The very best of the week ahead
Sunday Louis Theroux: Life on the Edge
BBC TWO, 9.00PM
Louis Theroux revisits old friends from his 25 years of documentarymaking for this four-part series, opening with Beyond Belief, about various “believers”. We see archive footage of Theroux meeting the survivalists of Almost Heaven, channeller of aliens Robert Short and so-called “Nazi pop twins” Lynx and Lamb Gaede. While Short passed away last year, Mike Cain, an Almost Heaven mainstay, remains a lively exponent of anti-establishment doom-mongering, while the Gaedes recall renouncing the beliefs foisted upon them by their mother. It’s a valuable reminder of Theroux’s gift for making sense of the inexplicable. Gabriel Tate
Opera Mums with Bryony Kimmings
BBC FOUR, 10.00PM
In this deeply moving documentary, live artist Bryony Kimmings talks to a quintet of young single mothers who have dealt with betrayal, depression and runaway children, then turns their experiences into opera. The 12-minute piece is performed live; from the reactions of the mothers, it more or less defines catharsis. GT
Monday
Sue Perkins: Along the US-Mexico Border
BBC ONE 9.00PM
In an already saturated celebrity travel market, Sue Perkins strikes a neat balance between cultural discoveries and her own comic silliness. So what better place to embrace both than
Mexico, where she yo-yos across the US-Mexico border for this two-part series (concluding tomorrow). News coverage of the border tends to focus on drug trafficking, cartels and migrants – and of course The Wall. But Perkins seeks to discover what life is like for those who call the borderland home. In Tijuana, on the Pacific coast, she finds a fun, vibrant, open city, but also hears from a mother about the perilous journey she made there for her family. Over on the US side, Perkins spends time with Mark Lamb, sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona, who battles with the cartels that traffic traffi drugs and people
over the border. borde Rachel Ward
Mindful Escapes: Es Breathe, Release, Re Restore
BBC FOUR, 7.00PM
Former Buddhist Bu monk Andy Puddicombe Puddicomb narrates this new meditation series from the BBC’s Natural Na History Unit and Headspace He Studios. Calming Calm images of jellyfish floating float and lemurs swinging swi through trees with wi clips from Attenborough’s A flagship shows help to focus breathing. Relax... Re RW
Tuesday Dog Tales: The Making of Man’s Best Friend
BBC FOUR, 9.00PM
This fascinating two-part documentary examines the science behind pet ownership, how and why we benefit from it, and why they evolved to become our best friends. It begins with dogs and turns the lens back thousands of years, to when dogs and wolves split. We learn which are the most ancient breeds, how scientists are studying dogs’ brains to test the limits of their capabilities and how dogs evolved to endearingly raise their eyebrows in a similar manner to babies. Be warned, you may find yourself browsing adoption sites after watching this. Catherine Gee
All Creatures Great and Small
CHANNEL 5, 9.00PM
In this second episode of perfect comfort TV, vet Siegfried’s wayward brother Tristan (Callum Woodhouse) arrives in Darrowby. Plus we see the arrival of Diana Rigg as a widow with a certain poorly Pekinese. CG
Wednesday Mary Berry’s Simple Comforts/ Nadiya Bakes
BBC TWO, 8.00PM/8.30PM
With no start date yet confirmed for the delayed 11th series of The Great
British Bake Off, the gap is plugged nicely with this double bill from two of the contest’s most beloved alumni. First up, former judge Mary Berry demonstrates fuss-free dishes to warm the heart and lift the spirits. In the opening episode, the 85-year-old heads back to Paris, the city where she first learnt to cook in the 1950s. Berry begins at a fromagerie, buying cheese for her own version of a croquemonsieur, before visiting a creperie to finesse her technique. Finally, inspired by the delicacies displayed in Parisian patisserie windows, she makes her own brioche and apple frangipane tart. This is followed by a new series from Nadiya Hussain, who won Bake Off in 2015 and remains its most popular champion. In the first episode of
Nadiya Bakes, she shares her favourite recipes for classics with a twist, including (look away now traditionalists) a blueberry scone pizza that would make a Neapolitan balk and a spicy Asian take on toad-in-the-hole. Two delicious courses of televisual delight. Michael Hogan
Can We Cure Kids’s Cancer?
CHANNEL 4, 10.00PM
Childhood cancer may be rare, making up 1 in 100 of all cancers, but it’s still one of the toughest challenges for a family to face. This film follows three kids undergoing treatment at London’s Royal Marsden Hospital. MH
Thursday I am Not a Rapist
BBC THREE & BBC ONE, 10.45PM; NI, 11.25PM
Given the extreme pressure being applied to the Crown Prosecution Service to improve the rate of rape convictions – only three per cent of the 1,000-plus rapes reported per week in England and Wales – the stories of how the lives of three men were ruined by false accusations, told in Huw Crowley’s excellent if distressing film, feel perhaps more important than ever in illustrating the danger of making assumptions to hit targets. The focal point is 24-year-old Liam, who was charged with a dozen counts of rape and sexual assault of an ex-girlfriend. Only the diligence of his defence lawyer in exposing (at best) sloppy police work saved him from prison, but his life is still scarred by suffering “every man’s worst nightmare”. No less shocking are the accounts of 22-yearold Ashley and 24-year-old Camellia, who talks about accusations that drove her brother Jay and, eventually, their mother, to suicide. No aspersions are cast on the motivations of the accusers, although the institutional failings are manifest. GT
The Black Full Monty
CHANNEL 4, 10.00PM
The Chocolate Men are Britain’s first all-black male touring group of male strippers. Coco Maclehose avoids salaciousness in documenting their lives and work during their 2018 tour, as their managers bat back charges of pandering to racial and sexual stereotypes and the dancers explain why they have chosen to pursue their line of work. GT
Sunday The Romantic and Us with Simon Schama
BBC FOUR, 9.00PM; NOT SCOTLAND
Simon Schama explores the powerful legacy that the Romantics have left on our modern world, from popular revolt to the obsession with the self, even to modern nationalism. Throughout this three-part series he will look at painters such as Gericault and Caspar David Friedrich, musicians such as Chopin and Schumann and poets including Wordsworth,
Coleridge and Shelley. In this first episode, Schama starts by looking at the great icon of revolt created by Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the
People, which was painted after the July Revolution of 1830 in Paris and brought an end to the Bourbon monarchy in France. Schama then shifts focus to one of the forefathers of Romanticism, the visionary poet and artist William Blake. Looking at his work from the early 1790s, Schama and hip-hop artist Testament (a glorious pairing) explore how Blake’s ideas continue to resonate. Then it’s on to Mary Wollstonecraft as Harriet Walter performs extracts from her moving letters, while the latter part of the film tells the stories of Percy Bysshe Shelley in England and Theodore Gericault in France. RW
BBC Proms 2020: Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason
BBC FOUR, 8.00PM
Star cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and his 24-year-old pianist sister Isata perform a recital of Beethoven, Barber and Bridge, concluding with Rachmaninov’s post-Romantic Sonata in G minor, a full-blooded cornerstone of the cello/piano repertoire. RW