The Herald - The Herald Magazine
TV review Place your trust in movie stars to take on big boys
TV EXTRA: MICHAEL PALIN GOES BEYOND THE POLITICS IN PARIAH STATE
HEARD a discussion on the wireless the other day about whether Bodyguard, being so gripping, was going to save terrestrial television from an onslaught of glossy, star-studded offerings on streaming services such as Netflix.
Judging by Trust (BBC2, Wednesday, 9pm), the BBC has decided it can do both. With episodes directed by Danny Boyle, a fona bide (copyright Victoria Wood) Oscar-winning movie director, created by Simon Beaufoy, another Academy Award winner, the story of the Getty grandson kidnapping is graced by names that could get a table at Spago as easily as I could join the queue at Greggs (assuming the staff have forgotten that unfortunate incident with the steak bake). Donald Sutherland, playing John Paul Getty, is one, Hilary Swank, playing the boy’s mother, another.
Boyle’s touch was evident from the off, the camera making a long, swooping descent into a party full of beautiful people. From there we went to the Getty mansion in England, where the oil billionaire was trying to play several girlfriends off each other.
Very impressive, but it would have been more so if Ridley Scott had not beaten Boyle to the punch last year with his film on the same subject, All the Money in the World. As it is, Boyle is playing catch-up and seems to have opted for more sex, more glitz and more groovy tunes, from Bowie especially, to keep the viewer hooked. At one point he even wheeled in a real live lioness. With the story stretched out over ten parts – very Netflix – it will take more than surface glitz to sustain viewer interest.
The major autumn dramas just keep coming (will no one think of the poor TV critics who have to maintain tabs
Watts and pop star Sophie Ellis-Bextor take to the stage on Glasgow Green, while Katherine Jenkins and West End star Lee Mead perform at Eirias Park in Colwyn Bay, alongside the 2018 BBC Young Musician winner, pianist Lauren Zhang. The Titanic Slipways in Belfast hosts Israeli mandolinist Avi Avital and Ultravox frontman Midge Ure, while saxophonist Jess Gillam and soul diva Gladys Knight draw the crowds in London’s Hyde Park.
King Arthur’s Britain: The Truth Unearthed (BBC2, 9pm)
To some, King Arthur was a character from English mythology and folklore who searched for the Holy Grail and won many battles using his infamous sword Excalibur. To others, he was a Romano-British
on them all? No? You are a hard lot). Strangers (ITV, Monday, 9pm) could not match the combined wattage of Sutherland and Swank but it did have always-watchable John Simm doing what he does best: looking knackered and on the verge of tears.
Playing Jonah Mulray, a politics professor, Simm’s character had every right to be discombobulated. First, he was told his wife had been killed in a car accident in Hong Kong. Second, he was scared of flying but had to get out there. Writers Mark Denton and Jonny Stockwood had several more unpleasant
leader who fought against the Anglo-Saxons in the late fifth to early sixth century. Despite the vast amount of theories and research of the king’s life and the state of Britain over the next two centuries, there is little historical evidence about what really happened. Through access to a major new excavation uncovering an array of artefacts at the dramatic medieval castle and coastline in Tintagel in Cornwall, Alice Roberts hopes to be in a position to separate fact from folklore and shed some light on the Dark Ages.
Bodyguard (BBC1, 9pm)
Determined to push the investigation forward, David targets Julia’s enemies. As he looks into the home secretary’s political manoeuvring, he finds his fears