The very best of the week ahead
Today
Fiennes: Return to the Wild
National Geographic, 8pm
Five years on from retracing Fiennes Sr’s epic journey up the Nile, cousins Ranulph and Joseph reconvene to follow the route across western Canada taken by the adventurer in 1971 – the first recorded crossing of British Columbia by waterway. “I can’t wait to learn more about the man behind the adventurer,” explains actor Joseph at the outset. This is perhaps a curious comment to make about his cousin, but one senses that “Ran” (as Joseph refers to him) is not a man accustomed to displaying vulnerability – which makes his candid revelations about his Parkinson’s diagnosis all the more touching. At the age of 80, Ranulph is also understandably doing less of the hard grafting as they cross glaciers and paddle up to, although not through, several perilous rapid runs. Above all, the vistas are a stunning showcase for the country’s natural wonders – not for nothing is this two-parter sponsored by Destination Canada. Gabriel Tate
My Favorite Things: The Rodgers & Hammerstein 80th Anniversary Concert
Sky Arts, 6pm
Michael Ball, Marisha Wallace and Maria Friedman are among the West End and Broadway superstars belting out some of the pair’s most famous songs, drawn from musicals including South Pacific, The Sound of Music and Oklahoma! in a one-off performance from last Christmas. GT
Bank Holiday Monday
The Sympathizer Sky Atlantic, 2.05am & 9pm
This stylish seven-part series (box-setted on Now) is based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Straddling a few genres including dark comedy, political satire and espionage thriller, it subtly reflects on identity and recent American history as it tells the story of a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist spy during the final days of the Vietnam War (played by Hoa Xuande). The spy – known only as the Captain – is a North Vietnamese mole in the
South Vietnamese army, torn between his loyalties to the party, the army, his
CIA handler and, eventually, his own conscience. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, the Captain becomes a refugee in Los Angeles, where he learns that his spying days aren’t quite over and he has to take some desperate measures to protect his cover. Robert Downey Jr has a ball playing the CIA spook, as well as several other roles under heavy prosthetics, including the director of an Apocalypse Now-type film – one of a few knowing contrivances in Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar’s playful adaptation. Veronica Lee
D-Day 80: We Were There BBC One, 9pm
As part of its coverage to mark the upcoming 80th anniversary of D-Day, the BBC has been recording reminiscences of servicemen and women who landed on Normandy beaches or were involved in the planning of Operation Overlord. Those featured here tell their inspiring and moving stories; one ex-soldier says he and his colleagues were “scared to death – but we had a job to do and had to get on with it”. Rachel Burden hosts. VL
Tuesday
My Sexual Abuse: The Sitcom
Channel 4, 10pm
Trauma can be processed in all sorts of ways, with humour often the most controversial and divisive technique of all. Yet it is through the medium of the sitcom that writer and actor Mark O’Sullivan (Tell Me Everything, Lee and Dean) has boldly decided to address the sexual abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of a member of his extended family, a man who was imprisoned thanks in part to O’Sullivan’s testimony at a trial years later. This extraordinary film – which other broadcaster would have commissioned it? – documents the background to and making of the sitcom and O’Sullivan’s unflinching analysis of why he is making it, both on his own and in conversation with his wife, family, fellow survivors, friends and sitcom co-stars, including Cariad Lloyd and Rufus Jones. O’Sullivan takes the expected questions and concerns – Why not say something at the time? How did it affect you and your family? How can you make this funny? – head on, and yes, it is darkly funny in places. GT
The Pilgrimage of Gilbert & George
Sky Arts, 9pm
Outliers of the art establishment for over five decades, Gilbert and George are reliably good value in Mike Christie’s profile tracing their long career of pushing boundaries while cleaving tightly to what they concede could be a “manifesto”: Art for All. GT
Wednesday
Race Across the World: The Final
BBC One, 9pm
It’s a thrilling finale as the four remaining teams – husband and wife Stephen and Viv, brother and sister James and Betty, mother and daughter Eugenie and Isabel, and friends Alfie and Owen – complete one last leg as they vie for the £20,000 prize. The top two teams – Alfie/Owen and Eugenie/Isabel – start only 12 minutes apart but, as all the players have found previously, anything could happen before they reach their destination. The four couples must make their way from the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, to the island of Lombok, 1,400km away, and it ultimately comes down one last nail-biting race across water to reach the end line. Race Across the World: The Reunion follows after the news at 10.40pm (NI, 11.40pm) on BBC One, when the five original teams reunite in London six months after filming to look back on their adventure. VL
Camden
Disney+
Noel Gallagher, Dua Lipa, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Little Simz, Pete Doherty and Carl Barât of The Libertines, Boy George and Suggs are among the very starry list of names that have been assembled to reminisce about the music history of Camden, north London – from early gigs to many many raucous nights out. VL
Thursday
Eric
Netflix
You could hardly accuse this eccentric six-part drama of lacking originality. Created by Abi Morgan (River, The Split) it stars Benedict Cumberbatch as hard-drinking 1980s New York puppeteer Vincent. He is the genius behind Good Morning Sunshine, a Sesame Street-style children’s show full of colourful puppets and upbeat songs about kindness. The irony is that he is a terrible father; a flaw writ large after he allows his nine-year-old son, Edgar (Ivan Howe), to walk alone to school, leading to him going missing. As the police investigate, Vincent suffers a breakdown, and begins to hallucinate Eric, a giant fluffy monster who tells him to “get your s--t together, a--hole. Let’s go find your f--king kid”. It is compellingly bonkers stuff. Half of it is a sincere missing-persons mystery, following sombre detective Michael Ledroit (McKinley Belcher III) as he untangles a potential sex-trafficking conspiracy. The other half is a tragicomic character study featuring scenes of puppets snorting cocaine. On paper it shouldn’t work and yet it is an intoxicating combination, held together by sharp writing, handsome production values and a mesmerising lead. Stephen Kelly
We Are Lady Parts
Channel 4, 10pm & 10.35pm
The second series of this anarchic comedy – set around a dysfunctional all-female, all-Muslim punk band – is just as brilliant as the first. The two-part premiere picks up with lead guitarist Amina (Anjana Vasan) in her self-described “villain era”, which leads to a superb song about how she will not respond to emails out of work hours. All episodes are on Channel4.com from Thursday. SK
Friday
The Ones Who Live Sky Max, 2am & 9pm “I tried. Please know, I tried.” Rather than Andrew Lincoln talking about resisting a return to the role which has occupied him almost exclusively since 2010, these are the first words of
Lincoln’s Rick Grimes in this spin-off from hit zombie series The Walking Dead. The Ones Who Live finds his redoubtable sheriff trying to track down the equally maverick love of his life, samurai sword-wielding Michonne (Danai Gurira), and his daughter, Judith, who have long presumed him dead. Rick, last seen on screen back in 2019, is now in Philadelphia working for the paramilitary CRM, who are prepared to overlook his dogged detachment and repeated attempts to escape thanks to his zombie-killing talents and obvious leadership potential. Initially intended as a film before the onset of a real-world pandemic, The Ones Who Live inevitably labours in the shadows of such fresher, more vigorous post-apocalyptic epic series as The Last of Us or Fallout, but the occasional set-piece still impresses and Lincoln’s gruff charisma endures. Long-time fans will be delighted by other familiar faces over the six episodes, which are box-setted on Now from Friday. GT
Smart Motorways: The Shocking Truth
Channel 5, 7pm
This is a sober report on the disastrous introduction of smart motorways in Britain, with anecdotal evidence to go with the cautionary statistics, and contributions from The Telegraph’s Steve Bird, who has reported extensively on the subject. GT