This week, Paul skulks in the shadows with Vladimir Putin and welcomes a winning new sitcom…
NEXT WEEK’S TV
PUTIN: A RUSSIAN SPY STORY
Monday, Channel 4, 9pm
The notorious Salisbury poisoning of 2018 highlighted Russia’s willingness to employ techniques we tend to associate with fantastical spy fiction. They’re far from alone in that regard; our glorious super-leaders are buried up to their nostrils in skulduggery. However, as this authoritative new series points out, Vladimir Putin has proved particularly adept at using his training in the KGB to terminally silence his political enemies. It traces, in persuasive detail, Putin’s life from its traumatic origins to his eventual ascent to corrupt dictatorial power. A portrait emerges of a rather dull, humourless man who was smitten from an early age by the coolly romanticised macho image of the patriotic spy who will defend his country at all costs.
GROWING UP GIFTED
Wednesday, BBC Two, 9pm
Three years ago, this compassionate series introduced viewers to six talented British teenagers from low-income backgrounds. Now we catch up with them for the final time. With GCSE’s fast approaching, they’re at a crucial turning point in their lives. It begins with the boys, who excel in maths, science and music. University beckons, but the competition is fierce. Narrated by that excellent egg Maxine Peake, it’s a valuable piece of candid social commentary in which children struggle to overcome the rank injustice of a society where the odds are stacked against anyone who wasn’t born with antique silver stuffed in their gobs. You only have to look at Downing Street to see where that’s got us.
MISTER WINNER
Wednesday, BBC Two, 10pm
Don’t be put off by the unpleasant acupuncture sequence which opens this new sitcom; once you get past that, the show reveals its charms. Written by Russell Brand’s dry-witted radio sidekick Matt Morgan, it’s a pleasingly traditional farce starring comedian Spencer Jones as a well-meaning yet terminally unlucky clod. In episode one his attempt to get rid of that slapstick comedy staple, the self-playing upright piano, results in him getting a job as a pianist in an Italian restaurant. He can’t actually play, of course, and Morgan milks this simple premise for all it’s worth. Mister Winner is proof that, in the right hands, there will always be comic mileage in simple misunderstandings with ridiculous consequences.
BORN TO BE DIFFERENT
Thursday, Channel 4, 9pm
Like Growing Up Gifted, this exceptional project has chronicled the lives of children over the space of several years. Now aged 19, they were all born with different disabilities. The latest series follows them as they make their first forays into the adult world. Zoe is starting university and has declined support from a care team: “Eighteen years of trying to fit into the social norms, I don’t see the point of doing that anymore.” Paralympics trainee Hamish has moved into a student house. William, whose life will be tragically short, has a new flat. Shelbie, who wasn’t expected to survive beyond her teenage years, eventually returns to school. This is beautiful television, tender, warm, unflinching and true.
FILM of THE WEEK
THE LADY VANISHES
Thursday, Film4, 4:40pm
This ‘70s remake of the Hitchcock masterpiece doesn’t touch the tremendous hem of its forbear’s garment, but it’s still good fun. A game cast including Elliott Gould, Cybill Shepherd, Ian Carmichael, Herbert Lom and Arthur Lowe converge on a train speeding through continental Europe, all of them adamant that they aren’t involved in the disappearance of a dotty elderly lady (Angela Lansbury, who steals the show).
LAST WEEK’S TV
BELGRAVIA
Sunday March 15, STV
Lord Julian of Fellowes has returned, like a persistent patch of eczema, with another dreary celebration of rich people in the olden days. Belgravia is, like all of Fellowes’ hack-work, more of a glossy flipchart than a full-bodied drama. There’s no depth, no soul, just a mannered gabble of schematic exposition, kneejerk sentiment and powdery old dowagers saying things like, “What is this new-fangled tea?” Beyond self-parody.
MISS WORLD 1970: BEAUTY AND BEDLAM
Monday March 16, BBC Two
In 1970, the annual Miss World contest was subject to a stage invasion from the Women’s Liberation Movement. This wry, fair, fascinating documentary featured vivid contributions from the inspiring protesters and triumphant contestants, as well as the unflappable host of that infamous evening, Michael Aspel. It recalled, in sometimes startling detail, an era when the objectification of women was widely regarded as a bit of harmless fun. It also examined the British media’s shockingly racist backlash against the first black women to be crowned winner and runner-up. The latter was a South African model chosen, for mendacious political reasons, to represent her Apartheid-stricken nation alongside a white contestant. As strange as it may sound, Miss World 1970 was a significant harbinger of social change. Different times.
