Films of the week

Brutally funny satire, and a family comedy-drama

BARRY DIDCOCK

THE DEATH OF STALIN Sunday, BBC2, 9.30pm

AFTER he had finished scouring the British and American political classes with his satirical cat o’ nine tails – see The Thick Of It, In The Loop and Veep – and before he turned his attention to Charles Dickens for his adaptation of David Copperfield, Armando Iannucci wrote and directed this scabrous, funny and at times brutally violent take on the power struggle which ensued after the death of Josef Stalin in March 1953.

Blending minute-by-minute history with apocryphal stories such as the one which opens the film – Stalin rings the Soviet radio broadcaster and demands a recording of a concert which has just gone out live but which hasn’t been recorded, forcing the concert to be hastily repeated under the baton of a conductor who is now in his pyjamas – it highlights the paranoia of the era and maximises the potential for black comedy.

Adrian McLoughlin plays Stalin and there are scene-stealing turns from Rupert Friend (as Stalin’s oddball son Vasily) and Jason

Isaacs (channelling Sean Bean as war hero General Zhukov). There are also parts for Michael Palin

(as Vyacheslav Molotov of cocktail fame), Paul Whitehouse (as Anastas Mikoyan), Paul Chahidi (as Nikolai Bulganin) and Andrea Riseborough (as Stalin’s daughter Svetlana).

But the star turns come from

Steve Buscemi, at his irascible best as Nikita Khrushchev, and Simon

Idris Elba about his life and extraordinary career. As well as sharing insights into the writing process that produced some of his best-loved works, the former Beatle will also be revealing what inspires him to continue creating and innovating.

SUNDAY

Sports Personality of the Year 2020 (BBC1, 8pm)

room” – or using the knife he keeps strapped on his ankle to prise open a window in Stalin’s dacha. Khrushchev was no saint but you always know who you’re rooting for.

ON THE ROCKS

Apple TV

Now streaming

A companion piece of sorts to Lost In Translation, the film which made her name, Sofia Coppola’s latest reunites her with Bill Murray and maps the theme of that earlier film – a young woman adrift in Tokyo and having doubts about her relationship finds a friend and father figure in an older man who’s having his own troubles – onto a New York-set drama which turns on an actual father-daughter relationship. That

took in the sights and sounds of India, Pakistan, the Tibetan Plateau and Bhutan, all while under the shadow of the mighty Mount Everest – he even managed to visit base camp. The affable former Monty Python member discusses his memory of making the series as well as the people he met and the places he visited, while celebrity fans reflect on the show itself.

Devon and Cornwall at Christmas (C4, 9pm)

The West Country is one of Britain’s favourite holiday destinations, but when the tourists go home locals remain as busy as ever. On Cornwall’s Lizard peninsula, the Richards family are predictably hard-pressed running England’s

Coppola’s own dad is veteran director Francis Ford Coppola and her lead actress, Rashida Jones, is the daughter of musician Quincy Jones, adds context and texture to the premise.

Murray is Felix Keane, a monied, womanising, globetrotting gallerist and bon viveur. Jones plays his daughter Laura Keane, who’s struggling with bringing up two young children, trying to write a novel and dealing with high-flying husband Dean (Marlon Wayans) who she thinks may be having an affair with co-worker Fiona (Jessica Henwick, aka Nymeria Sand, one of the coolest female characters in Games Of Thrones).

That said, Laura’s troubles are a little hard to take: her apartment, life, children and husband are all Gap ad beautiful and when she drops in to visit her grandmother, mother and sister upstate it’s in a vast, red brick pile straight out of the pages of The Great Gatsby.

Most put-upon wives would swap places with her in an instant.

So far, so gag-inducing. But it’s when Felix turns up that the film really starts to sing. Arriving one day in a red, open-topped sportscar with a bottle of Krug champagne and a tub of Beluga caviar he coaxes Laura into a series of hare-brained adventures and madcap stakeouts to prove Dean’s guilt, eventually whisking her off to Mexico. And over dinners, cocktails and ice-cream sundaes father and daughter discuss everything from male infidelity to, well, male infidelity as viewed through the prism of their own lives and relationships. Is Felix’s cynicism justified – or is Laura right when she tells him he’s just a selfish baby and that not all men are like him?

most south-westerly Christmas tree farm. In Newquay, fishermen Martin and Jake Gilbert know that heading out into wild seas can be worth it as their catch fetches high prices at this time of year. And over on Dartmoor, the Alfords put the finishing touches to a new shed to house their cattle for the winter.

Victoria Wood: In Her Own Words (C5, 9pm)

In April 2016, Britain lost one of its greatest and all-time favourite comedians. This affectionate look back at the life and work of Victoria Wood features interviews with Jo Brand, Jenny Eclair, Gyles Brandreth, Susie Blake and the actors who worked alongside Victoria. The