The very best of the week ahead
Today
The Trial of Christine Keeler/ Keeler, Profumo, Ward and Me
BBC ONE, 9.00PM/BBC TWO, 10.00PM; NI, 11.00PM
Christine Keeler (Sophie Cookson) is dragged back into court when she is charged with perjury – a case made much easier to prosecute by her recorded confessions of the same. In lawyer Jeremy Hutchinson (Paul Ritter) she finally finds an establishment figure genuinely interested in her well-being, however unwelcome his analysis of her predicament may be. The misogyny, patriarchal privilege and hypocrisy that have been ever-present themes of Amanda Coe’s fine series are made explicit in tonight’s concluding episode and, if it’s occasionally a little clumsy, the tragedy and redemption have been hard earned. Following Coe’s drama is
Keeler, Profumo, Ward and Me, a documentary from Tom Mangold who reported on the case at the time. He draws on over 20 hours of interviews with Keeler and friend Mandy RiceDavies, recorded in 1984. There are also revelations from Ward’s final hours in the perfect bookend to an absorbing few weeks of drama. Gabriel Tate
Auschwitz Untold: In Colour
MORE4, 9.00PM
Another powerful piece of remembrance, this two-part documentary from David Shulman assembles 16 Holocaust survivors – among them scientists, writers, doctors and Rabbis – and tells their stories using restored, colourised archive footage of the camps. This first episode is told from a child’s perspective, as fascism tightened its grip on Europe and entire communities were thrust into Auschwitz. It continues tomorrow and is repeated in full on Wednesday at 10.30pm on Channel 4. GT
Monday The Windermere Children n
BBC TWO, 9.00PM
This redemptive e and exceedingly y moving drama tells the story of 305 orphaned children – survivors of the Nazi concentration camps – who were brought to Windermere in the Lake District for rehabilitation in the wake of the Second World ld
War. Their care was funded by a private charity and limited to just four months, during which time these severely traumatised young people, who had seen their entire families exterminated and experienced little other than horror in their young lives, were tentatively helped to find a way back to some semblance of normality. Screenwriter Simon Block and director Michael Samuels wisely focus on the children (star-name actors Romola Garai, Iain Glen and Thomas Kretschmann stay largely in the background), allowing their experiences to speak for themselves without exaggeration or sentiment. It’s being broadcast simultaneously in Britain and Germany to mark today’s Holocaust Memorial Day. In the likely event you will want to know more, The Windermere Children: In Their Own Words
follows on BBC Four at 10.30pm, offering further testimony from the now-elderly survivors. Gerard O’Donovan
Miracle Workers
SKY COMEDY, 9.00PM
Sky Comedy is another addition to Sky’s stable of
specialist channels and, as with the recent Crime channel, largely devoted to US content. Among the new shows launching the channel today is
Miracle Workers, an amusingly oddball sitcom starring Daniel Radcliffe as a low-level prayeranswerer in a haphazardly run Heaven, presided over by Steve Buscemi’s God. It joins old favourites such as Veep, Parks and Recreation, and Entourage, and there’s lots of new material in the pipeline, too. GO
Tuesday Belsen: Our Story
BBC TWO, 9.00PM
An estimated 52,000 people died at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany, their bodies left to rot. When British soldiers arrived the stench was so bad that many vomited and the camp was burned to the ground to stop the spread of disease. These are just a few of the facts we’re told in this superlative documentary. Voice-over is largely kept to a minimum and the film instead concentrates on the memories of the camp’s survivors. We hear from Maurice Blik, who arrived at the camp aged just four and saw his baby sister die there, from Gena Turgel, who was 22 and remembers people “being taken out into the woods… we never saw them again”, and from Mala Tribich, who at 14 was too old for the children’s barracks but whose younger sister successfully begged for her to stay. Their testimony is harrowing, and incredibly important in an era where we are all too eager to erase the past. Sarah Hughes
Winterwatch
BBC TWO, 8.00PM
The team head to Scotland’s majestic Cairngorms for the last time. Highlights include the Animal Winter Olympics, a bird feeder challenge and the return of the popular live camera streams. SH
Wednesday
Farage: The Man Who Made Brexit
CHANNEL 4, 9.00PM
Last year’s political maelstrom has inspired a glut of behind-the-scenes films aiming to capture the surreal drama as it unfolded. Add to the list Christian Trimble’s intriguing up-close chronicle of Brexit behemoth Nigel Farage, which follows this divisive figure for five months as he attempts to make good on the Brexit Party’s surprise success in the May 2019 European elections. Trimble dutifully tails his subject through rallies, interviews and team meetings as he responds to the lurching landscape of prorogation, whip removals and the changing deal with the EU. For the most part, Farage remains his irrepressible self, sunnily spinning things to his advantage as the tides shift. But the cracks soon become obvious. Farage’s claim to be driven by cause not career seems dubious set against his desperate attempts to strike a deal with the Tories and share the glory for getting Brexit over the line.
Toby Dantzic White House Farm
ITV, 9.00PM
In the third part of this haunting true-crime drama, DC Jones (Mark Addy) builds up the case against an increasingly callous Jeremy Bamber (Freddie Fox), only for his evidence to be dismissed by superiors. TD
Thursday
Inside the Crown: Secrets of the Royals
ITV, 9.00PM
Having explored royal attitudes to love and duty in last week’s opener, a bumpier ride is promised in this episode which explores “the complex relationship between the Royal family and the press”. Few secrets are revealed by the assembled experts, and unsurprisingly, most of the material looks at the familiar stories of Princess Margaret’s and, still more so, Diana, Princess of Wales’s ill-fated relationships with the press, especially the tabloids. That, in turn, sheds light on why the new generation of royals resent press intrusion. GO
Harlan Coben’s The Stranger
NETFLIX, FROM TODAY
A top line-up of UK talent is behind this eight-part adaptation of Harlan
Coben’s bestselling thriller (he describes it as his “most twisted”) about a man drawn into a deadly conspiracy when the lie underpinning his marriage is exposed. Richard Armitage plays family man Adam Price, who’s approached out of the blue by a stranger (Hannah JohnKamen) with a shocking secret about his wife (Dervla Kirwan). Siobhan Finneran, Jennifer Saunders, Anthony Head and Stephen Rea are all in the impressive cast. GO
Friday
Leaving the EU: BBC News Special/ Brexit Live: an ITV News Special/ The Last Leg: Countdown to Brexit
BBC ONE/ITV/CHANNEL 4, 10.00PM
At 11.00pm tonight, the event for which 51.89 per cent of the British population voted back in 2016 will come to pass: the United Kingdom will be leaving the European Union. Each of the five terrestrial channels will be marking the event in their own characteristic style. Channel 5 will show a documentary about hotels, BBC Two has Newsnight and a repeat of Matt Berry’s comedy Road to Brexit, while Channel 4 will provide a sideways look at the news courtesy of
The Last Leg team. BBC One and ITV, meanwhile, will be going head-to-head like it’s election night, with Huw Edwards helming the BBC coverage and Tom Bradby anchoring the show for ITV. There will also be vox pops from around the country as the transition period begins, with or without the bongs of Big Ben. A new era starts tonight. GT
Stewart Copeland’s Adventures in Music
BBC FOUR, 9.30PM
Tonight, the Police drummer and composer explores the power of music and its ability to move us more deeply than any other art form, talking to Gnawa musicians in Morocco, gospel singers, Kanye West collaborators and composer Steve Reich. GT