WTW – what to watch this week
Tennis: Australian Open
The Australian Open draws to an end with Sue Barker introducing the tournament’s latest highlights and serves up analysis of the finals’ key moments.
Women’s finals highlights, BBC One Saturday at 2:15pm
Men’s finals highlights, BBC One Sunday 21st at 1:50pm
To Olivia
Sky Cinema, Saturday 20th at 3:45pm and On Demand
In 1962, Roald Dahl and his Hollywood movie star wife Patricia Neal fled the hustle and bustle of New York to raise their children in the English countryside. To Olivia tells the tragic story of their 7-year-old daughter, Olivia, catching measles and dying. Her devastating death crippled the couple with grief, enough to deter Dahl from writing for years. The strength they were forced to muster changed their lives forever, and eventually gave Dahl the courage to complete Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 1964.
Bloodlands
BBC One, Sunday 21st at 9pm
From Line of Duty and Bodyguard’s Jed Mercurio, Bloodlands promises to bring some much-needed excitement to a lockdown Sunday night. The audience follow the life of Tom Brannick, played by James Nesbitt, a Northern Irish police detective who discovers a possible suicide note at a car abdoned in Strangford Lough. In true detective drama fashion, the note appears to be linked to a cold case from Brannick’s past as an explosive game of cat and mouse ensues. The series announces the arrival of the “Irish Noir” genre as a modern day thriller with a nod to Ireland’s emotive history.
Unforgotten
ITV, Monday 21st at 9pm
The dynamic cold case detective duo DCI Cassie Stuart and DI Sunny Khan are back for a fourth series. This season will see Cassie and her backpack-carrying sidekick tackle a historic murder case as they discover secrets long forgotten in the pursuit of justice. All the while, as an key ingredient of the brooding British detective genre, Cassie will also face personal problems at home. It is rumoured this latest series will display timely elements with creator Chris Lang teasing it will tackle the community’s views of the police.
Pele
Netflix, Tuesday 23rd
Directed by Ben Nicholas and David Tryhorn, this new documentary tells the story of the legendary footballer and his quest for absolute perfection. It follows the life of the only man to win three world cup titles as he went from football superstar to inspiration. The film also includes archive footage of interviews with former teammates of Zagallo, Jairzinho and Rivellino.
Blitz Spirit with Lucy Worsley
BBC One, Tuesday 23rd at 8:30pm
Emulating a similar style to Worseley’s film about the suffragettes, the programme will explore the lives of six individuals who lived, worked and volunteered in the Blitz. From a 17-year-old Jewish shopgirl from Essex, Nina Masel, to a full-time fireman whose job meant keeping the raging fires from the bombings at bay, Frank Hurd, the hour and a half special shines a light on those who knew what it really meant to keep calm and carry on.
Adam Curtis’s Can’t You Out of My Head
Following the success of his documentaries Bitter Lake and Hypernormalisation, the maverick filmmaker Adam Curtis’s grandly titled “an emotional history of the modern world” is available to watch on iPlayer. Watch out for crazy jump-cuts, lots of footage of upper class people dancing and ponderous Curtis voice-overs intoning phrases like “but this was a fantasy”, “out of touch elites” and “technological utopia”.
Breathtaking: Life and Death in a Time of Contagion with Dr Rachel Clarke
NI Science Festival, Wednesday 24th at 8pm
Dr Rachel Clarke is a palliative care doctor and author of Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a time of pandemic, who has treated the most gravely unwell in her hospital over the last year. Hosted by Jan Carson, the show will explore how this new age of contagion makes you pay attention to what really matters. The event is free to attend, but you will need to book a place in advance here.
Reform inside Economic & Monetary Union and the limits of parliamentary government: the case of Greece
Birbeck, University of London, Thursday 25th at 6:15pm
This Jean Monnet Chair online talk brings together academics and practitioners to discuss the handling of a crisis in a parliamentary democracy that is a member of the Eurozone. Debate will be centred around the key questions of what challenges were posed in this case? How were they perceived? And, did parliamentary democracy prove incompatible with the radical changes the crisis installed? There will also be a Q&A session at the end. The event is free to attend, but you will need to book a place in advance here.