TV FILMS OF THE WEEK

1

THE DAMNED UNITED Tonight, BBC1, 11.45pm

MICHAEL SHEEN gives a brilliant performance as football manager Brian Clough. The film opens in July ‘74 with Brian travelling to West Yorkshire to succeed Don Revie (Colm Meaney) as manager of Division One champions Leeds United. An impromptu television interview, in which Brian criticises Revie’s tactics, is seen as a declaration of war against senior squad members including Billy Bremner (Stephen Graham) and Johnny Giles (Peter McDonald). The Damned United is a love letter to the former darling of Nottingham Forest, which shoots and scores on many levels.

2

GREASE

Tomorrow, Channel 4, 5.50pm

WHAT better way to lift the spirits during lockdown than watching this smash-hit musical starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, left. Danny and Sandy enjoyed a summer romance but once at high school, he’s the cool kid while she’s the squeaky clean new girl. Boasting hit songs like Summer Nights and Greased Lightnin’, this is not to be missed.

3

TIME BANDITS Monday, Film4, 11am

TERRY GILLIAM’S fantasy follows a young boy’s adventure with a gang of renegade dwarfs who have a map of all the holes in the space-time fabric and intend to use it to steal treasure. Along the way, they encounter Napoleon (Ian Holm), Agamemnon (Sean Connery) and Robin Hood (John Cleese, back row). Visually stunning and very funny.

4

EYE IN THE SKY Tuesday, Film4, 9pm

A POWERFUL look at the moral implications of modern warfare, with Helen Mirren, pictured, as a British Army colonel leading a team trying to decide whether to launch a drone strike on terrorists – knowing it could kill innocent people. Also starring Alan Rickman, this is an intelligent thriller that asks if there is such a thing as acceptable collateral damage.

5

WONDER Wednesday, Film4, 6.45pm

YOUNG actor Jacob Tremblay is on winning form beside Owen Wilson and Julia Roberts (all pictured) in this uplifting adaptation of RJ Palacio’s best-selling novel. Ten-year-old Auggie has a disfiguring medical condition and so starts his first day of school wearing a spaceman’s helmet. He suffers bullying as he struggles to fit in.

6

CABARET

Thursday, Talking Pictures, 10pm

ENGLISH writer Brian (Michael York) arrives in 1930s Berlin looking for inspiration, and ends up in a love triangle with American nightclub singer Sally Bowles and an aristocratic German (Helmut Griem). Liza Minnelli gives an Oscarwinning turn as Sally, but the film is almost stolen from her by Joel Grey (pictured with Minnelli), recreating his stage role as the MC.

7

SHAUN OF THE DEAD Friday, ITV2, 9pm

BILLED as a ‘rom zom com’, this hugely entertaining British movie stars Simon Pegg, left, as Shaun, who hates his job and whose girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) has just dumped him. When London is overrun by zombies, he sees it as a chance to prove himself to Liz. This is superb stuff, with sublime comic touches from Pegg and regular sidekick Nick Frost.