A Will & a way
’90s sitcom Will & Grace is getting a rebroadcast on free TV during retro hour – and it’s funnier the second time around.
Season 1 Thursdays & Fridays (from 26 Feb) SABC3 (*193) 12:00 & 12:30
Public broadcaster SABC3 (*193) has been filling its retro-hour 12:00 weekday slot for the last few years and throwback action shows from the ’80s and ’90s – everything from Airwolf (1984-1986), to Magnum PI (1980-1988) and Macgyver (1985-1992) have flashed on our screens. And now they’re adding a little more laughter, with the awardwinning first six seasons of comedy show Will & Grace (1998-2006, with a three-season revival that aired from 2017-2020) filling the 12:00 and 12:30 timeslot. If you missed the comedy series first time, now is the perfect chance to see what all the fuss is about as four very different friends try to make their way through life, work and everything else their zany antics thrown in their way. Even if that means having vodka martinis for breakfast and hiding from the cute guy across the hall.
The crew reunited in 2017 for a three-season revival of Will & Grace.
AWESOME FOURSOME
The sitcom centres on two roommates and their hangers-on. “Will is this gay corporate lawyer who is obsessed with being accurate in all aspects of his life,” says Eric McCormack (Grant MacClaren in sci-fi series Travelers, 2016-2018). “But he isn’t what you’d call lucky in love and he’s a little jealous of his roomie Grace.”
When it comes to interior designer Grace (Debra Messing, detective Laura Diamond in cop comedy The Mysteries Of Laura, 2014-2016), love is something she wants but she is happy to bounce between men rather than settle down,
Crime historian Nell Darby is helping viewers make sense of murders in Coastal Killers.
Abeachside getaway might seem like just the ticket for busy families. But as crime novelist Agatha Christie famously noted, there is evil under the sun. The new 10-episode season 2 of true crime documentary series Coastal Killers, Sundays from 28 February on CBS Justice (*170) at 19:00, takes us inside crimes committed in the UK’s beachside resort towns. One of the series’ experts, crime historian and researcher Nell Darby, shares a little bit about how they research and approach their cases.
PERSPECTIVE DETECTIVE
As one of the onscreen consultants who presents aspects of the cases, Nell wanted to be prepared for anything. “The researchers come up with the basic details of, and timeline for, each case, and find archive documents for me to look at. I also do my own research. With the George Smith case (episode 2, Brides In The Bath), for example, I did quite a bit of research into the victims’ lives and backgrounds. What I love about working on this series is how collaborative it is – I might have the director message me to tell me he has found something new, or ask me if I could find anything about an issue or an individual that he had come across,” says Nell.
“I enjoyed discussing the Seaside Lady Macbeth (episode 6, which tackles the George Stoner love triangle case with Alma Rattenbury) issue with the production team. I had previously written about the Alma Rattenbury case and wanted to ensure that the team was aware that depictions of Alma in the press very much reflected attitudes of the time regarding how a woman was supposed to behave. The press coverage of her was so biased and misogynistic. She was a creative woman and a romantic, but she was born in the wrong time.”
CRIME IN ITS TIME
As a historian, Nell has a fascinating perspective on how the nature of crime and our perception thereof is strongly linked to our time. “We look at historical cases with a modern eye, and this is clear when you look, for example, at the Massacre at the Red Gable Hotel (episode 4) and consider issues relating to how men deal with either rejection