Posts Tagged British TV drama

Culture Vulture 29 August–4 September 2026

August 29, 2026 at 9:14 am · Filed under BBC, Culture Vulture, Film & DVD Reviews, TV Shows, Walter Presents ·Tagged , , , , ,

There’s a distinctly end-of-summer feel to this week’s Culture Vulture, but the schedules are far from winding down. In fact, there’s a very strong run of films across the week, some returning television favourites and a streaming slate which ranges from period crime to superheroes and prestige drama.

Three things stand out for me. First, BBC Two gives us the complete Godfather trilogy across Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Whatever your view of the third film, that is still quite a proposition.

Secondly, there’s an excellent musical thread running through the weekend, from Wham! and the Beach Boys to the Mamas and the Papas, not forgetting a Proms evening devoted to James Bond. And finally, Gogglebox returns for its 28th series on Friday. There are programmes which reinvent television and programmes which simply understand television. Gogglebox has always belonged rather comfortably in the second category.

Here’s what caught my eye.

Saturday 29 August

6.10pm, PBS America — Athens: Birthplace of Democracy

A look back to the city and political culture which gave the Western world one of its most enduring — if frequently contested — ideas.

7.30pm, BBC Two — BBC Proms: Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser Has a Licence to Thrill

Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser and the BBC Concert Orchestra turn their attention to the music of James Bond. Bond themes have always been unusually ambitious bits of popular music in their own right, so there is plenty here for an orchestra to get its teeth into. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

9pm, BBC Four — Kabul

Drama set against the chaos surrounding the fall of Kabul in August 2021. The full series is available on BBC iPlayer.

9pm, Sky Arts — Chaplin (1992)

Attenborough’s sweeping biopic isn’t shy about its own grandeur, and Robert Downey Jr meets that scale with a performance that’s all quicksilver brilliance and bruised vulnerability. He doesn’t impersonate Chaplin so much as inhabit him — the physical precision, the darting intelligence, the melancholy that sits just behind the eyes. It’s a turn that reminds you how astonishingly gifted Downey was even before his later reinventions.

The film itself is a handsome, old‑school studio epic: big sets, big emotions, big narrative leaps. Attenborough charts Chaplin’s rise from poverty to global fame with a kind of museum‑quality reverence, but he’s at his best when he lets the cracks show — the political battles, the personal failings, the way genius and ego grind against each other. The supporting cast is a parade of familiar faces, each dropping in to sketch a moment in Chaplin’s turbulent life, but it’s Downey who keeps the whole thing alive, electric, and strangely intimate.

Not a perfect film, but a fascinating one — and worth revisiting for a performance that still feels like lightning in a bottle.

9pm — Wham! 10 Days in China

A look at Wham!’s groundbreaking 1985 visit to China, when George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley became the first major Western pop act to tour the country.

10.25pm, BBC Two — Wham! at the BBC

More George and Andrew, this time through the BBC archives.

10.30pm, Channel 5 — Kinky Boots (2005)

A film that knows exactly what it’s doing and does it with a grin. Kinky Boots takes the very real anxieties of a failing Northampton shoe factory and spins them into a buoyant, big‑hearted fable about reinvention. The premise — pivoting from sturdy brogues to flamboyant, high‑heeled fetish boots — is inherently comic, but the charm lies in how sincerely it treats the people involved.

Joel Edgerton gives the factory’s reluctant heir a nicely rumpled decency, but it’s Chiwetel Ejiofor who detonates the film’s energy. His Lola is a force of nature: glamorous, sharp, wounded, and utterly magnetic. Every scene he’s in lifts the film from gentle workplace comedy into something with real emotional voltage. The dynamic between Lola and the factory lads — suspicion giving way to curiosity, then respect — is handled with a light touch that never tips into sermonising.

It’s a story about survival, pride, and the unexpected places solidarity can bloom. Warm, funny, and quietly radical in its insistence that tradition and transformation don’t have to be enemies. A crowd‑pleaser with a bit of steel in its spine.

1.35am, BBC Two — Compartment No. 6 (2021)

A film that moves in small, almost imperceptible shifts — the kind that creep up on you and suddenly feel enormous. Compartment No. 6 traps two strangers in the narrow, rattling purgatory of a long train ride: a Finnish archaeology student fleeing a complicated relationship, and a Russian miner whose bluntness initially feels like a personal attack. It begins in discomfort — the kind of social claustrophobia anyone who’s ever been stuck in the wrong carriage at the wrong time will recognise.

What follows is beautifully observed, never hurried. Director Juho Kuosmanen has a gift for noticing the tiny gestures that reveal people: a half‑smile, a defensive shrug, the way irritation softens into curiosity. The film’s great strength is its refusal to force intimacy; instead, it lets connection emerge in the gaps between language, in shared cigarettes, in the bleak humour of bad weather and worse circumstances.

The Arctic Circle looms like a metaphor — cold, distant, unreachable — yet the journey towards it becomes unexpectedly warm. By the time the train judders into its final stops, the film has quietly built something tender out of loneliness, miscommunication and the strange, fragile alliances that form when two people have nowhere else to go.

Sunday 30 August

5.25pm, Sky Arts — The Beach Boys: Endless Harmony

The Beach Boys story told through archive footage, music and the complicated relationships behind all those immaculate harmonies.

5.25pm, BBC Two — The Italian Job (1969)

A film so woven into British pop culture that it barely needs announcing — but it deserves celebrating. The Italian Job remains the purest expression of late‑60s swagger: Michael Caine at his most effortlessly charismatic, a caper built on cheek and precision, and a vision of Britain that believed ingenuity could outshine brute force.

Everything about it is engineered for delight. The Minis — red, white and blue — dart through Turin with balletic confidence, turning the city into a playground of tunnels, rooftops and improbable escape routes. Quincy Jones’ score snaps and struts. The supporting cast, from Noël Coward’s magnificently patrician Mr Bridger to Benny Hill’s chaotic cameo, adds texture to the film’s comic‑criminal ecosystem.

And then there’s that ending. The bus, the cliff, the gold, the unresolved teeter that has fuelled half a century of debate. It’s the perfect final note: audacious, funny, and refusing to tidy itself away. A caper that knows the value of leaving you suspended — grinning, guessing, and wanting just a little more.

6.20pm, ITV4 — Waterloo (1970)

Bondarchuk’s thunderous epic of Napoleon’s last stand still has the power to astonish. Before computers made massed battles a matter of software, this was done the hard way: tens of thousands of real soldiers manoeuvred across vast fields, cavalry charges thundering through smoke, and artillery barrages staged with unnerving force.

Rod Steiger gives a brooding, volatile Napoleon; Christopher Plummer’s Wellington is all cool calculation. But the real star is the scale — the sheer logistical madness of recreating Waterloo with such detail and weight. It’s old‑school spectacle, the kind that reminds you what cinema can do when ambition meets an army.

7pm, BBC One — Hamza: African Birds of Prey

Hamza Yassin turns his attention to Africa’s magnificent birds of prey. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

7.40pm, Sky Arts — California Dreaming: The Songs of the Mamas and the Papas

The music and story of one of the defining vocal groups of the 1960s.

9pm, Film4 — A Few Good Men (1992)

Cruise brings the drive; Nicholson brings the detonation. Rob Reiner’s military courtroom drama is sharply written and tightly paced, but it’s Nicholson who tilts the whole thing on its axis. As Colonel Jessup, he strides in late, occupies the film for barely a handful of scenes, and still manages to dominate it through sheer force of personality.

Cruise’s young Navy lawyer pushes, probes and tries to stay upright under the weight of the institution he’s challenging, but the film’s electricity comes from the collision between the two men — idealism meeting absolute authority. By the time Nicholson delivers his famous tirade, the verdict is already in: he steals the picture cleanly, confidently, and without breaking a sweat.

9pm, BBC One — Vigil

The thriller returns to the schedules, with the full series available on BBC iPlayer.

9pm, ITV1 — Trigger Point

More bomb disposal tension, with the full series available on ITVX.

10pm, BBC Two — The Godfather (1972)

Coppola’s first chapter in the Corleone saga remains one of cinema’s great acts of world‑building: shadowed rooms, whispered loyalties, and violence delivered with ritualistic calm. Brando’s Vito is the film’s centre of gravity, a weary patriarch whose authority seems to bend the air around him.

But it’s Pacino who quietly reshapes the story. His Michael begins as the outsider — the son who insists he’s not part of the family business — and Pacino plays those early scenes with a stillness that barely registers as ambition. Across three hours, that stillness hardens. Every decision, every silence, every glance nudges him further into the darkness.

By the time he closes the door in the final shot, the transformation is complete: a man who thought he could stand apart has become the very thing he feared. It’s one of the most controlled, chilling performances ever put on film.

11pm, Yesterday — Sir Alex Ferguson: Never Give In (2021)

A portrait of Ferguson that refuses to settle for the familiar mythology. Yes, the football is there — the trophies, the authority, the ferocious competitive instinct — but the documentary’s real interest lies elsewhere. It looks at the man after the noise has faded: his childhood, his marriage, the rhythms of family life, and the frightening vulnerability of his 2018 brain haemorrhage.

What emerges is a study in memory and mortality. Ferguson reflects on the past not as a sequence of victories but as a series of turning points, losses, recoveries, and the people who shaped him. The film’s quietness is its strength. It shows how someone defined by control confronts the one thing he cannot command: time.

Bank Holiday Monday 31 August

7pm, Sky Arts — Six Minutes to Midnight (2019)

A quietly tense pre‑war thriller with a premise that feels almost too strange to be true: an English finishing school on the Sussex coast where the daughters of high‑ranking Nazi officials are being groomed into perfect ambassadors for the Reich. Eddie Izzard plays a teacher who stumbles into a web of espionage, suspicion and political brinkmanship as Europe edges towards catastrophe.

The film mixes seaside gentility with gathering storm clouds — polite manners, crisp uniforms and the unsettling sense that something poisonous is being cultivated behind closed doors. It’s a story about loyalty, identity and the danger of looking away just when history is about to turn.

8pm, BBC One — The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

One of Edinburgh’s great annual spectacles, with massed bands, military precision and the Castle providing a backdrop television could scarcely improve upon.

10.30pm, BBC Two — The Godfather Part II (1974)

The rare sequel that doesn’t just match its predecessor but deepens it. Coppola builds a vast, mournful tapestry of power, family and the corrosive cost of ambition, cutting between two men at two moments in American history: Michael consolidating his empire in the 1950s, and young Vito climbing from poverty to influence half a century earlier.

Pacino’s performance is glacial, terrifying in its restraint — a man hollowing himself out in the name of control. De Niro, meanwhile, gives Vito warmth and quiet resolve, showing how the foundations of the Corleone dynasty were laid with community, necessity and a kind of rough‑edged honour.

The contrast is devastating. One rises to protect his family; the other destroys his in the name of protecting it.

11pm, BBC One — Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

The film that turned Richard Curtis’s brand of romantic comedy into a global export. Hugh Grant’s stammering charm was already familiar, but here it crystallised into something irresistible: the diffident Englishman who can’t quite get out of his own way.

What’s easy to forget is just how big a cultural moment this was. A modestly budgeted British film that became an international phenomenon, reshaping the genre for a decade and launching a wave of imitators. Its mix of sharp wit, emotional honesty and unabashed sentiment still works because it never sneers at its characters — it lets them be awkward, hopeful, foolish and occasionally profound.

11.30pm, Film4 — Carol (2015)

Todd Haynes crafts this with exquisite control — every glance, every pause, every shift in light doing as much storytelling as the dialogue. Cate Blanchett’s Carol is poised, elegant, and quietly aching; Rooney Mara’s Therese is all tentative curiosity, drawn into a relationship that feels both impossible and inevitable.

The film moves like a piece of chamber music: restrained, precise, and emotionally devastating in its quietest moments. Haynes lets the 1950s setting press in from all sides — the social constraints, the unspoken rules — while never losing sight of the tenderness at the centre.

2.50am, Channel 4 — Sick of Myself (2022)

A pitch‑black Norwegian comedy that treats narcissism like a competitive sport. The film follows a young woman so desperate to stay at the centre of everyone’s attention that she escalates her behaviour from petty manipulation to outright self‑harm, all in the name of sympathy, notoriety and social currency.

It’s viciously funny and deeply uncomfortable — a satire of performative culture where every gesture is a bid for relevance and every relationship becomes collateral damage. The further she pushes things, the more horrifying and absurd it becomes, until you’re laughing and wincing in the same breath.

A brutally sharp look at the hunger to be seen, and the chaos that follows when that hunger becomes the whole personality.

Tuesday 1 September

3.10pm, Film4 — Send Me No Flowers (1964)

One of the most purely enjoyable Day–Hudson comedies, built on a premise so daft it becomes irresistible. Rock Hudson’s hypochondriac is convinced he’s dying, and in a fit of misguided gallantry decides the best thing he can do for Doris Day’s devoted wife is to line up her next husband.

What follows is a bright, breezy spiral of misunderstandings, jealousies and suburban chaos, powered by the duo’s effortless chemistry and a script that knows exactly how to let them sparkle. It’s feather‑light, colourful and cheerfully silly — the kind of comedy that feels like opening a window on a sunnier world.

5.15pm, Film4 — Spartacus (1960)

Kubrick’s Roman epic is colossal in every sense, but its most radical force sits behind the camera. Spartacus is the film that helped break the Hollywood blacklist: Kirk Douglas insisted that Dalton Trumbo — one of the “Hollywood Ten,” jailed and exiled from the industry for refusing to name names during the McCarthy anti‑Communist purges — be credited under his own name. It was an act of defiance that changed careers and cracked open one of the ugliest chapters in American film history.

On screen, the scale is staggering. Douglas’s Spartacus leads a slave revolt that feels genuinely seismic, and Laurence Olivier presides over Rome with icy patrician menace. Kubrick marshals armies, landscapes and political intrigue with a precision that still impresses, but the film’s heartbeat is its politics — both the rebellion it depicts and the one it quietly enacted in Hollywood.

A landmark of spectacle and a landmark of resistance.

9pm, BBC Three — Scamanda

A four-part documentary telling the extraordinary story of Amanda Riley, whose fraudulent cancer story deceived thousands.

11pm, BBC Four — I Am Martin Parr

A portrait of one of Britain’s most distinctive photographers. Available on BBC iPlayer.

11.05pm, BBC Two — The Godfather Part III (1990)

The trilogy’s closing chapter has lived in the shadow of its predecessors for decades, but taken on its own terms it’s a sombre, compelling epilogue. Coppola shifts the tone from operatic violence to something more reflective: a story about age, regret and the impossibility of outrunning one’s past.

Pacino’s Michael is older, wearier, and haunted by the choices that built his empire. The performance is fascinating — the coiled intensity is still there, but now it’s tempered by guilt and a longing for legitimacy that he can never quite grasp. Andy García brings volatile energy as Vincent, the heir apparent, while the film’s Vatican‑entangled plot adds a layer of moral rot that feels entirely appropriate for Michael’s final act.

It may not reach the heights of the first two films, but there is real power in watching a man who once controlled everything realise that the bill for his sins has finally come due.

11.45pm, Film4 — Journeyman (2017)

Paddy Considine’s second feature is a quietly devastating piece of work — intimate, unshowy and emotionally exact. He writes, directs and stars as Matty Burton, a middleweight boxer whose life is shattered by a catastrophic brain injury sustained during a title defence. What begins as a familiar sports narrative turns into something far more fragile: a study of identity, recovery and the terrifying uncertainty of a mind that no longer behaves as it once did.

Considine’s performance is remarkable in its vulnerability, and Jodie Whittaker matches him beat for beat as a partner trying to hold together a life that has suddenly come apart. The film never tips into melodrama; it stays close to the small, painful details of rehabilitation — the confusion, the anger, the flickers of hope.

A moving, humane drama about rebuilding from the inside out.

.1.35am, Film4 — Pixie (2020)

A darkly comic Irish caper that plays everything with a wink and a threat. Olivia Cooke is terrific as Pixie, a young woman whose charm is matched only by her talent for trouble. After a heist goes sideways, she heads off across rural Ireland with two hapless accomplices, a bag of stolen drugs and a growing list of very dangerous people trying to catch up.

The tone is gleefully off‑kilter — gun‑toting priests, eccentric gangsters, sharp dialogue and a sense that every decision is making things worse in a slightly hilarious way. Cooke anchors it all with a performance that’s sly, unpredictable and enormous fun. A lively late‑night watch with a streak of mischief running right through it.

Wednesday 2 September

10.55pm, Legend — The Fighter (2010)

A tough, lived‑in boxing drama that works because it’s really about the people orbiting the ring rather than the punches thrown inside it. Mark Wahlberg plays Micky Ward with understated grit, but the film’s charge comes from Christian Bale as Dicky Eklund — a former fighter, now a chaotic, crack‑addicted mentor whose glory days have curdled into delusion.

Bale doesn’t just play Dicky; he disappears into him. The jittery energy, the compulsive charm, the self‑sabotage — it’s all there, and it gives the film a rawness that most sports biopics never touch. Amy Adams adds steel as Charlene, the woman trying to pull Micky out of the gravitational pull of his family, while David O. Russell keeps the whole thing moving with bruising momentum.

A story about loyalty, damage and the fight to break free, anchored by one of Bale’s most ferociously committed performances.

Thursday 3 September

12.55pm, Legend — The Assassination Bureau (1969)

A wonderfully odd slice of Edwardian mischief, pitched somewhere between black comedy, adventure caper and social satire. Oliver Reed plays Ivan Dragomiloff, the suavely amoral head of a professional organisation devoted to murder-for-hire — a gentlemanly league of assassins who treat killing as a matter of honour, etiquette and contractual obligation.

Diana Rigg, sharp as ever, enters the story as a journalist determined to expose the Bureau’s existence. Her plan? Commission them to kill their own leader. What follows is a playful chase across Europe, full of elaborate assassination attempts, period charm and a tone that winks at the audience without ever tipping into outright farce.

It’s eccentric, stylish and very much its own thing — a late‑60s curiosity powered by Reed’s swagger and Rigg’s impeccable wit.

2.35pm, Talking Pictures TV — The Durant Affair (1962)

A compact, no‑nonsense British crime drama, the sort of film Talking Pictures excels at rescuing from obscurity. The Durant Affair sits firmly in that fascinating corner of early‑60s British cinema where modest budgets, tight scripts and character actors doing solid work combine into something unexpectedly engaging.

It’s not a headline title, and that’s precisely the appeal. These lesser‑screened crime pictures offer a snapshot of a filmmaking culture that was grittier, more workmanlike and often more inventive than the prestige productions of the era. If you enjoy digging into the hidden shelves of British film history, this is exactly the kind of curio that rewards the effort.

9pm, GREAT! TV — Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

One of the crown jewels of Ealing comedy: elegant, wicked and delivered with a straight face sharp enough to cut glass. Dennis Price is superb as Louis Mazzini, the impeccably polite young man who decides that a handful of inconvenient relatives stand between him and a dukedom — a problem he approaches with calm, murderous efficiency.

Alec Guinness’s tour‑de‑force turn is the film’s great delight: he plays almost the entire D’Ascoyne family, from fussy parsons to pompous admirals to suffragette firebrands, each performance perfectly judged and slyly exaggerated without ever breaking the film’s refined tone.

It’s a comedy of manners wrapped around a string of killings, delivered with such charm and precision that its darkness feels positively civilised. A masterpiece of dry British wit.

9pm, BBC Two — A House Through Time

David Olusoga continues his exploration of the lives hidden within the history of a single house. The full series is available on BBC iPlayer.

12.05am, BBC Two — Respect (2021)

Jennifer Hudson doesn’t just play Aretha Franklin — she channels her. The film follows Franklin’s rise from a prodigiously gifted church singer to the undisputed Queen of Soul, tracing the battles she fought both publicly and privately to claim her voice, her artistry and her autonomy.

Hudson’s performance is the anchor: vocally astonishing, emotionally grounded, and delivered with a reverence that never slips into imitation. The film moves through the key chapters — the early gospel years, the breakthrough hits, the personal struggles, the political awakening — with a warmth that honours Franklin’s legacy even when confronting its darker corners.

It’s a conventional music biopic in structure, but the power of the story and the sheer force of Hudson’s presence make it resonate. A celebration of a singular talent and the long, hard road she walked to become herself.

Friday 4 September

9pm, ITV2 — The Dark Knight (2008)

Christopher Nolan’s Batman film remains a defining moment in modern superhero cinema — muscular, morally tangled and executed with a seriousness that reshaped what the genre could be. But its gravitational centre is, of course, Heath Ledger’s Joker, a performance so ferociously alive it still feels dangerous.

Ledger’s Joker isn’t a villain with a plan; he’s an agent of rupture. Everything about him — the smeared makeup, the hunched posture, the voice that slides between mock‑polite and feral — suggests someone who has studied human behaviour purely to learn how best to unsettle it. He isn’t interested in money or power; he wants to expose the fragility of order, to prove that civilisation is only ever one bad day away from collapse.

The brilliance of the performance is its unpredictability. Ledger plays him as a man who delights in rewriting the rules mid‑sentence, whose jokes land like threats and whose threats land like philosophy. Every scene tightens because you genuinely don’t know what he’ll do next. It’s not just a great comic‑book villain; it’s one of the great screen performances of the century.

Around him, Christian Bale’s Batman and Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent form the film’s moral spine, but Ledger is the spark that turns the whole thing into a battle for the soul of Gotham. A landmark — and a reminder of how one extraordinary performance can tilt an entire film into legend.

9pm, Legend — Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

Sergio Leone’s final film is a vast, mournful gangster epic — less interested in crime than in the long shadows it casts over a life. Robert De Niro’s Noodles drifts through the story like a man permanently out of time, haunted by friendships broken, betrayals committed and memories that refuse to settle into anything stable.

Leone tells the tale at an unhurried, almost dreamlike pace. Scenes unfold with the weight of recollection rather than the urgency of plot: childhood in the Jewish ghettos of New York, the rise into organised crime, the fractures that tear the group apart, and the decades‑later reckoning that may or may not be real. The film’s structure — looping between eras, blurring the line between what happened and what Noodles believes happened — gives it a melancholy that’s closer to elegy than thriller.

De Niro is superb, playing Noodles as a man defined by regret, while James Woods brings electric volatility as Max, the friend whose ambition becomes a kind of curse. Ennio Morricone’s score does the rest, bathing the film in sorrow and nostalgia.

A sprawling, hypnotic masterpiece — a gangster film that moves at the pace of memory, and hits with the force of everything time refuses to heal.

9pm, Channel 4 — Gogglebox

It’s back for its 28th series. The format remains ridiculously simple — people watching television while we watch them — but when the casting works, so does the programme. Catch up via Channel 4 streaming.

9.20pm, Talking Pictures TV — Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971)

One of Hammer’s strangest and most intriguing late‑period horrors — a gender‑swapping twist on Robert Louis Stevenson that lets the studio lean into both gothic melodrama and something far more subversive. Ralph Bates plays Dr Jekyll as a driven, increasingly unhinged scientist whose experiments in extending human life lead him to create a female alter ego: Sister Hyde, played with icy poise by Martine Beswick.

The transformation conceit gives Hammer room to explore identity, repression and desire in a way that feels unusually bold for the era. Sister Hyde isn’t just a murderous counterpart; she’s a manifestation of everything Jekyll fears and covets, a figure who moves through Victorian London with a confidence and sensuality that destabilises him completely.

It’s lurid, atmospheric and knowingly provocative — a film that takes a familiar story and twists it into something slyly transgressive. One of Hammer’s more unusual delights.

11.05pm, BBC Two — Harvest (2024)

A quietly gripping drama, Harvest works in the space between rural stillness and creeping unease. Set in a farming community where tradition, hardship and unspoken tensions shape every relationship, the film follows a family facing a season that threatens to break them — financially, emotionally and morally.

What makes it compelling is its restraint. The drama unfolds in small, telling moments: the weight of responsibility passed between generations, the strain of keeping a livelihood alive, the way isolation can magnify every fear. The performances are grounded and naturalistic, giving the film a lived‑in authenticity that makes its darker turns hit harder.

It’s a thoughtful, atmospheric piece — a modern British drama that finds its power not in big plot swings but in the quiet, accumulating pressure of a life tied to the land. A strong, understated choice to round off the week.

Streaming

Netflix

Monster’s Ball — available now

A stark, emotionally bruising drama that moves with a quiet, deliberate intensity. Set against the backdrop of America’s deep racial and social fractures, the film follows two people whose lives have been shaped by grief, anger and generational damage, and who find themselves drawn together in circumstances that should make connection impossible.

What gives the film its power is the restraint: the performances are raw without ever tipping into melodrama, and the story unfolds in small, painful increments. It’s a film about the weight people carry, the ways they fail each other, and the fragile possibility of redemption. Hard‑hitting, but worth the emotional toll.

H Is for Hawk — available now

This adaptation of Helen Macdonald’s acclaimed memoir captures the strange, intimate process of training a goshawk while navigating overwhelming grief. It’s part nature study, part psychological portrait, and part meditation on how humans seek meaning in the wild when their own lives feel unmanageable.

The film leans into the book’s reflective tone, lingering on landscape, silence and the uneasy bond between handler and bird. It’s gentle but piercing, a story about control, surrender and the ways we try to rebuild ourselves through ritual and obsession. A beautifully made piece of contemplative nonfiction.

The Gentlemen — Season 2, from Thursday 3 September

Guy Ritchie’s criminal world returns for a second series, and it’s as swaggering, chaotic and sharply dressed as ever. The new run expands the turf wars, double‑crosses and entrepreneurial villainy that defined the first season, giving the ensemble more room to stretch into their particular flavours of misbehaviour.

There’s a confidence to the storytelling now: the humour is darker, the schemes more elaborate, and the tone sits comfortably between crime thriller and high‑end mischief. If you enjoyed the first season’s mix of violence, charm and sheer audacity, Season 2 doubles down on all of it.

Channel 4 Streaming / Walter Presents

Cold Courage — all episodes from Tuesday 1 September

A tense, politically charged thriller that follows two women drawn into a shadowy organisation dedicated to exposing corruption. The series moves between London’s media world, far‑right extremism and the murky spaces where influence and intimidation overlap, giving it a contemporary edge that feels uncomfortably close to reality.

What stands out is the character work: both leads are damaged, determined and navigating trauma while trying to dismantle something far bigger than themselves. It’s stylish, tightly plotted and full of the kind of moral ambiguity Walter Presents specialises in.

Devil’s Throat: The Demon’s Fall

A Bulgarian thriller steeped in folklore, superstition and the darker corners of rural life. The series blends procedural investigation with mythic undertones, creating an atmosphere where every discovery feels like it might be pointing toward something older and more unsettling than simple criminality.

The pacing is deliberate, the visuals striking, and the tension builds from the clash between modern policing and ancient belief. It’s one of those shows that creeps under the skin — not loud, but quietly unnerving.

Paramount+

Humans — all episodes from Thursday 3 September

A return to one of the most thoughtful sci‑fi dramas of recent years. Humans explores artificial intelligence not through spectacle but through domestic life, asking what happens when synthetic beings become indistinguishable from the people they serve.

The new availability of all episodes gives viewers the chance to appreciate the show’s slow‑burn evolution: from questions of labour and autonomy to full‑blown debates about consciousness, rights and revolution. It’s smart, grounded and emotionally resonant — sci‑fi with something real to say.

Sweden: Demons Fall — Series 2, from Friday 4 September

The second series deepens the supernatural mystery at the heart of this Swedish thriller. What began as a story of strange occurrences in a remote community now expands into a broader exploration of belief, fear and the legacies families try to outrun.

Series 2 is moodier, more ambitious and visually striking, with a stronger sense of dread threading through each episode. It’s Nordic noir with a supernatural twist — cold, atmospheric and compelling.

Prime Video

Mother Mary — available now

A bold, stylised drama that plays with the idea of celebrity myth‑making. The film follows a pop icon whose life becomes the subject of a sprawling biographical project, blurring the lines between truth, performance and the narratives artists build around themselves.

It’s visually lush and musically driven, with a central performance that embraces both the glamour and the vulnerability of fame. The film asks what it means to be seen, and what gets lost when a person becomes a symbol. Ambitious, intriguing and full of texture.

Disney+

The Mandalorian and Grogu — from Wednesday 2 September

The Star Wars universe heads back to familiar territory with Din Djarin and Grogu, and the new series leans into everything that made their partnership irresistible: stoic warrior energy, found‑family warmth and a galaxy full of danger, politics and creatures with questionable intentions.

Expect a broader canvas this time — bigger stakes, deeper lore and a sense that the pair are being drawn into events far beyond bounty hunting. It’s still recognisably The Mandalorian, but with the scale and emotional weight turned up. A welcome return for two of modern Star Wars’ most beloved characters.

Radio

Sunday 30 August

7.15pm, BBC Radio 4 — Bouncing Off the Walls: A Prison Soundscape

A striking piece of auditory documentary-making, this soundscape builds its world not through interviews or narration but through the textures of prison life itself. The clatter of doors, the echo of corridors, the hum of communal spaces — all of it arranged to give listeners a sense of the rhythms and pressures of an environment defined by confinement.

It’s an atmospheric listen, one that asks you to sit inside the sonic architecture of incarceration and consider what it reveals. Without commentary, the programme becomes a kind of immersive portrait: unsettling in places, unexpectedly human in others, and quietly powerful in the way it lets sound do the storytelling.

Monday 31 August

6pm, Boom Rock — The Stiff Records Story

A lively, affectionate dive into one of Britain’s most gloriously unruly independent labels. Stiff Records was never just a roster — it was an attitude, a gleefully anarchic challenge to the music industry’s self-importance. The programme traces the label’s rise through its defining artists, from Ian Dury’s swagger to Elvis Costello’s sharp intelligence and Madness’s irresistible energy.

What emerges is a portrait of a label that prized personality, risk and sheer cheek. The documentary captures the era’s DIY spirit and the sense that Stiff’s artists were rewriting the rules as they went. A treat for anyone who loves the scruffier, more inventive corners of British music history. Repeated Thursday at 9pm.

Tuesday 1 September

8.05am, 3.05pm and 10.05pm, BBC World Service — People Fixing the World

This edition tackles sepsis — a condition where minutes matter and early diagnosis can be the difference between life and death. The programme looks at innovators trying to speed up detection, from rapid-testing technologies to new approaches in frontline healthcare that aim to catch symptoms before they escalate.

It’s a clear-eyed, hopeful piece of reporting, focused on practical solutions rather than alarm. By spotlighting people working to close the gap between onset and treatment, the episode shows how small changes in process and technology could save thousands of lives worldwide.

Wednesday 2 September

10am, 4pm and midnight, BBC Radio 4 Extra — Mercury

Three chances across the day to catch this imaginative audio drama, which blends mystery, science and a touch of the uncanny. Mercury unfolds with a slow, deliberate pull, drawing listeners into a story where the boundaries between explanation and intuition blur.

It’s the kind of drama that rewards close listening: layered sound design, thoughtful pacing and a narrative that reveals itself piece by piece. Atmospheric, intriguing and well worth dipping into at whichever time suits.

Friday 4 September

8.30pm, BBC World Service — CrowdScience

This week’s episode takes a gleeful dive into the psychology of roller coasters — why some people crave the stomach-dropping, high-speed chaos of a ride while others would rather stay firmly on the ground. The programme explores the science of thrill-seeking, from brain chemistry to personality traits, and how our bodies interpret fear when we know we’re safe.

It’s an entertaining blend of neuroscience and amusement-park nostalgia, with plenty of insight into what drives human appetite for controlled danger. A fun, thoughtful listen that might even explain why you love — or loathe — being hurled around at improbable speeds.

That’s it for this week. Plenty of crime, music, history and heavyweight cinema, with enough lighter material scattered around to stop the whole thing becoming oppressive. If I were choosing just three, I’d make time for The Godfather Part II, Kind Hearts and Coronets and the James Bond Prom — three very different demonstrations of how much pleasure there is to be had when style and substance turn up together.

Selections and reviews by Pat Harrington

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Culture Vulture 20th – 26th June 2026

June 18, 2026 at 5:53 pm · Filed under Culture Vulture, Documentaries, Film & DVD Reviews, Podcasts, Radio, Streaming ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

There are weeks when television and film simply provide entertainment, and there are weeks when they seem to engage in a wider conversation. This is one of the latter. Running through this week’s selections are questions about memory, identity and the stories nations tell about themselves. From Brazil’s obsession with football to the American Revolution, from the anti-apartheid movement to Brexit ten years on, from the Somme to Jack the Ripper, the past is everywhere.

Yet this is not a week trapped by nostalgia. Alongside the historical themes come reflections on artificial intelligence, internet culture, celebrity, science fiction and the future itself. Add in some superb classic cinema, a welcome celebration of comedy legends such as Mel Brooks and Rick Mayall, and a rare chance to revisit one of Britain’s greatest television dramas, and there is plenty here to reward curiosity. Selections and writing are by Pat Harrington.

🌟 Highlights

🌟 Goolagong (BBC Four, Saturday) – the story of one of the greatest sporting figures of the twentieth century.

🌟 Sound of Metal (BBC Two, Tuesday) – one of the most moving and original films of recent years.

🌟 Our Friends in the North (BBC Four, Wednesday) – still one of the finest dramas British television has ever produced.

Saturday 20th June

John Snow: A Last Big Story – Channel 4, 8.00pm

John Snow’s final broadcast feels less like a curtain call and more like a reckoning with time itself. The veteran journalist — now living with Alzheimer’s — turns the camera inward, tracing the contours of memory as both a gift and a thief. For decades he stood at the heart of history: wars, revolutions, elections, human triumphs and tragedies. Now, the story he’s telling is his own.

This is not a sentimental goodbye but a lucid, brave exploration of what it means to lose the very faculties that once defined a life’s work. Snow speaks with the same candour that marked his reporting, acknowledging the fog that sometimes descends and the grace of those who help him navigate it — especially his wife, Precious, whose presence here is tender and grounding.

The “last big story” is not about politics or conflict; it’s about the endurance of truth when memory falters. It’s about love, dignity, and the stubborn light of curiosity that refuses to go out. A moving, humane hour — and a reminder that journalism, at its best, is an act of empathy.

Goolagong – BBC Four, 9.00pm and 9.50pm (Episodes 1 & 2 of 3)

Evonne Goolagong Cawley’s story has always felt bigger than tennis — a life lived at the intersection of sporting brilliance and cultural change. These opening chapters trace her rise from a small Australian town to the centre court of the world, a journey shaped as much by quiet resilience as by natural grace.

What emerges is not just a portrait of a champion but of an Indigenous woman navigating a country that often refused to see her fully. The series treats her achievements with the respect they deserve, but it also lingers on the deeper legacy: how she became a symbol of possibility for those who had been told to expect little. A thoughtful, beautifully paced tribute.

Big (1988) – Great TV, 6.50pm

There’s a reason *Big* still works: beneath the high‑concept premise sits a film with real heart. Tom Hanks — all open‑faced wonder and awkward limbs — gives one of those performances that seems effortless until you try to imagine anyone else doing it.

The comedy is warm rather than wacky, the emotion earned rather than engineered. And in the middle of it all is that bittersweet truth the film never quite says aloud: childhood is fleeting, adulthood arrives too quickly, and sometimes the only way to understand either is to stand in the wrong shoes for a while.

The Odessa File (1974) – Talking Pictures TV, 9.05pm

A taut, wintry thriller adapted from Frederick Forsyth’s bestseller, *The Odessa File* plunges into the murky world of post‑war secrets and the shadow networks that tried to keep the past buried. Jon Voight plays the journalist drawn into a conspiracy that feels both sprawling and claustrophobic, the kind where every answer only deepens the unease.

It’s very much of its era — all cold streets, coded messages and moral ambiguity — but that’s part of its power. A reminder that history doesn’t end cleanly; it lingers, waiting to be uncovered.

The Hitcher (1986) – Legend, 3.05am

A late‑night shocker that still has the power to unsettle. Rutger Hauer’s performance as the enigmatic hitchhiker is one of those rare turns that elevates a genre film into something mythic: calm, charismatic, and terrifying precisely because he never overplays it.

The film itself is lean and relentless, a road movie that becomes a nightmare with no safe exits. If you’re awake at this hour, it will stay with you longer than you expect.

The Frighteners (1996) – Film4, 12.05am

Before Middle‑earth came calling, Peter Jackson made this wonderfully odd supernatural comedy‑horror — a film that refuses to sit neatly in any one box. Michael J. Fox anchors the chaos with charm, while Jackson fills the frame with inventive effects, tonal shifts and a sense of mischief that feels very much his own.

It’s a film that deserved a kinder reception on release, and time has only strengthened its cult appeal. Strange, stylish, and surprisingly heartfelt.

Sunday 21st June

Free Nelson Mandela (Episode 2 of 3) – Channel 4, 9.00pm

A compelling examination of the international campaign that helped bring apartheid to an end.

Later… with Jools Holland – BBC Two, 10.00pm

From Alexandra Palace Theatre, featuring Shania Twain, KNATS, Arlo Parks and Sam Smith. Later remains one of the best showcases for live music on television.

Gaia (2021) – Film4, 1.45am

A late‑night curio with real bite. *Gaia* takes the familiar language of eco‑horror — the forest as something ancient, watchful, and quietly furious — and pushes it into stranger, more psychological territory. The film’s power lies in its atmosphere: humid, oppressive, and threaded with the sense that nature is no longer content to be background scenery.
It’s a story about guilt and stewardship, but also about the thin line between reverence and fear. Visually striking, thematically unsettling, and perfect for the small hours when the world feels a little too alive.

The Vikings (1958) – Great Action, 2.30pm

A glorious slice of old‑school Hollywood adventure, all roaring seas, clashing swords and Technicolor swagger. Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis throw themselves into the spectacle with the kind of commitment modern blockbusters rarely muster — every gesture big, every emotion worn proudly on the surface.
It’s a film from a time when historical epics were built on charisma rather than CGI, and its charm lies in that very theatricality. Broad, bold, and irresistibly entertaining.

Goldfinger (1964) – ITV1, 4.20pm

For me, Goldfinger isn’t just a Bond film — it’s the Bond film. The one where everything clicks into place: the swagger, the style, the danger, the flirtation, the sense that the whole enterprise has suddenly discovered its own mythology. Sean Connery is at his most relaxed and lethal, moving through the film with that effortless mix of charm and steel that no one has ever quite matched.

But what really seals its place as my favourite is the humour threaded through Ulrich Goldfinger’s dialogue — that dry, almost courtly villainy that makes every exchange a pleasure. There’s a theatricality to him, a sense that he enjoys the game as much as Bond does, and the script gives him lines that still sparkle decades later.

Sleek, confident and endlessly rewatchable, Goldfinger is the moment Bond stopped being a series of spy capers and became a cultural institution — and it still feels like the gold standard.

Hidden Figures (2016) – Film4, 6.30pm

A genuinely uplifting drama that earns every emotional beat. *Hidden Figures* tells the story of the Black women mathematicians whose brilliance helped steer NASA through the early space race — a chapter of history too long overlooked.

The film balances its inspirational arc with sharp performances and a clear‑eyed understanding of the barriers these women faced. It’s a celebration not just of intellect, but of persistence, dignity and the quiet heroism of being excellent in a world determined not to see you.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) – Channel 4, Midnight

Martin McDonagh’s darkly comic drama walks a tightrope between fury and tenderness. Frances McDormand is extraordinary as a mother weaponising grief into action, while the film circles themes of justice, forgiveness and the messy, contradictory ways people try — and fail — to be better.
It’s prickly, provocative, and impossible to shake. A midnight screening feels fitting: this is a story that sits with you long after the credits roll..

Monday 22nd June

Britain’s Railway Empire in Colour – More4, 9.00pm

There’s something quietly mesmerising about colourised archive footage — the way it collapses the distance between then and now. This series uses it to bring Britain’s industrial and transport heritage vividly back to life, revealing a world that feels both familiar and impossibly distant. Steam, steel and soot become not just historical artefacts but lived textures, reminders of the ingenuity and labour that built the modern country. A gentle, absorbing watch.

Lucy Worsley Investigates: Jack the Ripper – BBC Two, 9.00pm

Worsley takes a welcome detour from the usual true‑crime obsession with suspects and theories. Instead of asking who Jack the Ripper was, she asks what the murders did to us — how they shaped the modern appetite for grisly narratives, sensational reporting and the commodification of fear. It’s a thoughtful reframing, peeling back the mythology to reveal the cultural machinery beneath. Less whodunnit, more why‑we‑still‑care.

Andy Warhol’s America: Living the Dream – BBC Four, 9.00pm

Warhol understood celebrity long before the rest of us caught up. This documentary explores the artist not just as a painter or provocateur, but as a kind of cultural antenna — someone who sensed where America was heading and mirrored it back with unnerving clarity. Fame, consumerism, reinvention: Warhol didn’t just depict the American dream, he dissected it. A sharp, stylish portrait of an artist who saw the future and shrugged.

House of the Dragon – Sky Atlantic, 9.00pm

The fires of Westeros burn on. This chapter of the Targaryen saga continues to revel in dynastic politics, betrayals and the uneasy dance between power and prophecy. Dragons soar, alliances crumble, and every conversation feels like a prelude to violence. It’s grand, operatic television — the kind that understands the pleasure of watching a world eat itself from the inside out.

American Visions: The Way from the Atlantic – BBC Four, 10.00pm

A rich, expansive look at how waves of immigration reshaped American art and identity. This episode traces the cultural currents that flowed from the Atlantic into the American imagination, showing how new arrivals transformed not just the country’s demographics but its creative language. A thoughtful, beautifully curated hour for anyone interested in how nations reinvent themselves.

Secrets of the Celebrity Sex Tapes – Channel 4, 11.05pm

A provocative but revealing dive into a phenomenon that helped redefine modern fame. The programme examines how leaked tapes — once scandals — became stepping stones in the machinery of celebrity culture, blurring the lines between exploitation, agency and opportunism. It’s a story about voyeurism, power and the strange economy of attention that governs the digital age.

The Producers (1967) – BBC Two, 11.00pm

Mel Brooks’ debut feature still feels like a controlled explosion of comic energy. Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder are a perfect double act — one volcanic, the other perpetually on the brink of collapse — and the film’s audacity hasn’t dimmed with time. Satire this bold shouldn’t work, yet it does, gloriously. A riotous, meticulously crafted masterpiece.

The Phantom of Soho (1964) – Talking Pictures TV, 11.30pm

A rare chance to catch a German *Krimi* — those stylish, atmospheric crime thrillers often adapted from Edgar Wallace novels. *The Phantom of Soho* offers all the genre’s pleasures: fog‑shrouded streets, eccentric villains, and a mystery that feels both pulpy and oddly elegant. A cult curio, and a reminder of how inventive European genre cinema could be in the 1960s.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013) – BBC One, 12.30am

One of the few TV‑to‑film transitions that genuinely works. *Alpha Papa* keeps Partridge’s small‑scale pettiness intact while placing him in a hostage‑crisis plot that somehow amplifies his absurdity rather than overwhelming it. Steve Coogan is superb, balancing pathos and pomposity with surgical precision. A late‑night treat for anyone who appreciates comedy built on exquisite discomfort.

Tuesday 23rd June

Peter Murrell: The Man with the Money – BBC Two, 7.00pm

A cool‑headed look at one of the most contentious recent chapters in Scottish politics. The documentary traces how Peter Murrell — once a discreet operator behind the scenes — became a central figure in a story that spiralled far beyond party lines. It’s less about scandal for its own sake and more about the fragility of political trust, and how quickly reputations can unravel in the glare of public scrutiny.

The American Revolution: The Times That Try Men’s Souls – BBC Four, 10.00pm

The early days of the American struggle for independence were defined by uncertainty, exhaustion and a sense that the whole enterprise might collapse before it began. This episode captures that precariousness — the cold winters, the wavering morale, the sheer improbability of the cause. A sober, well‑drawn reminder that revolutions are rarely born in triumph; they begin in doubt.

The American Revolution: Conquered by a Drawn Game – BBC Four, 11.00pm

The conflict enters a phase where victory becomes less about winning battles and more about simply enduring them. This chapter explores the strategic stalemates and the psychological toll of a war that refused to resolve itself neatly. Survival becomes its own kind of triumph, and the series shows how persistence — rather than glory — ultimately shaped the nation’s fate.

Science Fiction: Atomic Age – Sky Arts, 11.00pm

Margaret Atwood and a roster of sharp minds explore how science fiction absorbed and refracted the anxieties of the Cold War. Mutants, invasions, dystopias — all the familiar tropes take on new resonance when seen as expressions of nuclear fear and geopolitical tension. A thoughtful, engaging hour that treats sci‑fi not as escapism but as a cultural seismograph.

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) – Talking Pictures TV, 1.35pm

A richly tangled film noir steeped in secrets, ambition and the corrosive power of old sins. Barbara Stanwyck is magnetic as the woman at the centre of a web she helped spin, and the film’s atmosphere — all shadows, guilt and brittle glamour — is irresistible. A classic that still cuts deep.

The War of the Worlds (1953) – Legend, 3.00pm

The definitive screen telling of H.G. Wells’ alien invasion tale. Even now, the film’s blend of Cold War paranoia, religious awe and apocalyptic spectacle feels potent. The Martian machines remain iconic, and the sense of civilisation teetering on the brink is handled with a seriousness that later adaptations sometimes sidestep. A cornerstone of sci‑fi cinema.

Live Now Pay Later (1962) – Talking Pictures TV, 4.05pm

A sharp, surprisingly modern satire about consumerism and the seductive pull of easy credit. The film skewers the salesman culture of the era, but its observations about debt, desire and the illusion of prosperity feel eerily current. A sly, clever gem that deserves more attention.

Escape from New York (1981) – Legend, 11.30pm

John Carpenter’s dystopian classic remains a masterclass in world‑building: grimy, anarchic, and pulsing with attitude. Kurt Russell’s Snake Plissken is the ultimate anti‑hero — laconic, cynical, and somehow still magnetic. The film’s vision of a decaying America sealed inside its own violence feels both fantastical and uncomfortably prophetic.

Sound of Metal (2019) – BBC Two, 12.05am

An extraordinary, deeply humane film about hearing loss, identity and the painful work of acceptance. Riz Ahmed delivers a career‑defining performance as a drummer whose world collapses and reshapes itself in ways he never expected. The sound design is astonishing, pulling the viewer into his shifting sensory reality. A quiet masterpiece about learning to live differently.

Wednesday 24th June

Peter Flannery Remembers Our Friends in the North – BBC Four, 10.00pm

A quiet, reflective half‑hour in which Peter Flannery looks back at the making of one of British television’s towering achievements. What emerges isn’t just nostalgia but a sense of how rare it is for a drama to capture the sweep of political, social and personal change with such clarity. Flannery speaks with the calm authority of someone who knows he created something that will outlast all of us.

Our Friends in the North – BBC Four, 10.15pm, 11.25pm and 12.30am

The 1964, 1966 and 1967 episodes return — early chapters in a saga that still feels astonishingly relevant. Watching them now, you’re struck by how confidently the series moves between the intimate and the epic: friendships tested by ambition, politics reshaping lives, history pressing in on ordinary people. It remains one of the great British dramas, not because it tries to be important, but because it understands how people are shaped by the times they live through.

How Green Was My Valley (1941) – Film4, 1.30pm

John Ford’s elegy to a Welsh mining community is as moving now as it was eight decades ago. The film’s power lies in its tenderness — the way it honours working‑class life without romanticising the hardship that defined it. Memory, loss and belonging run through every frame, and Ford’s eye for human dignity remains unmatched. A classic that earns its sentiment.

Bad Lieutenant (1992) – Legend, 1.35am

This version of *Bad Lieutenant* is one of my favourite films — and it’s easy to explain why. Abel Ferrara strips the crime drama down to something raw, feverish and spiritually bruised. Harvey Keitel gives a performance that feels almost too intimate for the screen: a man collapsing under the weight of his own corruption, staggering through addiction, rage and self‑loathing until he reaches a moment of grace that is as shocking as anything that precedes it.

What makes the film extraordinary is its refusal to tidy up human behaviour. It’s messy, anguished, confrontational — but also deeply compassionate. Ferrara understands that redemption, when it comes, is rarely clean or comfortable. The film stares directly at human ruin and still finds something worth salvaging. That’s why it lingers, and why it remains one of the most powerful pieces of American cinema of the 1990s.

Thursday 25th June

Boy George and Culture Club – Sky Arts, 9.00pm

A look back at one of the defining acts of the 1980s.

Rick Mayall: Magnificent Bastard – Sky Documentaries, 9.00pm

A full‑blooded tribute to a performer who didn’t just change British comedy — he detonated it. Rick Mayall was a force of nature: all manic energy, wicked intelligence and that unmistakable glint that told you he was about to push a scene somewhere dangerous, hilarious, or both. The documentary captures that volatility beautifully. You’re reminded how he could dominate a frame simply by entering it, how his presence made even seasoned actors brace themselves for impact.

What comes through most strongly is the sheer joy of him — the way he treated comedy as a contact sport, hurling himself into performances with a physicality that felt both reckless and precise. Whether it was the punk chaos of The Young Ones, the grotesque brilliance of Bottom, or the sly, weaponised charm he brought to everything else, Mayall operated on a frequency entirely his own.

But the programme also honours the man behind the mayhem: the generosity, the loyalty, the fierce work ethic. Colleagues speak about him with a mixture of awe and affection, aware that they were in the orbit of someone genuinely irreplaceable.

It’s a reminder that Mayall didn’t just make people laugh — he expanded the possibilities of what British comedy could be. A magnificent bastard, yes, but also a once‑in‑a‑generation talent whose influence still ripples through everything that came after.

Mel Brooks and Me – BBC Four, 11.25pm

Alan Yentob sits down with a comedy titan whose career spans continents, genres and several eras of American entertainment. Brooks is funny even when he’s not trying to be, but what makes this profile compelling is the sense of a man who has always understood the mechanics of laughter — how to build it, how to weaponise it, and how to survive by it. A warm, generous portrait.

Imagine: Mel Brooks Unwrapped – BBC Four, 11.35pm

A companion piece that digs deeper into Brooks’ extraordinary career, from the Borscht Belt to Broadway to Hollywood. There’s mischief, of course — Brooks can’t help himself — but also a surprising amount of reflection. You’re reminded that behind the chaos of *The Producers* and *Blazing Saddles* lies a meticulous craftsman who shaped modern comedy more than almost anyone else.

Little Big Man (1970) – 5 Action, 1.20pm

Arthur Penn’s revisionist western dismantles the myths of the American frontier with wit, melancholy and a sharp political edge. Dustin Hoffman plays the 121‑year‑old Jack Crabb recounting a life lived at the margins of history, and the film uses his tall tales to expose the violence and hypocrisy beneath the old cowboy legends. Funny, tragic and quietly radical.

All the King’s Men (1949) – Film4, 2.45pm

A powerful, still‑resonant study of political corruption and the seductive pull of populism. Broderick Crawford is mesmerising as Willie Stark, a man who begins with righteous fury and ends consumed by the very forces he once railed against. The film’s moral clarity — and its understanding of how power corrodes — feels as sharp today as it did in 1949.

Friday 26th June

What Happened at the Somme – BBC One, 7.30pm

Whenever a programme turns its attention to the First World War, I find myself watching through the lens of my own visits to the Somme — trips taken over many years with my good friend, mentor and historian Alan Midgley, who is sadly no longer with us. Alan had that rare gift of bringing history alive without ever sensationalising it. Walking those fields with him — the wind moving through the grass, the silence settling over ground that once shook with unimaginable violence — changed the way I understand the war. It stopped being “history” and became something intimate, human, and painfully present.

One image in particular has stayed with me: the German First World War Jewish graves at Falaise cemetery. Perfectly tended, modest, marked with the Star of David. Standing there, Alan quietly explaining the regiments and the dates, I felt the weight of something far larger than the war itself. These were young men who fought and died for a country that, within a generation, would declare them outsiders, strip them of citizenship, and ultimately murder their families.

Their sacrifice — loyal, patriotic, and no different from that of their Christian comrades — counted for nothing in the eyes of the regime that followed. That is the tragedy carved into those stones. They died believing they were part of the German nation; history repaid them with betrayal.

It is impossible to stand in that cemetery and not feel the moral dissonance of it all: the neat rows, the dignity of the inscriptions, the quiet respect of the place — and the knowledge that the country they served would later deny their very right to belong. It is one of the most haunting lessons the Western Front offers: that memory is fragile, and that the meaning of sacrifice can be rewritten by those who come after.

So when I watch any documentary about the Great War — its battles, its politics, its human cost — I do so with those visits in mind. The Somme is not just a battlefield; it is a landscape of ghosts. And thanks to Alan, I learned to see it not as a place of death, but as a place of enduring remembrance — a reminder of how easily nations forget the people who fought for them, and how important it is that we do not.

Independence Storm – PBS America, 7.55pm

A clear‑eyed historical documentary tracing the turbulent path toward national independence. Rather than offering a tidy narrative, it leans into the complexity — the competing visions, the fractures within movements, and the sheer human cost of political transformation. It’s a reminder that independence is rarely a single moment of triumph, but a long, contested process shaped by sacrifice, compromise and the stubborn will of ordinary people.

My Tiger Family – BBC Two, 9.00pm

An intimate, beautifully shot wildlife documentary that follows a family of tigers with a patience and tenderness that feels almost novelistic. The filmmakers give the animals space to be themselves — wary, playful, fierce, vulnerable — and the result is a portrait of family life that feels surprisingly relatable. The jungle becomes a character in its own right, a place of danger and sanctuary in equal measure. Quietly captivating.

Flood: When the Thames Drowned London – Channel 5, 9.00pm

A gripping reconstruction of one of London’s greatest natural disasters, charting how a combination of weather, tide and human miscalculation brought the capital to the brink. The programme blends eyewitness accounts, archival material and expert analysis to show how fragile a city can be when nature decides to test it. It’s sobering, but also oddly reassuring — a reminder of how much has been learned, and how much still depends on vigilance.

Madonna and Graham – BBC One, 10.40pm

Madonna joins Graham Norton for what promises to be a lively, revealing conversation. She remains one of pop’s most enduring provocateurs — sharp, funny, and entirely unwilling to play the role expected of her. Norton, with his mix of mischief and empathy, is one of the few interviewers capable of drawing out both the armour and the person beneath it. Expect candour, humour and at least one moment that will be replayed endlessly online.

True Grit (1969) – 5 Action, 1.25pm

The film that finally won John Wayne his Oscar, and with good reason. As Rooster Cogburn, Wayne delivers a performance that balances gruffness with surprising warmth, playing a man whose rough exterior hides a stubborn moral core. The film itself is a classic frontier tale — dusty, funny, and shot through with a melancholy that deepens with age. A western that earns its place in the canon.

Psycho (1960) – BBC Two, 11.00pm

Hitchcock’s masterpiece remains one of the most influential thrillers ever made — a film that rewrote the rules of suspense, narrative and audience expectation. Even now, its shocks still land, not because of gore but because of the director’s absolute command of tension and misdirection. Bernard Herrmann’s score, the stark black‑and‑white photography, the audacity of the plot — it all adds up to a film that feels both timeless and perpetually unsettling. A landmark of modern cinema.

Dark Waters (2019) – BBC Two, 12.45am

A quietly devastating film that takes a familiar American story — corporate malfeasance on an industrial scale — and strips it of sensationalism until all that remains is the slow, grinding horror of the truth. Todd Haynes directs with a kind of moral stillness, letting the facts speak for themselves, and the result is a drama that feels less like a thriller and more like a reckoning.

Mark Ruffalo gives one of his finest performances as Rob Bilott, the corporate defence lawyer who finds himself on the wrong side of the table when a West Virginia farmer brings him evidence of something deeply wrong. What begins as a favour becomes a decades‑long battle against DuPont, a company whose chemical pollution poisoned a community, contaminated the water supply, and quietly entered the bloodstream of almost every living person on the planet.

The film’s power lies in its refusal to exaggerate. There are no grand speeches, no courtroom fireworks, no Hollywood catharsis. Instead, Haynes shows the toll of persistence: the long nights, the fraying relationships, the professional isolation, the sense of pushing against a machine designed to exhaust anyone who challenges it. Bilott’s heroism is not glamorous — it is patient, stubborn, and quietly self‑sacrificial.

What makes Dark Waters so unsettling is the scale of the harm. The chemicals at the centre of the case — PFOA, used in Teflon — were never meant to leave the lab, yet they ended up everywhere: in rivers, in soil, in animals, in human blood. The film makes clear that this wasn’t an accident but a choice, a corporate calculation that the cost of cleaning up would be greater than the cost of letting people suffer.

Haynes shoots the story in muted tones, as if the world itself has been leached of colour by the contamination. It’s a visual metaphor for a system where accountability is always deferred, and where the truth emerges only because one man refuses to stop digging.

By the time the credits roll, the devastation is not loud but cumulative — a sense of how fragile public trust is, and how easily it can be poisoned when profit becomes the only measure of value. Dark Waters is a film that lingers, not because it shocks, but because it tells the truth plainly and lets the implications settle in your bones.

Streaming Choice

The Root of the Game (Netflix) – A rich, three‑part exploration of Brazil’s relationship with football — not as a pastime, but as a national language. The series understands that Brazilian football is inseparable from the country’s history, politics and social tensions. It moves from the street pitches of Rio to the vast modern arenas, tracing how the game became a vehicle for identity, resistance and joy.
What’s most striking is the emotional range: football as escape, as aspiration, as a mirror of inequality, and as a kind of collective poetry. The documentary captures the swagger and sorrow of a nation that sees itself reflected in the way it plays.

Avatar: Fire and Ash (Disney+) – James Cameron continues his ecological epic with a chapter that deepens the mythology of Pandora while pushing the emotional stakes higher. The film blends astonishing visual spectacle with a story rooted in family, displacement and the cost of survival.
Cameron remains one of the few filmmakers who can make digital worlds feel tactile and lived‑in. The action sequences have a clarity and physicality that most blockbusters can only dream of, but the real power lies in the quieter moments — the bonds between characters, the rituals of Na’vi life, the sense of a world fighting to protect itself.
It’s grand, earnest, and made with a sincerity that feels increasingly rare.

The Agency – Season 2 (Paramount+) – One of television’s smartest espionage dramas returns with a second season that doubles down on moral ambiguity and psychological tension. The series treats intelligence work not as glamour but as a slow erosion of certainty — a world where loyalty is provisional, truth is negotiable, and every decision carries a cost.
The writing is taut, the performances tightly wound, and the plotting intricate without ever becoming opaque. It’s a rare spy drama that trusts the audience to keep up, and rewards them for doing so.

I Am Frank Ordell (Netflix) – An animated fantasy adventure with a streak of eccentricity that sets it apart from the usual streaming offerings. Frank Ordell is an unlikely hero drawn into a world of magic, mischief and moral dilemmas, and the film balances humour with a surprisingly thoughtful emotional core.The animation is vibrant without being frantic, and the storytelling has that gentle, slightly off‑centre charm that appeals to adults as much as children. A small, distinctive delight.

Richard Jewell (Netflix) – Clint Eastwood’s quietly furious examination of media hysteria and institutional failure. The film recounts the true story of Richard Jewell, the security guard who discovered a bomb at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics — and was then wrongly accused of planting it. Paul Walter Hauser gives a remarkable, deeply humane performance as a man bewildered by the speed with which public admiration turned into suspicion. Eastwood directs with restraint, letting the injustice speak for itself.
The film’s critique of press frenzy and FBI overreach feels depressingly timeless.

The American Experiment (Netflix) – A sweeping documentary series that examines how American identity has been constructed, contested and continually reinvented. Rather than offering a single thesis, it embraces contradiction: the tension between idealism and inequality, unity and division, myth and reality.
It moves through history, culture, politics and personal testimony, showing how the idea of America has always been a negotiation rather than a fixed point. Thoughtful, ambitious and refreshingly nuanced.

Boiling Point (Channel 4 Streaming) – f you haven’t seen it yet, now is the moment. Boiling Point is one of the most gripping British dramas of recent years — a single‑take pressure cooker set in a restaurant kitchen on the brink of collapse. Stephen Graham is superb as a chef barely holding his life together, and the film captures the chaos, camaraderie and emotional volatility of service with unnerving authenticity. It’s tense, humane and utterly absorbing. Catch it before it disappears.

Volver (BFI Player) – Pedro Almodóvar’s warm, funny and deeply humane masterpiece — a film that blends melodrama, mystery and domestic comedy with the director’s trademark generosity of spirit. Penélope Cruz gives one of her finest performances as a woman navigating family secrets, grief and unexpected reinvention. The film is a celebration of female resilience, community and the strange ways the past refuses to stay buried. Rich, colourful and emotionally resonant, Volver is Almodóvar at his most accessible and most profound.

Radio Choice

Midsummer Dreaming – Radio 3, Saturday 9.30pm

A gently enchanting programme that treats midsummer not as a date in the calendar but as a state of mind — a moment when the year seems to pause, the light stretches impossibly long, and the world feels briefly suspended between the ordinary and the magical. Midsummer Dreaming weaves together music, poetry and quiet reflection to evoke that sense of threshold: the lingering glow of evening, the hum of the natural world, the feeling that something ancient is stirring just beyond the edge of perception.

Radio 3 excels at this kind of mood‑building, and the programme draws on a wide palette — from folk traditions and choral works to contemporary compositions that capture the shimmer and stillness of the season. The selections aren’t just pretty; they’re evocative, tapping into the deep cultural roots of midsummer as a time of ritual, celebration and gentle mischief.

Interwoven with the music are reflections that give the hour its emotional weight. There’s a sense of looking both forward and back: midsummer as a moment of abundance, but also a reminder that the light will soon begin to recede. The programme understands that this is what gives the season its poignancy — the beauty is heightened because it is fleeting.

It’s the kind of broadcast that invites you to slow down, step outside for a moment, and listen to the world breathing. A perfect midsummer companion: thoughtful, atmospheric and quietly restorative.

Archive on 4: The Art of Listening – Radio 4, Saturday 8.00pm

An exploration of what it truly means to listen.

10 Years After Brexit – Radio 4, Sunday 1.30pm

A decade on from Britain’s departure from the European Union, this programme takes a measured, quietly probing look at what has — and hasn’t — changed. Rather than reheating the old arguments, it focuses on lived experience: how Brexit has reshaped work, identity, borders, and the country’s sense of itself.
Economists, historians and ordinary citizens offer perspectives that are sometimes contradictory, sometimes unexpectedly aligned, but always grounded in the reality of a nation still negotiating the consequences of its choice.
What emerges is not a verdict but a portrait of a country in transition — one still trying to understand what sovereignty means in practice, and what kind of future it wants to build.
As with all political retrospectives, listeners should confirm details with trusted sources.

Being Greek – Radio 4, Tuesday 9.00am

A thoughtful examination of identity, heritage and belonging.

Podcast Choice

Artifacts

A compelling series that digs into the emotional history of the internet — not the technology, but the traces we leave behind. Each episode takes a digital “artifact” (a message board post, a meme, a long‑forgotten website, a viral moment) and uses it as a doorway into the ways online life has shaped memory, relationships and self‑expression.
What makes it special is its tone: empathetic, curious, and alert to the fact that the internet is not just infrastructure but a vast archive of human longing, creativity and embarrassment.
It’s a reminder that digital culture isn’t ephemeral at all — it’s where many of our most intimate stories now live.

Endgame

A thoughtful, often unsettling exploration of one of the defining questions of our age: can humanity live alongside Artificial General Intelligence? Rather than indulging in sci‑fi panic or techno‑utopian cheerleading, the podcast takes a sober, interdisciplinary approach — speaking to philosophers, engineers, ethicists and psychologists about what AGI might mean for work, autonomy, creativity and the very idea of being human. The strength of the series lies in its refusal to simplify. It acknowledges both the extraordinary potential and the profound risks, and it treats listeners as adults capable of holding both ideas at once. A gripping, intellectually serious listen that feels urgently relevant.

The Rest Is Politics – Who Funds Reform?

An examination of political funding, influence and the forces behind one of Britain’s most talked-about political movements.

This week’s Culture Vulture ranges from the Welsh valleys of 1941 to the future of artificial intelligence, from Bond and Hitchcock to Evonne Goolagong and Nelson Mandela. The strongest thread running through it all is the question of how individuals and societies tell their stories. Whether through film, television, radio or podcasts, the past is constantly being revisited, challenged and reinterpreted. That makes this one of the most thoughtful and rewarding cultural weeks of the year so far.

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