalw (r)
8.20 Digbi Draig (r) 8.30 Llan-ar-goll-en
(r) 8.45 Twt (r) 9.00 Nico Nôg (r) 9.10 Sam
Tân (r) 9.20 Rapsgaliwn (r) 9.35 Stiw (r)
9.45 Gwdihw (r) 10.00 Crads Bach y
Traeth (r) 10.05 Jamborî (r) 10.15 Abadas
(r) 10.30 Bach a Mawr (r) 10.45 Sbarc (r)
11.00 Olobobs (r) 11.05 Timpo (r) 11.15 Y
Diwrnod Mawr (r) 11.30 Pablo (r) 11.45
Awyr Iach (r) 12.00 News 12.05pm
Cwpwrdd Epic Chris (r) 12.30 Heno (r)
1.00 Sain Ffagan (r) 1.30 Welsh Whisperer:
Ni’n Teithio Nawr (r) 2.00 News 2.05
Prynhawn Da 3.00 News 3.05 Am Dro! (r)
4.00 Y Crads Bach (r) 4.05 Oli Wyn (r) 4.15
Twt (r) 4.30 Pablo (r) 4.45 Deian a Loli (r)
5.00 Bernard (r) 5.05 Y Dyfnfor (r) 5.25
Dewi a’r Ditectifs Gwyllt (r) 5.35 Potsh (r)
5.55 Ffeil 6.00 Arfordir Cymru: Sir Benfro
(r) 6.30 Ar Werth (r) 6.57 News 7.00
Heno 7.30 News 8.00 Pobol y Cwm. Jinx
is keen to find out what Jaclyn is hiding
8.25 Rownd a Rownd 8.55 News 9.00
Teulu’r Castell 10.00 Ffit Cymru (r)
11.00-11.35 Stiwdio Gefn (r)
(r) repeat (SL) In-vision signing● BBC1 N Ireland As BBC1 except:
10.40pm The View 11.20 Question Time
12.20-6.00am BBC Elections 2022. Huw
Edwards and Reeta Chakrabarti analyse
the results as the votes are counted
● BBC1 Scotland As BBC1 except:
7.00-7.30pm River City. Lenny devises
a plan to take down Darren (r)
● STV As ITV except: 8.30pm-9.00
Scotland Tonight 10.30 STV News 10.45
Controlled By My Partner? The Hidden
Abuse: Tonight. Ruth Dodsworth explores
the crime of coercive control 11.10 The
1% Club (r) 12.10am-3.00 Teleshopping
3.50-5.05 Unwind with STV
● UTV As ITV except: 10.45pm UTV Life.
Stories and guests 11.10-11.45 Rare Breed:
A Farming Year. A temporary lift in
lockdown offers a chance to sell sheep (r)
● BBC Scotland 7.00pm My Kind of
Town: Cumnock. Ian Hamilton finds out
about Cumnock’s ambition to become
Scotland’s first green town (r) 7.30
Scotland’s Best Dog. Angus the black
goldendoodle is among the competitors
(r) 8.00 Beechgrove. The team reveals
how to grow herbs and micro greens
8.30 Landward. How Blue Grey cattle are
bred 9.00 The Nine 10.00 Raiders of the
Lost Archive 10.30 Being Mum with MND
(r) 11.30-Midnight Scary Adult Things (r)Paul Merson —
A Walk through
My Life
BBC2, 8pm
This could catch on: an
interview format in which there
is no interviewer, simply one
person reflecting on their life
as they go for a walk with
only a 360-degree camera for
company. And the former
England footballer Paul Merson
has quite a life to reflect on as
he returns to Yorkshire, where
he moved in 1997 after leaving
Arsenal for Middlesbrough. He
talks about his three decades
of alcoholism and gambling,
and the impact, after three
years sober, of therapy, his
family and his faith. DM
The RKO Story:
Tales from
Hollywood
BBC4, 8pmIt’s rare for films these days to
have any rehearsal at all. One
of the nuggets that comes out
of Let’s Face the Music and
Dance, the second episode of a
series first shown on the BBC in
1987, however, is that Ginger
Rogers and Fred Astaire would
spend six weeks working on
their routines before they went
into principal photography. So
relish this chance to once again
see Ed Asner present this
rummage into the records of,
and surviving stars — including
Fred and Ginger — of the great
Hollywood studio. DMArt That Made Us
BBC2, 9pm“The age of exploitation stirs a
growing social conscience,”
says David Threlfall’s narration
as the art series arrives at an
18th-century Britain enriched
by and, in some instances,
agitating against Empire and
slavery. The comedian Stewart
Lee analyses A Modest
Proposal, Jonathan Swift’s
satire about the treatment of
the Irish poor; the sculptor
Thomas J Price visits
Harewood House near Leeds,
adding his work to the Robert
Adam-designed interiors; and,
among other reports and the
usual slew of talking-head
academics, Emma Bridgewater
looks at how Josiah Wedgwood
protested against slavery. DMChivalry
Channel 4, 10pmA fourth instalment of Steve
Coogan and Sarah Solemani’s
sexual-politics-meets-showbiz-
politics comedy drama. Here
millionaire producer Cameron
(Coogan) advises Bobby
(Solemani) to relax with her
hobbies like he does; hobbies,
she retorts, are something
working mothers would love to
have but simply don’t have
time for. Things go south for
her relationship with husband
Aston (Adjani Salmon) after she
throws him a birthday party,
and if the California daylight
isn’t alluring enough, there’s
always Cameron’s beach house
to lust after: effectively a giant
modernist wine cooler with an
infinity pool attached. DMTop Hat (U, 1935)/The Gay Divorcee (U, 1934)
BBC4, 9pm/10.40pm
The big numbers, obviously, are the main draw in Top Hat, the
fourth and best collaboration between Fred Astaire and Ginger
Rogers (plot: he meets her, they fall in love, she thinks he’s married,
screwball comedy ensues). Top Hat, White Tie and Tails and Cheek
to Cheek are iconic numbers still beloved by Hollywood (La La
Land boldly pilfered the last), but the other stuff works too in Mark
Sandrich’s film. Eric Blore remains hilarious as Bates the valet. It’s
part of a double-bill tying in with the RKO series (see left), the other
film being 1934’s The Gay Divorcee — also directed by Sandrich and
featuring Cole Porter’s Night and Day, danced by Astaire and
Rogers in a hotel suite overlooking an English beach at night.
(101min/107min) Kevin MaherFilms of the day
Them That Follow (15, 2019)
Film4, 9pm
Olivia Colman stars as an embittered God-fearing Bible beater
from a closeted community of Pentecostal snake handlers deep in
the Appalachian mountains. And, typically, she’s perfect in the role.
Her character, Hope, simmers with resentments and sadness,
buttressed by an authentic hillbilly burr as she watches her only
son (Thomas Mann) slowly succumb to a gangrenous rattlesnake
bite. He wilfully submitted to the bite, in church, once he realised
that the pastor’s daughter (Alice Englert, above) was carrying his
child. The plot is soapy, but the film’s writing and directing team,
Britt Poulton and Dan Madison Savage, treat the characters with
dignity, are fascinated by the rigid Pentecostal milieu and create a
sense of gloom that’s intensely compelling. (98min) KMRegional programmes
Catch
up
The Rising
Sky/Now
A whodunnit with an
intriguing twist. In a
scenic English locale,
Neve (Clara Rugaard,
rigth), a 19-year-old
motocross-bike racer,
awakens in a remote lake
with no memory of why.
It’s not long before
she realises,
to her
horror, that
she’s been
murdered
and is
in a
stateof limbo. Soon she is
conducting her own ghostly
investigation into what
happened. By drawing
together the various members
of Neve’s family, friends and
rural community as
they react to the
situation, this is
a well-told
crime drama of
the kind our
Scandi friends do
so well, although
this is actually
a loose remake of
Belgian series
Hotel Beau
Séjour.
James
JacksonThursday 5 | Viewing guide
Critic’s choice
The Staircase
Sky Atlantic, 9pm
Colin Firth, right, has a face
that doesn’t give up its secrets
without a struggle. Which
makes him perfect casting in
this eight-part retelling of a
true-life story that has already
prompted a documentary
with the same name, among
other porings-over of the case.
Did Michael Peterson have
anything to do with the death
of his wife Kathleen at their
home in Durham, North
Carolina, in December 2001?
Or did this war novelist turned
journalist and potential
politician just find Kathleen,
played here by Toni Collette,
near-dead at the foot of their
stairs after a fall? Did she die
in the minutes after he first
rang the police in the early
hours of the morning? True-
crime junkies will know... if
not the answers to that
question necessarily, then
certainly the upshot of those
events. Newcomers to the
case are advised to stay off
Wikipedia, even if there are
moments in a stately first
episode where you may be
urging the series’s creators
Antonio Campos and Maggie
Cohn to up the pace. Well,
tough: the events move from
somewhere near the present
day back to Michael’s son
discovering his distraught
father and deceased
stepmother in a family home
that is filled with police. The
next hour fills us in on the
extended family, the
challenge facing Michael, a
man whom we have already
seen be economical with the
truth after the exposure of a
bogus claim of earning a
purple heart in Vietnam. Hang
on, though, for a surprise
guest star and the opening
episode’s final twist that leads
into tonight’s next two
episodes, with the remaining
five being released over the
next two Thursdays.
Dominic Maxwell