Bollywood’s reeling ’em in
CILLA
TV3, 9pm
Sheridan Smith takes the lead role in Jeff Pope’s three-part drama charting Cilla Black’s rise to fame in the 1960s.
As the series opens, Priscilla White is a Liverpool typist with dreams of escaping the office and becoming a singer.
Her remarkable story details her friendship with a young group called The Beatles and her struggle to hold on to her dreams.
And this all happens while the ambitious young woman is torn between the two men in her life – manager Brian Epstein and longterm love Bobby Willis.
In episode one, we are introduced to a young, unknown typist, Priscilla White who sings with local Liverpool bands as the Merseybeat music scene explodes in the early 1960s.
Cilla falls for young chancer Bobby, but in her desperation to become a star she elbows him aside.
Then, a failed audition with Beatles manager Epstein leaves her frustrated and distraught and wondering where to go from there.
THE GAME
RTE One, 9:35pm
As another season of GAA wraps up and the contenders for the big prize have been decided, so too does RTE series The Game.
It explores the chase for perfection in hurling, showing how legendary teams have climbed to the heights they have and how they continue to succeed.
It takes a look at Galway’s breakthrough in the 1980s that gave way to Ger Loughnane’s winning Clare side of the 1990s and Kilkenny’s fine tuning of the pressure game in the 2000s.
This is an interesting look into at how the rise of sports science elevated the standards expected of hurlers.
It shows the gruelling gym regimes being added to an already hectic schedule of players of the amateur sport at county level.
The programme also examines the battles camogie has had to fight to be recognised in its own right and to be held on its own merits rather than just riding on the accolades of their male counterparts.
BOLLYWOOD: THE WORLD’S BIGGEST
FILM INDUSTRY
BBC2, 9pm COLOURFUL and vibrant, this fascinating, joyful documentary sings and dances its way through a tour of the mega Bollywood film industry.
India produces three times as many movies as Hollywood and sells more than two billion cinema tickets a year.
It has some of the wealthiest and most worshipped stars on the planet. In fact, one in seven UK films are made in India, but many of us have probably never seen an actual Bollywood movie.
Anita Rani is our guide here, throwing herself into the culture surrounding the magic of the movies. “I’ve been fascinated with Indian cinema since I was a kid,” she says.
She begins at Mumbai’s oldest multiplex, which is beset by screaming fans when one of its stars makes a surprise appearance. “Johnny I love you!” she shouts, turning into a giggling mess.
The cinema experience is an insanely noisy one, with whooping, whistling and cheering all the way through. It will make you nostalgic for the days when we used to at least clap when the film started.
Later, Anita heads to a film set as one of Bollywood’s biggest stars, Anil Kapoor, takes on a dance number.
Anita, who was in Strictly in 2015, also has a go at dancing. “I can just feel Craig Revel Horwood’s glare from here,” she says.
She also meets an action hero who explains some fight scenes, meets a leading fashion designer to explain the importance of the costumes, and, finally, gets roped into dressing a cast of hundreds for an epic battle scene.