Recommended Television Programmes

[Serial_Apologist]

Last night Channel 4 News gave Jon Snow, retiring after 32 years as its chief anchor, a 15-minute farewell segment. Memorable snippets, tributes and overall just rather sad...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_NVo-IEbHs

"Mummy mummy, it's the leftie from Channel 4!" I wonder who put that idea into her head! Jon was starting to show signs of hesitancy in the last year - I hope he's going to be all right. The future of Channel 4 News - the only one worth watching imv - would I feel be safe in "the Guru's" hands.

[jayne lee wilson]

I increasingly rely on the latenight press previews (BBC, Sky, 2230/2330) for News and analysis.....
Martine Croxall, Shaun Ley and of course Clive Myrie are excellent at presentation, interview and subtly leading questions with writers and commentators from across the range of Political Sympathies......

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. The Daily Telegraph arrived here erroneously the other day and I read the editorial, letters, comment and columnists with keen interest...
Talk about a Last Bastion....

[johncorrigan]

I know it won't be to everybody's tastes but I've really enjoyed series 2 of Mackenzie Crook's 'Wurzel Gummidge' reboot. Three lovely programmes with plenty good laughs - a kind of 'Detectorists' for before the watershed, with good messages in there too.

[Cockney Sparrow]

I know it won't be to everybody's tastes but I've really enjoyed series 2 of Mackenzie Crook's 'Wurzel Gummidge' reboot. Three lovely programmes with plenty good laughs - a kind of 'Detectorists' for before the watershed, with good messages in there too.

I've done a methodic watch of all the series of Detectorists and now understand why it received such praise. As it happens the theme of the series coincided with interest in the Anglo Saxons - visits to the British Museum exhibition, Sutton Hoo, Jarrow (Bede - museum/gallery) and the Ian Hislop "Kingdom" radio series.

30 minute programmes, amongst all those one hour episodes filling the schedules, were very welcome. Excellent acting all through and sharply observed and comic writing. Which leads to an interest in Mackenzie Crook, so I will take a look at Worzel Gummidge - thanks.

[johncorrigan]

I've done a methodic watch of all the series of Detectorists and now understand why it received such praise. As it happens the theme of the series coincided with interest in the Anglo Saxons - visits to the British Museum exhibition, Sutton Hoo, Jarrow (Bede - museum/gallery) and the Ian Hislop "Kingdom" radio series.

30 minute programmes, amongst all those one hour episodes filling the schedules, were very welcome. Excellent acting all through and sharply observed and comic writing. Which leads to an interest in Mackenzie Crook, so I will take a look at Worzel Gummidge - thanks.

I think all six programmes from the two series are on the i-player, CS. Some fine musical contributions from the Unthanks too, as there is in 'Detectorists'.

[jayne lee wilson]

Anyone else taken up the Dexter: New Blood reboot? (Sky Atlantic).

Far better than I expected, with a true star turn from the youngster (Jack Alcott) playing Harrison, Dexter's abandoned son... the set-up for the season finale (0300/2100 Monday) is extremely tense; I haven't felt such a thrill of anticipation for some time!

I'm also warming more & more to And Just Like That, the Sex and the City revival. Yes it can a bit too glossy and gossipy, lives of the upper-middle-class New Yorkers etc, but the recent scene where the now middle-aged Carrie wet the bed after a minor operation, calling out helplessly while her bestfriend Miranda, supposed to be her 24/7 carer, was making out (and more...) half-stoned in the kitchen with her new gender-fluid hook-up (the nonbinary Sara Ramirez) was pricelessly back to its best.

Tearful & angry telling-off, confessions and confidences followed...

Oh and The Book of Boba Fett, the latest Disney+ Star Wars offshoot, is just as good as The Mandalorian. So inventive and imaginative. After a baby lizard wriggled into Boba's brain through his nose , the 2nd episode ended with an amazing, slow Ayahuascan-trance-like dance sequence of sacred initiation...

There's a really cool black ammo-festooned Wookiee bodyguard ("Black Krrsantan") too (with the late Jabba the Hutt's twin relatives).... not exactly the lovable Chewli!

[gradus]

A good BBC 4 documentary tonight on the contrast between the general uninformed perception of male ballet dancers and the frequent harsh realities of their short professional life. Filmed at Covent Garden, for me it's only shortcoming was that it said nothing about the future of the young men - the overwhelming majority - who despite years of dedicated work and deeply-held ambitions to dance at the Royal Ballet failed to be selected to join the Company when their training ended. What happens to them?

[Bryn]

A good BBC 4 documentary tonight on the contrast between the general uninformed perception of male ballet dancers and the frequent harsh realities of their short professional life. Filmed at Covent Garden, for me it's only shortcoming was that it said nothing about the future of the young men - the overwhelming majority - who despite years of dedicated work and deeply-held ambitions to dance at the Royal Ballet failed to be selected to join the Company when their training ended. What happens to them?

They go into ICT, of course.

[Nick Armstrong]

I know it won't be to everybody's tastes but I've really enjoyed series 2 of Mackenzie Crook's 'Wurzel Gummidge' reboot. Three lovely programmes with plenty good laughs - a kind of 'Detectorists' for before the watershed, with good messages in there too.

I think they are absolutely joyous… beautifully written, performed and filmed. Such lovely and amusing details in the dialogue and make-up/costumes too. I particularly liked the Guy Fawkes episode with Toby Jones doing an Alex Guinness multi-role turn, and the fun-fair one was great too with Bill Bailey.

Agreed too about the stylistic links with Detectorists - notably the sun-kissed bucolic ‘green and pleasant land’ setting

[alywin]

A good BBC 4 documentary tonight on the contrast between the general uninformed perception of male ballet dancers and the frequent harsh realities of their short professional life. Filmed at Covent Garden, for me it's only shortcoming was that it said nothing about the future of the young men - the overwhelming majority - who despite years of dedicated work and deeply-held ambitions to dance at the Royal Ballet failed to be selected to join the Company when their training ended. What happens to them?

That was a repeat from I think a couple of years ago: Edward Watson retired after The Dante Project last autumn and is now working as a coach to other principal dancers in the company (that reminds me, I must start another thread); Steven McRae appears to have recovered from his horrible injuries and is back on stage, having danced Romeo, a demanding role, last autumn; Daichi (I think it was him) is already doing very nicely, thank you; can't remember who the other dancers were, and didn't watch it this time around. But as for your actual question about what happens to the students who don't get to join the Royal Ballet, other companies are also available, although Brexit - and Covid - are both proving a hindrance. Some students end up going into teaching rather than performing anyway. Some do something completely different, but regardless, the discipline and other transferable skills they've acquired should serve them very nicely in the world of work, and former dance students are very much in demand as a result.

They go into ICT, of course.

I thought that was only for girls called Fatima? :)

[gradus]

That was a repeat from I think a couple of years ago: Edward Watson retired after The Dante Project last autumn and is now working as a coach to other principal dancers in the company (that reminds me, I must start another thread); Steven McRae appears to have recovered from his horrible injuries and is back on stage, having danced Romeo, a demanding role, last autumn; Daichi (I think it was him) is already doing very nicely, thank you; can't remember who the other dancers were, and didn't watch it this time around. But as for your actual question about what happens to the students who don't get to join the Royal Ballet, other companies are also available, although Brexit - and Covid - are both proving a hindrance. Some students end up going into teaching rather than performing anyway. Some do something completely different, but regardless, the discipline and other transferable skills they've acquired should serve them very nicely in the world of work, and former dance students are very much in demand as a result.


I thought that was only for girls called Fatima? :)

Thanks for the response. I'd formed the impression that it was Royal Ballet or bust but I guess that like most of us, dancers have to find a different path if plans go awry. Good to hear that former dance students are in demand and that their years of dedicated preparation for their profession are not wasted.

[alywin]

I should perhaps have mentioned this previously to tie in to my previous reference to The Dante Project, which was shown on BBC4 last night, although I assume it'll be on the iPlayer for weeks. I'm just watching the "Thieves" section from Inferno, loving it once again and giggling because it's just so much fun. Plus there's the great Thomas Ades score to listen to :)

[johncorrigan]

On BBC 4 this evening, it being Rabbie's birthday, a programme from 1996 of Maya Angelou visiting Burn's Country.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013vcs

[Stanfordian]

BBC 4 Crime Drama 'Hidden Assets'

A diamond haul in Limerick, a body in Antwerp and a terrorist bombing campaign. Filmed in Antwerp and County Clare.

Angeline Ball leads the cast as Southern Irish, Detective Sergeant Emer Berry of the (Criminal Assets Bureau), Wouter Hendrickx as Antwerp Police Commissioner Christian De Jong and Simone Kirby as Bibi Melnick make up the main cast for the 6 part series.

One more episode to watch and we are loving it!

[Serial_Apologist]

I should perhaps have mentioned this previously to tie in to my previous reference to The Dante Project, which was shown on BBC4 last night, although I assume it'll be on the iPlayer for weeks. I'm just watching the "Thieves" section from Inferno, loving it once again and giggling because it's just so much fun. Plus there's the great Thomas Ades score to listen to :)

Meaning Sunday night, of course - for anyone wishing to check it out.

Actually on BBC4 last night was the second of weekly sequenced series consisting of previously transmitted programmes on art subjects - last night's effort being from The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution, the clod-hopping Januszac's otherwise very good series in which we learn such fascinating things as that paint tubes and flattened brushes helped importantly in enabling artists to work quickly, and outdoors, and that much of the Parisian cityscapes they worked on were in fact new, Huysmans having only then recently redesigned the architecture and and reconfiguration of the city of neo-Baroque rooftops, frontages and boulevards. This was followed up at 9pm by the final of the 4-parter Art on the BBC: Turner - Light and Landscape (Series 2) with historian Leslie Primo, in a living illustration of the esse est percipi principle, going over the story of television commentaries on art, from Kenneth Clarke to Tim Marlow; and in turn to Marlow's wonderful JMW Turner documentary, Turner: the Man Who Painted Britain. Juxtaposing these three approaches to this subject multi-perspectivally in retrospect is a stroke of programming genius, in my view.