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National Theatre Live: GOOD (2023) #1559
TV DRAMA
Disk
107mins. David Tennant makes a much-anticipated return to the West End in a blistering reimagining of CP Taylor’s renowned and powerful political play, filmed on stage by the National Theatre during its sell-out run. Professor John Halder is a 'good' man. But 'good' men must adapt to survive. As the world faces its second world war, the intelligent and music-loving German professor finds himself pulled into a movement with unthinkable consequences. Olivier Award winner Dominic Cooke directs British playwright CP Taylor’s chilling tale, with a cast that also features Elliot Levey and Sharon Small. |
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Isla (2022) #1422
FILM
Main
1 hour. BBC. During lockdown in 2020 a retired headmaster is given a smart speaker (Isla) by his daughter. Soon there will be more voice-activated digital assistants than people. All are female-gendered. Roger needs company, and he doesn’t want a dog. When his daughter Erin buys him the latest Isla digital assistant, an unexpected relationship between man and technology emerges. But who's really in control? This thought-provoking, and at times troubling, dark comedy written by playwright Tim Price, has been adapted for television following its world premiere at Theatr Clwyd in North Wales. It was helmed by the theatre’s artistic director Tamara Harvey and stars Mark Lambert as retired teacher Roger, who is struggling with lockdown following the death of his wife. Lisa Zahra plays his concerned-but-busy daughter, who thinks a smart speaker is the perfect home help for her lonely dad, but never imagined it would lead to a visit from the police as well as surprising and sometimes upsetting revelations from his past. Expect laughs, technology-induced frustration and some strong language. |
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My Government and I (2022) #1444
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 Hour. BBC. Once a week, the prime minister had a private audience with Her Majesty the Queen, just as Sir Winston Churchill did at the start of her reign. With the help of her surviving prime ministers, William Shawcross examines this critical relationship at the heart of our constitutional system. Featuring interviews with Baroness Thatcher, Lord Callaghan, Sir Edward Heath, Sir John Major, Tony Blair, Theresa May and Boris Johnson. |
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Hamilton (2020) #1508
FILM
Disk
2h 40m The real life of one of America's foremost founding fathers and first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. Captured live on Broadway from the Richard Rodgers Theater with the original Broadway cast. |
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A Wild Year: The North York Moors (2020) #1558
DOCUMENTARY
Disk
14mins In the north east of England lies a wild and remote moorland - 550 square miles of windswept heather-clad uplands and deep, sheltered valleys or dales. These are the North York Moors. Over millennia, this spectacular landscape has been shaped by the elements - by water and ice - and more recently by people. Remote farmsteads are dotted all across the high country. On Dale Head Farm, the Barraclough family raise tough swaledale and cheviot sheep, animals bred for the moorland life. They can be left out on the hill year-round because over many generations they have built up an intimate knowledge of their patch - each flock is ‘hefted’ to the land. The flocks are brought down off the moors to the shelter of the dales a couple of times each year - in the spring for lambing and again in the summer to be shorn of their heavy winter coats. The best shearers can clip 300 sheep in a day. |
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The Unwanted: The Secret Windrush Files (2019) #1200
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. David Olusoga opens secret government files to show how the Windrush scandal and the ‘hostile environment’ for black British immigrants has been 70 years in the making. The film features Sarah O’Connor, Anthony Bryan and Judy Griffith. Settled here legally since childhood, they were re-classified as illegal immigrants by new ‘hostile environment’ regulations. Unable to show proof of their nationality status, they lost jobs, savings and their health, facing deportation back to countries they could barely remember. David reveals how today’s scandal is rooted in the secrets of the past. The first Windrush generation were Commonwealth citizens - many of them ex-servicemen - coming to rebuild war-torn Britain. Yet even before arriving, they were seen by the Government with hostility. Civil servants and MPs warned of dire consequences if what they called a ‘coloured element’ was introduced into the UK. PM Clement Attlee even suggested diverting the Windrush passengers to east Africa - to pick peanuts. The same government was actively recruiting tens of thousands of white volunteer workers from Europe - some of them former members of Waffen-SS regiments which stood accused of war crimes on the Eastern Front - for ‘permanent settlement here with a view to their inter-marrying and complete absorption into our own working population’. The files expose how successive British governments spent the next decade trying to devise a way to prevent further Caribbean arrivals without appearing to discriminate against them. PM Winston Churchill, dissatisfied with ministers’ response to what he saw as a serious problem, kept the issue on the cabinet agenda and a special Working Party was set up to gather information to make the political case for immigration controls. Two weeks after the Queen’s coronation as head of the UK and Commonwealth, a secret race survey was undertaken and completed, looking for proof that Commonwealth immigrants were a burden on the Welfare State. Chief constables in major cities were asked if ‘the coloured community as a whole, or particular sections of it, are generally idle or poor workmen’, and if they were ‘addicted to drug-trafficking or other types of crime’. The Working Party found no evidence for the view that the ‘coloured community’ was less law-abiding or hard working than other Brits. When Harold Macmillan’s government introduced the 1962 Immigration Act, its control mechanism was the employment prospects of would-be immigrants. The files show how home secretary ‘Rab’ Butler, described the ‘great merit’ of the scheme was that it ‘can be presented as making no distinction on grounds of race or colour’, but would, in practice, ‘operate on coloured people almost exclusively’. By that time, Caribbean immigration had shrunk to a fraction of earlier levels. But, fearing further restrictions, the Windrush generation now arranged for their children to come. The ‘children of the Windrush' had full legal rights to join their parents in the UK, and many arrived with little paperwork or official record keeping. Successive governments passed new immigration and nationality legislation, often in response to perceived ‘problems’ or ‘crises’. Harold Wilson rushed through the 1968 Immigration Act, in just three days to stop arrivals of thousands of passport-holding British-Indians living in Kenya, whose businesses and livelihoods were threatened by its government. Edward Heath’s 1971 Act tried to restrict the legal definition of ‘Britishness’. It also placed the burden of proof on the claimant should their Britishness be challenged—a fateful clause for the ‘children of the Windrush’. Throughout the multiple changes to immigration and nationality law enacted up to 2014, the nationality status of the ‘children of Windrush’ remained unchanged and unchallenged. As British citizens with full legal rights to live here, they put down roots, pursued careers, raised children and grandchildren and contributed in ways great and small to the creation of modern Britain. But with the introduction of the so-called ‘hostile environment’ legislation of 2014 and 2016, their situation changed. Though they were never the intended targets of the new laws, the hostile environment machine that evolved over the decade wasn’t designed to make allowances. Suddenly required to prove their status (due to the 1971 Act), Sarah, Anthony and Judy found themselves unable to show the levels of proof demanded by the new ‘hostile environment’ regulations. All three lost their jobs for up to two years and ran up debt trying to make ends meet. Anthony was arrested twice by Immigration Officers and held for weeks in detention centres. Then a ticket was bought to deport him to Jamaica, a country hadn’t seen since he left, aged eight, in 1965. ‘They broke me in there’, Anthony says. ‘It was hard’. Judy Griffith, still struggling to repay her debts, says: ‘It makes you question the whole, what is British? What is Britishness?’ |
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National Theatre Live: Small Island (2019) #1281
FILM
Main
With C.J. Beckford, Jacqueline Boatswain, Gershwyn Eustache Jnr, Andrew Rothney. A journey from Jamaica to Britain, through the Second World War to 1948 - the year the HMT Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury. |
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National Theatre Live: A Midsummer Night's Dream (2019) #1287
FILM
Main
Directed by Nicholas Hytner. With Paul Adeyefa, Hammed Animashaun, Charlotte Atkinson, Oliver Chris. Young lovers, a troupe of actors, and fairies have romantic encounters in the forest on summer's night. |
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From Ice to Fire: The Incredible Science of Temperature (2018) #1087
DOCUMENTARY
Main
3x1 hour. BBC. Dr Helen Czerski goes on a spectacular journey to the extremes of the temperature scale, where everyday laws of physics break down and a new world of scientific possibility begins. 1/3 Frozen Solid. Dr Helen Czerski explores the incredible science of cold and how it has shaped our planet. 2/3 A Temperature for Life. Dr Helen Czerski explores the narrow band of temperature that has led to life on Earth. 3/3 Playing with Fire. Dr Helen Czerski explores the science of heat and how it has shaped the modern world. |
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Pilgrimage: The Road to Santiago (2018) #1088
DOCUMENTARY
Main
3x1 hour. BBC. Seven celebrities tackle a medieval pilgrimage to see whether it still has relevance today. cf Pilgrimage of Compostela - Camino. 1/3 Seven celebrities arrive in Biarritz and make their way to the start of their pilgrimage. 2/3 The celebrity pilgrims leave a hostel in solidarity with Heather when she senses racism. 3/3 The group are now in Galicia, walking the last 100km to Santiago. |
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The Debt Saviours (2018) #1137
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC 2. 5/10/18. Across Britain more than four million people have debts considered unsustainable. Responsibility for advising and helping these vulnerable people is increasingly falling to charities. One of the biggest is Christians Against Poverty (CAP), led by its charismatic founder, Dr John Kirkby CBE, pictured. In this access all areas documentary, director Phillip Wood (Chasing Dad, Rehab), follows Dr Kirkby and some of the charity’s debt coaches. CAP has more than 6,000 staff and volunteers around the country providing help to people who often face losing their homes. The film shows how the home visits often include an offer to pray with clients and asks whether the real motivation is debt relief or bringing people to Jesus, or both. One of the debt coaches featured is Gaz, who has overcome homelessness, dependency issues and losing a marriage before becoming a born-again Christian. He now works for CAP, and in the programme travels to meet donors in Jersey to help raise funds for the charity and to share with CAP’s clients the story of his road out of debt. Holly has been in debt all her young life and lives alone. She can barely afford to heat her home and is desperate for a change in circumstances. Her debt coach takes Holly under her wing as she tries to transform her life. Ronnie was on remand for over two years before he was found not guilty. When he was released from jail he found himself homeless and in debt. He now lives alone in a bedsit, suffers from mental health issues and thinks life in jail was better. His debt coach, Neil, introduces Ronnie to Christianity - but Ronnie isn’t sure what to think. |
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The Palace of Dreams (2018) #1152
DOCUMENTARY
Main
45 mins. Channel 5. The Palace of Dreams Portillo's Hidden History of Britain The New Victoria in Bradford was Britain's first cinema, with a 3,000-seat theatre, a decadent ballroom and state-of-the-art technology. It closed in 2000, but a new generation has reinvented the building. |
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National Theatre Live: Antony & Cleopatra (2018) #1264
FILM
Main
Directed by Simon Godwin. With Ralph Fiennes, Sophie Okonedo, Tim McMullan, Tunji Kasim. Caesar and his assassins are dead. General Mark Antony now rules alongside his fellow defenders of Rome. But at the fringes of a war-torn empire the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra and Mark Antony have fallen fiercely in love. |
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National Theatre Live: Barber Shop Chronicles (2018) #1266
FILM
Main
2 hours. Directed by Olivier award-winning director Bijan Sheibani, Barber Shop Chronicles is a heart-warming, hilarious and insightful new play that leaps from a barber shop in Peckham to Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Lagos and Accra over the course of a single day. |
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National Theatre Live: The Madness of George III (2018) #1279
FILM
Main
Directed by Matthew Diamond. With Nadia Albina, Nicholas Bishop, Mark Gatiss, Debra Gillett. With the King's mind unravelling at a dramatic pace, ambitious politicians and the scheming Prince of Wales threaten to undermine the power of the Crown, and expose the fine line between a King and a man. |
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Stan and Ollie (2018) #1350
FILM
Main
Directed by Jon S. Baird. With Steve Coogan, John C. Reilly, Shirley Henderson, Nina Arianda. Laurel and Hardy, the world's most famous comedy duo, attempt to reignite their film careers as they embark on what becomes their swan song - a grueling theatre tour of post-war Britain. |
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Who Do You Think You Are? Sir Ian McKellen (2017) #974
DOCUMENTARY
Main
BBC 1 hour. As the 'last of the McKellens', Sir Ian admits to a degree of melancholy as he delves into his family history. But the results pay off richly for one of Britain's greatest actors and civil rights champions. Ian's journey uncovers a theatrical ancestor, a Victorian political activist and a link to an ancient druidical landmark in the Lake District. |
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Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017) #1115
FILM
Main
Directed by Angela Robinson. With Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall, Bella Heathcote, Connie Britton. The story of psychologist William Moulton Marston, and his polyamorous relationship with his wife and their mistress who would inspire his creation of the superheroine, Wonder Woman. |
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National Theatre Live: Twelfth Night (2017) #1258
FILM
Main
Directed by Simon Godwin. With Adam Best, Oliver Chris, Claire Cordier, Imogen Doel. Tamsin Greig is Malvolia in a new twist on Shakespeare's classic comedy of mistaken identity. A ship is wrecked on the rocks. Viola is washed ashore but her twin brother Sebastian is lost. Determined to survive on her own, she steps out to explore a new land. So begins a whirlwind of mistaken identity and unrequited love. |
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National Theatre Live: Amadeus (2017) #1293
FILM
Main
Directed by Michael Longhurst. With Sarah Amankwah, Hammed Animashaun, Geoffrey Beevers, Karla Crome. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a rowdy young prodigy, arrives in Vienna, the music capital of the world - and he's determined to make a splash. |