BEAR NECESSITIES
PADDINGTON 2, BBC ONE, MONDAY, MAY 25, 7PM ■ PAUL King’s sequel to his first big screen adventure with the marmalade sandwich-loving bear is pretty much the perfect bank holiday family film. This time Hugh Grant’s villainous actor frames
Paddington for the theft of a valuable book, landing the bear in jail and setting off a race against time to foil his dastardly plot. Ben
Whishaw is note perfect once again as the loveable bear, Brendan
Gleason is an enjoyably scary jailbird but Grant steals the show as a vain, egotistical thespian desperate to revive
HIS fortunes.
CALL OF THE WILD
SPRINGWATCH, FROM TUESDAY, MAY 26, 8PM
■ DURING lockdown many of us have come to appreciate the wildlife around us more and so the return of Springwatch for a threeweek run is welcome, but this will be a very different proposition.
Instead of setting up with a big crew in one part of the UK, Chris Packham, Gillian Burke and Iolo Williams will be filming from their own homes in the New Forest, Cornwall and Wales respectively while Michaela Strachan will be talking about her Springwatch highlights from her home in South Africa.
CLASSIC MOVIES
CITIZEN KANE, BBC TWO, SATURDAY, MAY 23, 3PM AND BBC IPLAYER
■ THE BBC’s iPlayer is hosting a collection of 23 classic RKO Pictures movies from this week, giving us the chance to watch some of the most famous films from Tinseltown’s golden era. Among the gems from the Hollywood studio’s archives are the original King Kong, the brilliant Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn comedy Bringing Up Baby and evergreen Fred Astaire musical
TOP Hat. Perhaps the most notable inclusion though is Citizen Kane, Orson Welles’ landmark directorial debut and one of the greatest films ever made. Citizen Kane is being screened on BBC One this Saturday afternoon at 3pm preceded by a Talking Pictures profile of Welles at 2.15pm.
ELF SERVICE
■ ONWARD, STREAMING SERVICES AND DIGITAL DOWNLOADS
■ PIXAR’S latest animation had a shortened cinematic run thanks to the coronavirus outbreak and didn’t quite have the impact you might expect. Set in modern-day USA where magical creatures have settled into suburban life, Onward follows two elf brothers, Ian and Barkey Lightfoot, as they try to see if magic still exists by attempting
TO bring their late father back from the dead to spend one last day with him. It takes a while to get going, but this is a sweet, touching tale.
FLOWER POWER
THE BIG FLOWER FIGHT, NETFLIX
IF you’re a fan of The Great British Bake Off and The Great British Sewing Bee, this could be
your next must-watch series as Vic Reeves and Natasia Demetriou host this floral sculpturing competition. A group of flower arrangers go head to head with the ultimate aim of getting their botanical creations into Kew Gardens. With Reeves and Demetriou marshalling things, expect plenty of laughs and mischief amid the floral creativity.