Counter Culture

There is plenty to get stuck into this week, but three things stand out. The Last Night of the Proms remains one of those great television occasions, even if you normally only dip into classical music. England Till I Die looks like the most potentially unsettling piece of factual television, following an East Sussex anti-immigration activist over nine months. And film-wise, it is hard to look past The Red Shoes, Powell and Pressburger’s extraordinary 1948 masterpiece, still looking and feeling unlike almost anything else.

There is strong music programming too, with Chaka Khan and Simple Minds headlining Radio 2 in the Park, while BBC Four gives Friday night over to the Rolling Stones. Film4 supplies plenty across the week, and the streaming services offer a mix of crime, dystopia, politics and dysfunctional spies.

Saturday 12 September

The Red Shoes — 9.50am, BBC Two (1948)

Powell and Pressburger at full voltage: colour as emotion, movement as destiny, and a story that understands, with unnerving clarity, the price artists sometimes pay for brilliance. The film opens with a kind of deceptive lightness — the bustle of students, the chatter of rehearsal rooms — but even in those early scenes there’s a sense of something larger gathering, a tension between ordinary life and the pull of the stage.

Moira Shearer’s Vicky Page is one of those performances that seems to glow from within. She’s young, ambitious, and utterly sincere, and the film treats her not as a symbol but as a person caught between two forces: the joy of creation and the demands of those who claim ownership over it. Anton Walbrook’s Lermontov, all icy poise and implacable will, becomes the gravitational centre of the film. He doesn’t shout, he doesn’t threaten; he simply expects the world to bend to his vision. And in the world of The Red Shoes, that expectation is almost enough to make it happen.

The famous ballet sequence — still astonishing, still unmatched — feels like cinema stepping into another dimension. It’s not a filmed performance; it’s a dream, a hallucination, a manifesto. Powell and Pressburger let the stage dissolve into pure imagination, and for a few minutes you’re watching something that doesn’t seem bound by the usual rules of filmmaking. It’s the moment where the film declares, without hesitation, that art can be overwhelming, intoxicating, and dangerous.

What follows is inevitable, tragic, and strangely beautiful. The film isn’t moralising; it isn’t wagging a finger about ambition. It’s simply honest about the cost. For some people, the choice between life and art isn’t a choice at all — and The Red Shoes understands that with a kind of terrible sympathy.

A masterpiece, yes, but more than that: a film that still feels alive, still capable of unsettling you, still able to make you think about the things you love and what they demand in return.

Lawrence of Arabia — 1.30pm, BBC Two (1962)

Lean’s desert epic isn’t just large‑scale cinema — it’s cinema that seems to expand as you watch it, pushing outward into myth, psychology and the uneasy glamour of heroism. The first thing that strikes you is the sheer physical beauty of it: the desert not as backdrop but as a kind of vast, indifferent character, swallowing men, ambitions and empires without distinction. Freddie Young’s cinematography gives the landscape a monumental stillness, and Lean lets that stillness interrogate the people moving through it.

At the centre is Peter O’Toole, incandescent and unsettling. His Lawrence is not a straightforward adventurer but a man drawn to extremes — extremes of courage, extremes of self‑invention, extremes of delusion. O’Toole plays him with a kind of brittle radiance, as if the performance itself is lit from inside. You see the charisma, the intelligence, the recklessness, and the slow, painful recognition that the legend he’s building is also consuming him.

The film’s sweep is extraordinary, but what makes it endure is its ambivalence. It understands the seduction of grand narratives — the lone visionary, the desert campaign, the forging of alliances — but it also understands the cost. Lean never lets the spectacle drown out the politics or the psychology. The triumphs feel real, but so do the fractures, the betrayals, the dawning sense that Lawrence’s story is as much about the limits of empire as the possibilities of individual will.

Long, certainly. Magnificent, unquestionably. But more than that: a film that still feels like a challenge — to the viewer, to history, and to the idea of heroism itself.

Rosaline — 3pm, Film4 (2022)

A playful spin on Romeo and Juliet, yes, but what makes Rosaline interesting is the way it quietly punctures the solemnity that usually clings to Verona. By shifting the frame to Romeo’s overlooked ex, the film exposes the fragile architecture of the “great romance” — how much of it is timing, how much is teenage melodrama, and how much is simply who gets written into the centre of the story.

Kaitlyn Dever’s Rosaline is sharp, wounded, and wonderfully unimpressed by the myth-making around her. Through her eyes, the familiar beats of Shakespeare’s tragedy become something closer to a comedy of misplaced certainty. The film doesn’t mock the original; it just recognises that the intensity of first love can look very different once you’re no longer the one swept up in it.

There’s a breezy confidence to the whole thing — modern without being smug, affectionate without being reverent. And beneath the jokes, there’s a small but sincere point: change the narrator, and the legend shifts. The story you thought you knew becomes something else entirely.

Vera Cruz — 6.35pm, 5 Action (1954)

Aldrich’s Vera Cruz is one of those westerns that feels like it’s already leaning toward the genre’s darker future — cynical, sharp‑edged, and amused by its own ruthlessness. Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster make a terrific, uneasy pairing: Cooper with that worn, moral gravity he carried so naturally, Lancaster all swagger, teeth and opportunism. They’re heading south not for honour or destiny but for profit, and the film never pretends otherwise.

What’s striking is how modern the tone feels. The Mexican setting isn’t treated as exotic backdrop; it’s a political landscape full of shifting loyalties, revolutionaries, mercenaries and people trying to survive the chaos. Aldrich shoots it with a kind of muscular clarity — dust, sweat, sudden violence — and lets the humour bubble up from the characters’ sheer audacity. Lancaster in particular seems to enjoy every moment of being a charming bastard.

The film’s cynicism isn’t bleak; it’s invigorating. You can see the seeds of the spaghetti western here, the move away from clean moral lines and toward something more ambiguous, more dangerous, more fun. Vera Cruz knows exactly what it is: a tough, stylish adventure where trust is a luxury and everyone’s playing an angle.

Last Night of the Proms — 7.10pm, BBC Two; 9pm, BBC One. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

One of those fixtures in the television calendar that needs little introduction, beginning on BBC Two before moving across to BBC One for the climax of the evening.

Avengers: Endgame — 8.15pm, Channel 4 (2019)

A film built as a finale and delivered as an event. Endgame arrives carrying the weight of a decade’s worth of Marvel storytelling, and it doesn’t shy away from the scale of that responsibility. It’s unabashedly big, unabashedly emotional, and determined to give every character and every long‑running thread its moment.

The opening stretch is unexpectedly quiet, almost reflective, before the film swings into its playful time‑heist detour — a victory lap through the MCU’s own history. Then comes the vast, operatic climax, a sequence so crowded with heroes and spectacle that the screen feels barely able to contain it.

What keeps the film grounded is its sincerity. Beneath the CGI and the noise, there’s a clear understanding that endings matter. Some arcs close gently, others with thunderous fanfare, but each feels like part of a story finally being tied off.

Long, loud and built for maximum impact — but also surprisingly heartfelt. A blockbuster that knows exactly what it means to its audience.

Radio 2 in the Park: Chaka Khan — from 9pm, BBC Two. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Chaka Khan, the soul, funk and disco queen, is the headline draw on day one of the annual shindig. Her set, shown in full from 10pm, should be a crowd-pleaser.

Before that comes an hour of highlights from Stirling City Park, including performances from ABC, Lulu, Emeli Sandé and Texas.

The evening then heads into the archives, with Chaka Khan at the BBC at 11pm, followed by Texas at the BBC at 11.40pm.

Saint Omer — 1.50am, BBC Two (2022)

Alice Diop’s Saint Omer is a courtroom drama in form but something far more unsettling in effect. Inspired by a real case, the film approaches its subject with a calm, almost forensic stillness, refusing melodrama and letting the details speak for themselves. That restraint is precisely what makes it so gripping. Every pause, every hesitation, every quiet admission seems to echo in the room.

Diop isn’t interested in easy judgments. She’s interested in the uncomfortable territory where empathy, horror and uncertainty overlap. Through the eyes of Rama, a novelist observing the trial, the film becomes a study of how we try — and often fail — to understand the inner lives of others. The performances are extraordinary in their understatement; nothing is pushed, nothing is embellished, and the result is a kind of emotional slow burn that’s far more powerful than a conventional courtroom thriller.

Demanding, yes. You have to meet the film on its own terms. But the reward is a drama that lingers long after it ends — precise, unsettling, and quietly devastating.

Sunday 13 September

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral — 2.55pm, 5 Action (1957)

Unmissable Moments at the BBC Proms 2026 — 8pm, BBC Four. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Two hours of mixed delights from this year’s Proms.

Radio 2 in the Park: Simple Minds — 10pm, BBC Two. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Simple Minds take centre stage for the second night of Radio 2 in the Park, bringing a formidable catalogue of songs with them.

Vesper — 11.10pm, Film4 (2022)

A striking piece of European science fiction that proves ambition isn’t measured in budget. Vesper imagines a future ravaged by ecological collapse, but it does so with a painter’s eye — damp forests, biotechnological oddities, and a world where every living thing seems half‑engineered and half‑feral. It’s grim, but not in the usual dystopian way; the film’s bleakness feels organic, lived‑in, almost mournful.

Raffiella Chapman gives the story its pulse. Her Vesper is resourceful, wary, and quietly determined, navigating a landscape where survival depends on ingenuity rather than firepower. The film’s strength lies in its restraint: no bombastic action, no glossy spectacle, just a slow, unsettling immersion in a future where nature has mutated beyond human control.

For a low‑budget production, it’s visually bold — intricate world‑building, strange textures, and a sense of scale achieved through imagination rather than money. The result is a sci‑fi film that feels genuinely otherworldly.

Ambitious, atmospheric and far more memorable than many bigger, louder dystopias.

Monday 14 September

Oliver! — 6.05pm, Film4 (1968)

Epstein: Money, Power and Abuse — Panorama Special — 8pm, BBC One.

A Panorama special examining Jeffrey Epstein, the money and influence surrounding him, and the abuse at the heart of the story.

The Thin Blue Line — 10pm, Sky Documentaries (1988)

Get Carter — 11.05pm, BBC Two (1971)

Garbo: Where Did You Go? — 8pm, Sky Arts.

Noomi Rapace narrates a portrait of the enigmatic Greta Garbo, one of cinema’s most famous and famously elusive stars.

The Royals: Time to Go? — 9pm, Channel 4. Catch up via Channel 4 Streaming.

A look at the monarchy and the increasingly familiar question of what place, if any, the institution should have in modern Britain.

Sicario — 10.40pm, BBC One (2015)

Denis Villeneuve’s border thriller is tense, morally murky and superbly controlled, with Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin all excellent.

The Proposition — 11.35pm, Talking Pictures TV (2004)

A brutal, sun‑blasted Australian western built on a screenplay by Nick Cave — and if you know his work, the fingerprints are unmistakable. Violence, guilt, family, the harsh indifference of the landscape: Cave threads all of it through a story that feels both mythic and painfully human. As a big admirer of Cave, it’s hard not to relish how his sensibility shapes the film’s rhythm — the dialogue spare, the atmosphere heavy, the morality scorched at the edges.

The plot is simple and savage. Captain Stanley offers outlaw Charlie Burns an impossible bargain: hunt down and kill his older brother Arthur, a man responsible for atrocities, in exchange for the freedom of their youngest sibling. What follows is a slow, grim march through dust, heat and conscience. John Hillcoat directs with a stark, unblinking eye, letting the landscape do half the storytelling — a place where civilisation is a thin veneer and violence feels almost elemental.

Performances are flinty and lived‑in. Guy Pearce’s Charlie is a man hollowed out by loyalty and dread, while Danny Huston’s Arthur moves with the unsettling calm of someone who has already accepted damnation. The film’s brutality isn’t gratuitous; it’s part of the moral weather Cave and Hillcoat conjure so effectively.

Bleak, poetic and unforgettable — a western that feels like a ballad written in blood and dust.

You Were Never Really Here — 12.40am, Film4 (2017)

Lynne Ramsay and Joaquin Phoenix deliver a bruising, fragmented revenge film that is far more interested in trauma than conventional action.

Wednesday 16 September

Greed — 9pm, Film4 (2019)

Michael Winterbottom takes aim at obscene wealth, fast fashion and self-satisfied celebrity culture, with Steve Coogan doing what Steve Coogan does very well.

A River Runs Through It — 9pm, GREAT! TV (1992)

England Till I Die — 10pm, Channel 4. Catch up via Channel 4 Streaming.

A sharp and unsettling slice of reportage. Filmmaker Jamie Roberts follows Liam, an East Sussex anti-immigration activist, over nine months.

Sicario 2: Soldado — 10.40pm, BBC One (2018)

The follow-up drops Emily Blunt and doubles down on Brolin and del Toro. Darker, harsher and less subtle than the original, but still gripping.

Our Ladies — 1.45am, Film4 (2019)

A group of Catholic schoolgirls descend on Edinburgh for a choir competition and immediately discover they’re far more interested in freedom, mischief and possibility than in hitting the right notes. What follows is a chaotic, funny and unexpectedly tender day out, as friendships shift, loyalties wobble and each girl tests the limits of who she might become once the school walls aren’t around her.

The film’s strength is its honesty. It doesn’t romanticise teenage rebellion, but it doesn’t scold it either. The humour is sharp, the dialogue rings true, and the performances capture that mix of bravado and vulnerability that defines being young and desperate to escape the version of yourself adults insist on seeing. Edinburgh becomes part of the adventure — messy, tempting, full of corners where trouble and opportunity blur together.

Funny, warm and considerably less pious than their teachers might like. A small gem of a coming‑of‑age film.

Thursday 17 September

The Secret Life of Bees — 7pm, Channel 5.

A look at the extraordinary variety of Britain’s bees — some 270 species — exploring their history, science and habitats. It begins with a visit to King Charles III’s bees at Highgrove.

Heatwaves & Food Prices: Saving on Your Supermarket Shop? — Tonight — 7.30pm, ITV1/STV.

Kate Quilton explores how the UK’s heatwaves have affected farmers and food prices.

The Theory of Everything — 9pm, Film4 (2014)

Eddie Redmayne won the Oscar for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking, with Felicity Jones equally impressive as Jane Hawking.

RED — 10.45pm, ITV1 (2010)

A slick, tongue‑in‑cheek action comedy built around the idea that the world’s most dangerous operatives are now supposed to be enjoying quiet retirement — and are utterly incapable of it. Bruce Willis’s Frank Moses is dragged back into the chaos when his past resurfaces, and he promptly reunites with a motley crew of former colleagues who are even less suited to domestic tranquillity than he is.

Helen Mirren is a delight as a refined assassin who still misses the adrenaline; John Malkovich steals scenes as a paranoid wildcard who’s usually right; and Morgan Freeman brings the easy charm of someone who’s seen everything and is still amused by most of it. The chemistry is the film’s real engine — older, sharper, funnier performers having a ball with material that lets them be both dangerous and daft.

Light, breezy and knowingly ridiculous, RED proves that retirement and tranquillity do not necessarily go together — especially when your old friends are armed to the teeth.

Talking Pictures: David Lean — 11.30pm, BBC Four.

Following our Saturday selection of Lawrence of Arabia, this is a welcome opportunity to learn more about the man behind it. An archive-based insight into the life and career of director David Lean.

Friday 18 September

Shadow of a Doubt — 11am, Film4 (1943)

One of Hitchcock’s own favourites. Joseph Cotten brings menace into small-town America as Uncle Charlie, and the darkness gradually seeps through the respectable surface.

Coastal Unit — 9pm, More4. Walter Presents.

A French cop drama with a breezier touch than the genre usually allows. Brilliant rookie Lucia Passente is paired with jaded, old‑school veteran Victor Bruno Salomone, and the show leans into the fun of that mismatch — her sharp instincts and modern methods colliding with his weary pragmatism and “seen it all” attitude. The cases are serious enough, but the tone is lighter, warmer, more character‑led than the average procedural.

The coastal setting helps. Sun, sea and small‑town tensions give the series a relaxed rhythm, even when the investigations turn knotty. What keeps it engaging is the dynamic between the leads: Lucia’s energy pushing against Victor’s cynicism, each quietly learning from the other as they navigate crimes, colleagues and the odd personal complication.

Philadelphia — 9pm, GREAT! TV (1993)

Tom Hanks won his first Oscar for this landmark mainstream drama about AIDS, discrimination and dignity, with Denzel Washington alongside him.

Rolling Stones Night — from 10.10pm, BBC Four. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

Unbelievably, the Rolling Stones are now up to their 25th studio album, and BBC Four marks their extraordinary longevity with an evening devoted to the band.

First up is a 2015 concert recorded at Hollywood’s Fonda Theatre, where the Stones performed their classic 1971 album Sticky Fingers in its entirety for the first — and, to date, only — time.

That is followed by two episodes of the 2022 series My Life as a Rolling Stone: Mick at 11.35pm, followed by Ronnie at 12.35am.

Starve Acre — 11pm, BBC Two (2023)

Brett Morgen’s kaleidoscopic David Bowie documentary is less biography than sensory experience, making extensive use of Bowie’s own words, music and archive material. Take a look at the review I wrote when it was out at the cinema.

Streaming

Netflix

The Doll — all six episodes available from Wednesday 16 September.

A Polish drama centred on the ambitious Stanisław, a man determined to climb the social ladder while becoming increasingly consumed by his infatuation with Isabella.

Teenage Wasteland — available now.

Set in 1991 in blue-collar Middletown, New York, this tells the story of a teacher who creates a class called Electronic English in an attempt to connect with and engage his students.

Prime Video

You and Me Against the World — available from Friday 18 September.

Student Alma Lancaster is hiding rather a lot from her family. She is supposed to be studying law but is actually taking a filmmaking course. As if that were not enough, she is also involved with the rebellious Vadim, another part of her life unlikely to meet with family approval.

MobLand — Season 2 — episodes released weekly from Friday 18 September.

The criminal clans are back, including the Harrigans, with rivalries, alliances and family loyalties once again at the centre of things.

The Wizard of the Kremlin — available now.

A drama about the rise of Vladimir Putin and the political world surrounding his ascent to power.

Apple TV+

Slow Horses — Season 6, Episode 1 — available Wednesday 16 September.

Jackson Lamb and the dysfunctional inhabitants of Slough House return for another series.

Disney+

City of Blood — all eight episodes available Wednesday 16 September.

In a dystopian Berlin ruthlessly divided between rich and poor, sisters Phoebe, Soma, Paisa and Bea find themselves on opposite sides of the class divide. As they dig into the city’s criminal networks, they discover who is really pulling the strings.

Vampires.

Leaving Soon

Brassed Off — available on Channel 4 until Wednesday 16 September.

The Yorkshire mining community rallies around its colliery brass band against a backdrop of threatened pit closures, redundancies and a way of life being dismantled.

Coming Soon

The Diplomat — Series 4 — Netflix, available 15 October.

Radio

Saturday 12 September

The Bayeux Tapestry — 6am, 11am and 5pm, Radio 4 Extra.

An unusual recording from 1944 taking listeners through the story told by the Bayeux Tapestry.

Archive on 4: First Contact — 8pm, Radio 4.

A fascinating and difficult subject: indigenous peoples who remain uncontacted by the outside world. Survival International estimated in a November 2025 report that there are 196 uncontacted peoples around the world, chiefly in the Amazon basin.

Sunday 13 September

Between the Ears: A Circular History of the Loop — 7pm, Radio 3.

The loop — the repeated phrase, drum beat, guitar riff or fragment of sound — has become fundamental to modern music. This explores its history, including the wonderfully inventive methods of BBC Radiophonic Workshop composer Delia Derbyshire, for whom even tapping a metal lampshade with a small hammer could become raw musical material.

Monday 14–Friday 18 September

The Essay: In Voice — 9.45pm, Radio 3.

With the help of ear, nose and throat specialist Declan Costello, tenor Nicky Spence investigates how the human voice actually works. A week of essays looking at that most familiar, personal and surprisingly complicated of instruments.

Tuesday 15 September

Life as a Muse — 4pm, Radio 4.

Does the muse still have a place in the way we think about art and creativity? This considers the traditional idea of the muse while challenging some of the assumptions — and power relationships — that have come with it.

Selections and reviews by Pat Harrington

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