Thursday television & radio
The Apprentice
9pm, BBC One
It’s the shopping channel task, which is always good for a laugh. To recap: it’s the one where Lord Sugar tasks the candidates to sell consumer products live to the nation on a “leading TV shopping channel” (not the BBC, obviously). They must try to choose the right products and sing their virtues – all while contending with being directed by the gallery.
Bruce Lee: A Life in Ten Pictures
9pm, BBC Two
The kung-fu fighting actor Bruce Lee’s time as a bona fide movie star was tragically short – Lee dying in 1973 just as his debut Hollywood movie, Enter the Dragon, became a global box-office hit and cultural sensation. Among those spinning their reminiscences of the photographs are his daughter, Shannon Lee, his widow, Linda
Lee Cadwell, and Andre Morgan, producer of Enter the Dragon. Raised in Hong Kong, Lee moved to the US aged 18, overcoming racism (especially during the Vietnam War) to become a fight trainer to the stars before making his own way in front of the camera.
The Twelve
9pm, ITV1
Channel 4’s recent experiment, The Jury: Murder Trial, highlighted how members of a jury bring their own experiences, backgrounds and prejudices to bear on a court case that they should be judging dispassionately on the evidence provided. This 10-part Australian drama (available on ITVX since February) does much the same, but with melodramatic story lines that focus on each jury member. Actor Sam Neill brings a touch of class to the proceedings as the lead barrister, while the crime being judged involves an artist who is accused of murdering her 14-year-old niece, despite no body ever being found.
Taskmaster
9pm, Channel 4
Once again, the latest line-up on the show mixes the relatively well-known (Steve Pemberton,
Nick Mohammed and Sophie Willan) with the less familiar likes (to me, at least) of Joanne McNally and John Robins. Willan looks like taking on Lucy Beaumont’s mantle as the resident clueless comedian, Pemberton’s love of puns threatens to grate, while Mohammed, for some reason, comes dressed as a vampire. Enjoy.
Whitstable Pearl
9pm, Drama
The slightly drab tone of this crime drama belies its plot precis, which this week sounds like Midsomer Murders. A retired police officer is killed during an English Civil War enactment, or “sad losers playing dress-up” as resident cop Mike McGuire (Howard Charles) prefers
to put it. The dead man’s widow doesn’t seem overly upset, but then he did have three mistresses!
Big Mood
10pm, Channel 4
Maggie and Eddie (Derry Girls’
Nicola Coughlan and Lydia West from Years and Years) are best friends, but their relationship is subjected to a barrage of work, life and mental health pressures (Maggie is bipolar). In the opening episode, Maggie gives a talk at her old school. But she is not there to inspire the children with her not-so-illustrious playwrighting career; she wants to find out if hot history teacher Mr Wilson (Tim Downie) still fancies her.
Gerard Gilbert
Robin Hood
9pm, ITV4
(Ridley Scott, 2010)
Not interested in the japes of a band of merry men, Ridley Scott’s film is an action-packed epic about kings and wars, history and the founding of our modern nation. Russell Crowe stars as Robin Longstride, a lowly archer among Richard the Lionheart’s crusaders who ends up leading an army against a Norman invasion.
Frailty
10.25pm, Sky Cinema Sci-Fi/Horror
(Bill Paxton, 2001)
Matthew McConaughey walks into an FBI agent’s office saying he believes he knows who the
“God’s Hands” serial killer is, then proceeds to tell a first-rate slice of American Gothic about when he was a boy in Texas, 1979, and his God-fearing father (Bill Paxton) announced that the Almighty had spoken and instructed him to kill.
Trainspotting
10.45pm, Film4
(Danny Boyle, 1996)
Announcing its intentions with a blast of Iggy Pop’s “Lust For Life” over the opening sequence, and eschewing the scabrous realism of Irvine Welsh’s source novel, this account of 90s Edinburgh drug culture was a real shot in the arm for the British film industry. It remains an intoxicating ride. Laurence Phelan