The very best of the week ahead
Today You Don’t Know Me BBC ONE, 9PM
Barrister Imran
PICK Mahmood’s well-received OF THE 2017 debut novel gets the WEEK small screen treatment in
this four-parter that puts a compelling spin on the courtroom drama. On trial for murder and with the evidence stacked against him, a young black man (Samuel Adewunmi) sacks his barrister so that he can make his own closing argument. He protests his innocence by telling the jury his side of the story, and the action scrolls back to show us how he got to this place. His girlfriend, Kyra (Sophie Wilde), disappeared and his attempts to find her led him to take drastic action, but he swears he’s not a killer. It may rarely happen in Britain that a defendant takes such measures, but it’s a tale that grips and also challenges comfortable certainties about those from marginalised communities. Tom Edge – who also wrote Vigil – builds suspense with flashbacks and forwards, so that by the end of episode one you’ll be impatient for tomorrow night’s second instalment. Vicki Power
Piers Morgan’s Life Stories
ITV, 8PM
It’s an emotional swansong for Piers Morgan after 12 years of searching celebrity tête-à-têtes as he interviews his former Good Morning Britain colleague Kate Garraway, who will take over presenting this series. Here, she lays bare her husband Derek Draper’s torrid battle with Covid. VP
Monday Two Doors Down own BBC TWO, 10PM
Having built its ts reputation over er several series, this Scottish sitcom m is now something g of a festive fixture ure on the BBC, and nd a welcome one at that. With characters this well established d and the formula la – sensible parents, eccentric and/ /or annoying neighbours, plenty of reaction ion shots – in place, there is scant need for radical change. And so we return to the home of Beth and Eric (Arabella Weir and Alex Norton). These sober voices of relative reason and fond parents to Ian (Jamie Quinn) are making a vegetable curry to mark the two-year anniversary of the latter’s relationship to nice but dull Gordon (Kieran Hodgson). Before long, neighbours Christine (gloriously deadpan Elaine C Smith), soft-spoken Colin and tipsy Cathy Cat y (Jo Jonathan at a Watson Watso and a d Doon Mackichan, inadvertently inadvertentl and deliberately crass, respectively) respective have imposed themselves themsel on the event; disputes duly break br out over. On O the rare occasions occasio when the writing writ flags, the performances perf and well-honed we cast chemistry ch see it through. It’s heartening he evidence evide that the traditional tradition sitcom, when given a slight twist, remains remain in rude health. Gabriel Gabr Tate
The Richard Dimbleby Lecture
BBC ONE, 10.35PM; NI, 11.15PM; WALES, 11.20PM
It is no surprise to find a professor of vaccinology delivering the annual lecture, and Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert, as one of the pivotal figures behind the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, will here be relating the inside story of how it was brought from laboratory to widespread. GT
Tuesday Landscapers SKY ATLANTIC, 9PM
This peculiar four-part piece, starring Olivia Colman and written by her husband, Ed Sinclair, dramatises a disturbing true story. In 2014 Christopher and Susan Edwards (played by David Thewlis and Colman) were convicted of murdering her parents in Mansfield 15 years previously. The drama opens just before the couple turn themselves in and are hiding out in France, where she spends her days buying Hollywood memorabilia on credit cards while he searches for work. Sinclair’s embellishment of the tale is in the
depiction of their co-dependent relationship in which Christopher protects Susan from real life as she sinks further into a fantasy world constructed around the old movies she loves. It’s represented by sequences in which they are Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly, as well as in stylised scenes in which it seems as if they’re living in the Fifties – odd lighting, retro sets and strange camera angles. It’s striking but
at times confusing. As you’d expect, Colman and Thewlis are excellent. VP
The Cult of Conspiracy: QAnon CHANNEL 4, 9PM
Reporter Benjamin Zand fronts this documentary about the right-wing cult of QAnon – which claims that the elite is dominated by Satan-worshipping paedophiles. Inserting himself into their ranks in the US midwest, Zand does a creditable job of explaining the appeal of conspiracy theories. VP
Wednesday Dolly: the Sheep that Changed the World BBC TWO, 9PM
The scenes of cameras mobbing a ovine look bizarre in retrospect, but the birth of Dolly the sheep was an irresistible news story 25 years ago. The first mammal to be cloned, Dolly’s creation prompted concern (calls to the hitherto obscure Roslin Institute came from the White House and the Vatican), alarmist headlines (“Can we raise the dead?”) and the occasional firebomb, but, as this informative film makes plain, the motives and legacy (primarily in advancing stem-cell research) were honourable indeed. Many of the scientists involved gather to explain the chewy science and the many disappointments (funding cuts, failed experiments) that paved the way for Dolly’s arrival. The technical details are adeptly balanced with the odd amusing anecdote, and it acts as a fine tribute to British ingenuity against considerable odds. GT
Walking with Monica Galetti
BBC TWO, 7PM; NOT NI
Given she works regularly with Gregg Wallace and Giles Coren, you can’t blame Monica Galetti for wanting some peace. Here, she explores the North York Moors, from disused ironstone works to pretty hamlets. GT
Thursday And Just Like That… SKY COMEDY, 8AM & 9AM; 9PM & 10PM
Seldom has the revival of a series been more keenly anticipated. Seventeen years after the last Sex and the City episode aired, Sarah Jessica Parker slips back into her Manolos as Carrie Bradshaw, Manhattan-based shoe obsessive and writer-turnedpodcaster. It’s a daring move given that the main players are now in their fifties, and whose chief concerns are likely to be less provocative than the sexcapades that made up the original storylines. There’s the glaring absence, too, of Kim Cattrall, as the fourth in the original quartet, Samantha Jones. That said, it augurs well that the rest of the main cast is back, including Cynthia
Nixon (as Miranda Hobbes), Kristin Davis (Charlotte York Goldenblatt), Chris Noth (Mr Big) and John Corbett (Aidan Shaw), as well as a passel of new non-white female characters to bring the diversity that was lacking in Sex and the City. Beyond that, what happens is a mystery, so to borrow a famous catchphrase, we can’t help but wonder whether this new chapter will live up to expectations that are higher than Carrie’s dizzying heels. VP
Adrienne
SKY DOCUMENTARIES, 9PM
Actress Adrienne Shelly was murdered in 2006, aged 40, before she got to see her 2007 movie Waitress transformed
into a Broadway musical. This moving film by her husband explores how he and their daughter have navigated the grief of Shelly’s senseless death. VP
Friday
Vienna Blood BBC TWO, 9PM
After a formulaic first series of fringe pleasures, the Viennese policier based on the novels of Frank Tallis returns. Psychoanalyst Max Liebermann (Matthew Beard) and detective Oskar Reinhardt (Jürgen Maurer) pair up to solve the death of a Hungarian countess. Although the goulash of Teutonic-inflected accents can be distracting, the odd-couple dynamic works well, enhanced by Liebermann’s professional and personal disgrace that threaten to impede the case. It’s the city that’s the real star, mind, imbuing it all with the sort of modernismmeets-fin-de-siècle settings that cannot be recreated in a studio. GT
Grayson’s Art Club: an Exhibition for Britain
CHANNEL 4, 8PM
Grayson Perry and his wife Philippa unveil the works featured in his lockdown Art Club in the belated opening of a public exhibition at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.