THE HOT LIST
BEST OF TV AND STREAMING
FIELD OF DREAMS GLASTONBURY BBC Two, from Friday, June 24
■ SUMMER is officially here as the famous festival returns to Worthy Farm and music fans are able attend for the first time since 2019 - so expect a huge, feelgood party atmosphere across the weekend. The BBC will showcase the best of the festival with Lauren Laverne, Jo Whiley and Clara Amfo anchoring the coverage, starting with a headline turn from Billie Eilish on the main Pyramid Stage on Friday night alongside sets from Sam Fender, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Wolf Alice and Crowded House. Other highlights across the weekend are Paul McCartney, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Kendrick Lamar, Lorde, Elbow and Diana Ross.
STRANGE DAYS DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS Disney+
■ THE Marvel machine motors ever onwards with this mind-bending, multi-dimensional adventure hitting the small screen this week just a couple of months after its cinematic release. Benedict Cumberbatch dons the magic cloak and sarcastic manner as Doctor Strange once again and this time he’s up against a problem of his own making as the portals he opened up while trying to help Peter Parker conceal his true identity in the last Spider-Man film bring threats from various alternative dimensions - as well as from closer to home. A spectacular comicbook yarn with some dazzling visual effects and genuinely horrifying moments, it’s all good fun but somewhat hard to follow if you’re not already a Marvel devotee.
POWER AND INFLUENCE THE FIRST LADY Paramount+
■ NEW streaming service Paramount+ brings us a whole host of new shows this week and among the most promising is this study of three US president’s wives from different eras in that country’s history. Viola Davis plays Michelle Obama, Michelle Pfeiffer stars as Betty Ford and Gillian Anderson is Eleanor Roosevelt, three very different women who all have to wrestle with the dilemma of being in a high-profile position but without officially being able to exercise any real power although their influence on their husbands is undoubted. This 10-part series is also a fascinating look at the social and political mores of the USA through the ages.
STRONG WOMEN WOMEN IN HOLLYWOOD BBC Four, Thursday, June 23, from 8pm and on BBC iPlayer
■ BBC Four’s themed film nights on Thursdays continue with a look at some of the most enduring female stars of Hollywood’s golden era. First up is Arena: Screen Goddesses at 8pm, a documentary about the biggest female stars of the studio era in Tinseltown. That’s followed by two classic films featuring strong roles for women. The African Queen at 9pm sees Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart locking horns on a treacherous boat trip in Africa during the First World War. Then at 10.45pm, The Nun’s Story sees Audrey Hepburn star as a headstrong young woman who joins a convent in the Congo but struggles to keep her vows when the Second World War breaks out.
TRUE CRIME MURDER IN THE ALPS Channel 4, Sunday, June 26, 9pm
■ THIS three-part documentary series explores the 2012 murder of British computer engineer Saad Ai-Hilli, his dentist wife Kibal and her mother Suhaila and a French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, by woods near Lake Annency in the French Alps. Miraculously, Saad and Kibal’s daughters survived the attack and after a media frenzy broke out with the news of the murders, Saad’s brother Zaid was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. However, the charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence and the killings remain unsolved a decade later - can this series shed new light on what happened?