The very best of the week ahead
Sunday The Kemps: All True
BBC TWO, 10.00PM
Rhys Thomas can do serious documentaries – his films on Queen and Freddie Mercury are definitive – but his real gifts lie in the finely tuned musical spoof that sits adjacent to real life and occasionally overlaps. If ageing prog rock pioneer Brian Pern, played by Simon Day, was Thomas’s greatest comic creation, the brothers Kemp run him close for pretentiousness and hubris. Gamely playing “themselves”, Spandau Ballet’s Gary and Martin Kemp are trying to resurrect their faltering careers by producing a celebrity-packed covers album of their best-known songs; Gary is also puffing his charity work, while Martin is producing an atrocious, geezer-heavy time-travel crime romp in which the brothers will reprise their titular turns from 1990 feature film The Krays. Familiar faces abound, some playing themselves (Christopher Eccleston, Daniel Mays, Nick Robinson), others not (Day, Anna Maxwell Martin), but this is ultimately all about the Kemps, who prove delightfully eager to send themselves up in every conceivable way as they bicker and posture. Gabriel Tate
Alex Brooker: Disability and Me
BBC TWO, 9.00PM
The comedian and Last Leg co-host Alex Brooker was born with no working fingers and one short leg which was amputated when he was 13 months old. This insightful, honest and affecting film sees the father-oftwo examining the true impact of disability on himself and others, asking questions he had never before asked. GT
Monday
The Secrets She Keeps
BBC ONE, 9.00PM
Anyone withh a The
Nest- shaped hole in their lives could ould do worse than check out this tense Australian ustralian drama about t motherhood. d. It’s neither as subtle ubtle nor as strong g as Nicole Taylor’s drama but the opening episodes (the e second airs tomorrow night) suggest that it’s a solid enough domestic thriller with a nicely claustrophobic feel. At its centre are two women – Jessica De Gouw’s Meghan, a glossy social media influencer who is eight months pregnant with her third child – and Agatha ( Downton Abbey’s Laura Carmichael), a troubled supermarket cashier who is also due to give birth. But Agatha is more cunning than her meek exterior – as we soon see when the father of her unborn child rejects her and when she develops an unhealthy interest in Meghan, who she follows on social media. Sarah Hughes
Pluto: Back from the Dead
BBC TWO, 9.00PM
Few things cause as much scientific controversy as whether or not Pluto is a planet (currently it is classified as a dwarf planet). This intriguing film looks at whether it may still have an active world. SH
Tuesday
The Battle of Britain: 3 Days That Saved the Nation
CHANNEL 5, 9.00PM
This week marks 80 years since the start of the RAF’s finest hour – the critical aerial battle that changed the course of the Second World War. The next three nights sees historian Dan Snow and presenter Kate Humble presenting an impressively detailed minute-by-minute guide to three pivotal days – August 15, August 30 and September 15 – in Britain’s valiant struggle against the numerically superior Nazis. The stirring story’s twists, turns and terrors are brought to life by the personal stories of pilots, ground crews and civilians, many of which have never been told like this before. This opening episode finds the Luftwaffe embarking upon an all-out assault. Hitler has ordered that Britain’s air power be wiped out, prior to a land invasion. And the skirmishes are being tracked by 19-year-old WAAF plotter Joan Fanshawe in a top-secret Uxbridge bunker. Her diaries provide fresh insight into our strategies and how every move counted. Michael Hogan
The Choir: Singing for Britain
BBC TWO, 9.00PM
Choirmaster Gareth Malone’s latest cockle-warming mission reaches its conclusion. Helped by stories of hope from vulnerable people, he composes a song to bring Britain together during lockdown. MH
Wednesday
Mrs America
BBC TWO, 9.00PM & 9.45PM
Can a drama continue to grip, even as it details internecine quarrels and debates about the finer points of politics? In the case of BBC Two’s latest import, which follows various attempts to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment providing equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex, the answer is yes. Written by former Mad Men writer Dahvi Waller, Mrs America focuses both on the issues behind the bill and, fascinatingly, on just how the US culture wars, which rage to this day, came into being. At the centre is Cate Blanchett’s just-the-right-side-ofcamp performance as Phyllis Schlafly, an astute political campaigner and self-promoter who decides that opposing the ERA will be her big cause, even though she herself is regularly put-down and ignored in the male-dominated world where she operates. Episode two introduces us to a second-wave feminist superstar, Gloria Steinem (an equally good Rose Byrne). Steinem herself has dismissed the show as “ridiculous” saying that it places too much weight on Schlafly’s campaign and is overly obsessed with sisterly in-fighting. That’s probably true, but there’s no denying that this is a superior and hugely entertaining watch. SH
Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads
BBC ONE, 7.35PM
Maxine Peake reminds us what she’s best at as she steps into Patricia Routledge’s shoes for Miss Fozzard
Finds Her Feet. It’s one of Bennett’s most memorable monologues, in which a downtrodden spinster finds a surprising new lease of life. While Peake lacks the older Routledge’s vulnerability, she compensates with an enjoyable forthrightness. SH
Thursday There She Goes
BBC TWO, 9.30PM; WALES, 10.00PM
Despite a well-deserved Bafta for co-star Jessica Hynes, this impeccably judged comedy from Shaun Pye and Sarah Crawford seemed to fly under the radar a little; perhaps the move from BBC Four to BBC Two will see it earn the ratings and acclaim it deserves. It’s is a brave, searingly honest show with humour rooted deeply in sometimes bitter experience – Pye and Crawford’s daughter has an undiagnosed chromosomal disorder. Hynes and David Tennant return as Emily and Simon, parents to Rosie (Miley Locke), a now 11-year-old with a severe, undiagnosed learning disability, and Ben (Edan Hayhurst), her endlessly patient brother. The second series divides the action between two timelines. 2007 sees the infant Rosie’s condition slowly coming into focus, and shot in a grey pallor to reflect the grief of her parents, self-medicating their way through the weeks. Years later, Rosie is making gradual progress while Emily and Simon wrestle with the demands of school and temptations to overshare. Heartbreaking and hilarious, sometimes simultaneously, it’s filled with love and spiked with the wit and honesty to avoid sentimentality or self-indulgence. GT
Manhunt: the Raoul Moat Story
ITV, 9.00PM
Ten years on from his bizarre and bloody rampage, Raoul Moat’s story is retold by Nicky Campbell with interviews from witnesses, police and relatives of his victims. GT
Friday Royal Opera House: the Re-opening
BBC FOUR, 7.00PM
In the midst of dark times for the arts in this country, with companies going to the wall and little sign of when most theatres might reopen, it’s something of a relief to realise that the grand old lady of classical culture, the Royal Opera House, has been able to open her doors again, even if the performances are currently only available online. In truth, that lack of audience can be felt – this paper’s critic, Rupert Christiansen, admitted to being underwhelmed by the first offering on June 13, which focused on three “downbeat” British song cycles. If you haven’t caught up yet – there were concerts on June 20 and 27 – now is the chance to see whether or not you agree as Anita Rani, Katie Derham and the ROH Music Director Antonio Pappano introduce highlights of the events. They include a world premiere from choreographer Wayne McGregor, excerpts from ballets by Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan and Christopher Wheeldon, and opera and song performed by Louise Alder, Gerald Finley, Sarah Connolly, David Butt Philip and Toby Spence. SH
Jack Whitehall’s Sporting Nation
BBC ONE, 8.30PM
The ubiquitous comic returns with a new series that aims to tell the UK’s history through its sporting achievements (and, perhaps more notably, failures). This opening episode focuses on home-turf triumphs including the London 2012 Olympics and the 1966 World Cup. SH