FILMS OF THE WEEK The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp (1943) U Monday, 2.05pm, BBC2

THE BIG MOVIE

Split (2016) 15

Saturday, 9pm, Ch4 From his first big hit, The Sixth Sense in 1999, M. Night Shyamalan has been known for making fantasy and mystery films with big twists. The ‘twist’ in this psychological horror is a link to one of his other early films, 2000’s Unbreakable – which, with a third film (2018’s Glass), creates a subversive superhero trilogy. However, Split works well on its own merits. James McAvoy (above) stars as Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man with dissociative identity disorder and at least 23 personalities – creepy Dennis and lisping Hedwig among them. At the start of the film, Kevin kidnaps three schoolgirls and from there, the film splits into different storytelling strands – following the captives, but also Kevin’s chilling sessions with his therapist.

CLASSIC FILM CHOICE

There’s no denying that Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger did their bit for the war effort

(see The Battle Of The River Plate, Saturday, 12.30pm, BBC2), but this film caused a flap along the corridors of power – Churchill himself tried to have it banned. Satirising the military and political establishment, the film charts 40 years in the life of Major-General Clive Wynne-Candy (Roger Livesey) – from the Boer War in 1899 to the start of the Second World War in 1939. Accompanying Livesey on his journey from dapper young Clive Candy to the aged ‘blimp’ of the title are Deborah Kerr’s bright, independent woman and wife (above), and Anton Walbrook’s Prussian officer and loyal friend. An ageless marvel.