RUGBY WORLD CUP 2019 LIVE
framework is simply there to service the characters and their stories, says Will.
“These are messy, human, flawed people in a messy, flawed system that was built by people, and that’s what makes it funny, and that’s what makes it interesting.
“These aren’t superheroes, and this isn’t as grand and austere a world as it might seem.
“It’s run by people who are failing constantly and trying to stay
JAPAN WITH SUE PERKINS Wednesday, BBC1, regions vary
THE title of this new two-part series pretty much tells you everything you need to know – Sue Perkins visits Japan.
Of course there’s more to it than that; she wants to find out how the nation juggles being one of the hubs of the hi-tech world with its traditional past.
Her journey begins in the capital, Tokyo, which will also be the home of next year’s Olympics. With that in mind, Sue investigates the nation’s love of sport, albeit via sumo wrestling, which has always been a preserve of men – until now.
1944: SHOULD WE BOMB AUSCHWITZ? Thursday, BBC2, 9pm
IN APRIL, 1944, the Allies Co-stars: Prasanna Puwanarajah as Ashley and Gwyneth Keyworth as Danielle in Defending The Guilty on top of everything.”
“I have always been interested in (the law),” admits Katherine. “I did have aspirations to go into that world because – we were saying – it’s pure theatre really. I say ‘I toyed’ – I also toyed with being an astronaut and a cat too,” she says, smiling.
“But I think the subject I chose to study at university (classics) was one where a lot of people went into diplomacy and law, but the idea of being a diplomat is so far-fetched to me. I don’t think it was ever realistically within my reach.”
Are there parallels to be drawn between the courtroom and acting, then?
“When you go up for parts as an actor, generally speaking, you have no idea who you’ve gone up against – and that’s deliberate,” Katherine muses. “Whereas it must became aware of the true horror of the Holocaust thanks to the testimony of two prisoners who had escaped from Auschwitz.
But with the knowledge came one of the biggest moral dilemmas of the 20th century – should they bomb the death camp? Combining dramatic reconstructions of the debate with first-hand testimony from be very different if you’re a barrister, competing openly.
“I got into (acting) to get away from competition. It isn’t competitive – particularly when you’re doing theatre, for instance, you’re doing something together. “Sometimes I find the nature of filming can feel oddly competitive, but when it’s comedy it never is because it’s always about the comedy that happens between you.
“I know from the outside it can look as if acting’s a competitive world,” she says. “And I know actors that make it that, but they’re generally in LA. It’s not been my experience.”
Is a second series of Defending The Guilty on the cards?
“I think Kieron has great ideas and it was a very good experience, so I think we’d all be up for it,” Katherine says tentatively.
“But you never really know with these things. I’d like to play Caroline again, definitely.”
Will adds: “The stories are just there to ask the questions, and then the audience becomes the jury, and so similarly to the lawyers in the story, as performers, we’re just there to make a case.
“What people make of that is not really up to us.”
■ THE world is in union again for the next six weeks, as 20 countries contest the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan.
It’s the first time the competition has been held in Asia, yet many expect the same teams to be battling it out in the latter stages. Three-time world champions New Zealand go into the tournament as favourites to lift the William Webb Ellis Cup.
Following the opening ceremony, the action on the pitch gets under way with the hosts taking on Russia.
Defending The Guilty starts on BBC2 on Tuesday at 10pm.
survivors, archival material and expert voices, this documentary explores the huge decision the Allies had to make.
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EYE IN THE SKY Tonight, Channel 4, 9pm
INTELLIGENT thriller. Operation Cobra has been tracking radicalised British men and women linked to the Somali group Al-Shabaab. One high-profile target, Susan Danford (Lex King), is under surveillance at a house in Kenya. Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman) takes control of the operation from London, while Foreign Secretary James Willett (Iain Glen) watches a live video feed from a US drone piloted in Nevada. At a command base in Sussex, Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) explains that the objective is “to capture not kill”. But when footage reveals targets are wearing suicide vests, priorities change.
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MINIONS Tomorrow, ITV2, 4.30pm
THE Despicable Me movies’ henchmen get their own animated adventure. Brave soul Kevin sets out to find a new evil boss for his bald, jaundiced brethren. Flanked by Stuart and scaredy-cat Bob, Kevin heads for New York City. There, the Minions pledge allegiance to super-villain Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock) and her husband (Jon Hamm), who are plotting to steal the Crown Jewels.
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12 ANGRY MEN Monday, Film4, 12.50pm
HENRY FONDA heads the cast as Juror Number Eight, who faces the task of changing the minds of the 11 other men on a hung jury. They’re convinced a young boy must be guilty of murdering an old man in his neighbourhood, but Fonda’s character believes there isn’t enough evidence to convict. A masterpiece of moviemaking with excellent performances.
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TOTAL RECALL Tuesday, ITV4, 10.35pm
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, left, plays a construction worker in 2084 who dreams of going to Mars in this sci-fi classic. Rather than make the journey, he turns to a company specialising in implanting fake memories – however his mind has already been tampered with and he may have been there for real. To find his true identity, he heads to the red planet.
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CHICAGO
Wednesday, Sony Movies, 6.40pm
ROXIE HART (Renee Zellweger) is sent to jail for murdering her no-good lover (Dominic West), despite trying to make her gullible husband (John C Reilly) take the rap. Behind bars, Roxie meets songbird Velma Kelly (an Oscar-winning Catherine Zeta-Jones, pictured), and the pair become rivals for the services of renowned lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere).
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PROSPECT Thursday, Film4, 9pm
NERVY sci-fi thriller. Damon (Jay Duplass) and daughter Cee (Sophie Thatcher, pictured) depart an orbiting space station for a distant moon, the reported location of a mother lode of precious gold-coloured minerals. Damon possesses a map that should lead them to the haul but their mission is compromised and Cee places her trust in enigmatic stranger Ezra (Pedro Pascal).
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THERE WILL BE BLOOD Friday, Paramount Network, 9pm
IT’S 1911 and Daniel Plainview (an Oscar-winning Daniel Day-Lewis, pictured) has made a modest fortune buying plots of land and draining them of oil. A tip-off leads the businessman and his 10-year-old son HW (Dillon Freasier) to a rural community in the thrall of preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). The tug of war between business and the church threatens the entire enterprise.