BLACK OPS | ANDREW: THE PROBLEM PRINCE | INSIDE NO. 9

This article was originally published in The Courier on 29th April 2023. 

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Black Ops – Friday, BBC One, 9:30pm

A sharp, funny, likeable comedy thriller, Black Ops revolves around two Police Community Support Officers, Dom and Kay, who are tasked with infiltrating an East London drug gang.

 Why them? The chief investigating officer is desperate, as top brass keep sending him entirely unsuitable white undercover operatives. It’s almost as if they want his investigation to fail. 

Dom and Kay are an endearingly hapless double-act; actors Gbemisola Ikumelo and Hammed Animashaun share a natural chemistry that’s quite delightful to behold. 

Black Ops is a comedy of substance, it challenges casual everyday racism and negative stereotypes. It’s also an unabashedly daft farce, albeit one with a tangible sense of peril bubbling under the surface. An ideal blend.

Clive Myrie’s Italian Road Trip – Monday to Friday, BBC Two, 6:30pm

Myrie’s specialist subject is Italy, it’s his favourite holiday destination. 

“The friendliest, most inspiring and most beautiful place on Earth,” enthuses the journalist, newsreader and Mastermind host as he embarks upon a textbook celebrity travelogue. It’s jolly, undemanding and fairly educational. You know the well-oiled drill by now. 

Myrie’s scenic journey begins in the Sassi di Matera, one of Italy’s oldest human settlements. A winding network of streets and caves, it used to be a ghost town. These days it’s a busy world heritage site. 

Meanwhile, in Puglia, he meets an affable Scotsman who runs an olive farm, and digs some upbeat local folk music. Myrie is a pleasant, thoughtful tour guide, he’s good company.

Canal Boat Diaries – Monday to Thursday, BBC Four, 7:30pm

The latest series of this tranquil and rather melancholy distraction reunites us with softly-spoken wanderer Robbie Cumming, a bespectacled and flat-capped youngish man of no fixed abode apart from his beloved narrowboat, The Naughty Lass. 

We follow him during a picturesque 300 mile autumn/winter canal journey around the north of England and the Midlands. 

Cumming appears to be living the dream, but his personal life hasn’t been great of late. Puttering down rivers and canals is a means of escape. “You’ve just got to keep moving forward, haven’t you?” he ponders rhetorically. 

Every episode of Canal Boat Diaries is basically the same, but there’s no need to tinker with such a winning formula.

Andrew: The Problem Prince – Monday, Channel 4, 9pm

This absorbing two-part documentary presents the inside story of Prince Andrew’s notorious 2019 interview with the BBC’s Emily Maitlis, during which he made a jaw-dropping spectacle of himself while trying to dodge allegations about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. 

Prior to 2019, Andrew was chiefly known in the public sphere as ‘Randy Andy’, the globe-trotting playboy monarch. But no one really paid much attention to him at all. Then along came the Epstein scandal. 

In their infinite wisdom, Andrew’s office felt that a BBC interview would allow the Prince to explain himself. We all know what happened next. 

Maitlis and Newsnight booker Sam McAlister provide some insight into how that PR disaster came about.

Margaret Atwood: This Cultural Life – Monday, BBC Four, 10pm

The great Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale and numerous other bestselling novels, sits down with skilled interviewer John Wilson for a revealing half-hour chat. She is, as you would expect, utterly delightful, witty and eloquent. 

Atwood opens up about her formative creative influences, which include George Orwell’s 1984 (“I’ve always been interested in dictatorships,” she says) and a remote rural childhood overseen by supportive if rather unconventional parents. 

She also reflects upon the experience of writing The Handmaid’s Tale while living in West Berlin in – yes – 1984. It was inspired, not only by her immediate surroundings, but by the rise of the evangelical Christian right in America. Its grave warnings resonate to this day.

First Dates – Monday, Channel 4, 10pm

Diners in the restaurant of love this week include a young nutrition student who doesn’t quite know how to deal with flirtatious compliments, and a male nurse whose date tells all about his failed marriage. They bond over a shared love of dogs. 

We also meet a 60-year-old farmer who wows/startles his date with some beetroot, and a woman who’s besotted with the Liverpool accent. Well, wouldn’t you know it, her blind date is a born-and-bred Scouser. 

The benignly scheming artisans behind First Dates know exactly what they’re doing, and that’s why it works. It speaks to the hopeless romantic in all of us. Even a withered old solitary cynic like me can’t resist its charms.

Inside No. 9 – Thursday, BBC Two, 10pm

Did you know that Paraskevidekatriaphobia is the term ascribed to people with a chronic fear of Friday 13^th? Well you do now. 

It’s also the title of this splendid episode, in which Reece Shearsmith plays a man hoping to spend his most dreaded day of the year at home alone. He is, of course, rudely interrupted. 

Here we find Inside No. 9 in full-on frantic farce mode. Shearsmith provides further proof that no one in the modern-day annals of comedy is better at portraying pedantic little men with barely suppressed anger issues. He simmers, seethes and suffers for our eternal amusement. A great comic actor. 

Also, the final shot is perfect, it made me laugh out loud.

LAST WEEK’S TV

Little Richard: King and Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll – Saturday 22nd April, BBC Two

Little Richard was, and is, the raw euphoric essence of rock ‘n’ roll. His music was hard and sexy, fast and funky. A volcanic piano-pumping explosion. 

This terrific documentary felt definitive, it told the complex story of a uniquely gifted pioneer who struggled with various issues throughout his life. 

Richard was gay, Black and devoutly religious. He loved playing ‘sinful’ music, it stirred his innately provocative soul while making people happy, but he was also consumed with guilt.

Richard had nothing to feel ashamed of, but that’s easy for a straight Godless white man like me to say. He endured decades of racism, homophobia and exploitation. I hope he met his maker knowing how much he was adored.

I’m a Celebrity… South Africa – Monday 24th April, STV

It’s been a winter staple for 21 years, so I’m surprised it’s taken ITV this long to milk one of its most sure-fire ratings winners with a spring break. 

Same show, different location, I’m a Celebrity… South Africa gathers together some former contestants, including Janice Dickinson, Shaun Ryder and Carol Vorderman, for another barrage of trials and nonsense. 

It’s very much business as usual, although I was disappointed when hosts Ant and Dec, who are usually so amusing and likeable in this particular context, made a cheap gag at the expense of Janice Dickinson’s cosmetic surgery. Not cool, lads. Not cool at all. 

Their usual writers, who tend to judge the tone correctly, must be on holiday.

INSIDE NO. 9 | GUILT | EVICTED

This article was originally published in The Courier on 22nd April 2023.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Inside No. 9 – Thursday, BBC Two, 10pm

Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith have decided, with strict numerical efficiency, to end their outstanding anthology when series nine goes out next year. Leave ‘em wanting more.

Series eight begins with a typically odd and unpredictable story. Pemberton and Shearsmith play the orphaned sons of nasty East End villains indulging in a desperate act of necromancy. 

I won’t elaborate, this column is a spoiler-free zone, but it’s an enjoyable pastiche of violent cockney gangster tropes in which guest stars Phil Daniels and Anita Dobson run riot. 

There is nothing else remotely like Inside No. 9 on British TV, it harks back to the days when unusual standalone plays cropped up on a semi-regular basis. We’ll miss it.

Nelly & Nadine: Ravensbruck, 1944 – Tuesday, BBC Four, 10pm

I urge you to watch this incredibly moving Storyville documentary about two women, Nelly Mousset-Vos and Nadine Hwang, who fell in love while imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. 

It’s built around Nelly’s archive of letters and home movies, which are now in the possession of her granddaughter Sylvie. As you can imagine, Sylvie initially finds it very difficult to pore through the eloquently written and evocatively filmed remnants of Nelly’s life with Nadine.

The director understands that, hence why he ever so gently encourages her to reflect upon a beautiful love story forged under harrowing conditions. 

“You get a window into their lives,” says Sylvie at one point, “a sense of the intimacy between these two people.” 

Guilt – Tuesday, BBC Scotland, 10pm/Thursday, BBC Two, 9pm

The final series of Neil Forsyth’s darkly comic and deservedly acclaimed thriller begins with Max and Jake, our eternally unfortunate sibling protagonists, hiding out in Chicago. It’s not long, however, before an act of financial impropriety on Max’s part forces a return back home to Edinburgh. 

As usual, they find themselves trapped in an escalating state of mortal danger. 

This cult hit is ingenious, funny, gripping and perfectly cast; Mark Bonnar and Jamie Sives are a deadpan delight. It also answers a question no one had hitherto considered: what if the Coen Brothers were a man from Dundee? 

If you haven’t wallowed in Guilt before, then catch up with the first two series on iPlayer. You won’t regret it.

The Mysterious Mr Lagerfeld – Wednesday, BBC Two, 9pm

Fashion supremo Karl Lagerfeld was a flamboyant enigma. With his instantly identifiable look – white ponytail, leather gloves and sunglasses – he was, like Warhol, a living work of pop art who made a significant contribution to his chosen field while keeping the world at arm’s length. 

In this documentary from the BBC’s august Arena strand, wry filmmaker Michael Waldman goes in search of the ‘real’ Lagerfeld. 

Conversations with members of his inner circle – some of the most delightfully French people you will ever meet – sketch a portrait of a decent, kind, yet insecure and sometimes exasperating eccentric. 

You get the sense that Waldman is simultaneously pleased and disappointed to discover that Lagerfeld had no dark secrets.

Evicted – Thursday, BBC Three, 9pm 

An angering frontline report from our cost of living crisis, this new series follows several young people as they experience the horror of eviction.  

Thai is informed that her bedsit rent has increased by two thirds. That will swallow up over half of her monthly salary. Mother of two Dawn is about to have her home repossessed. Tobias is refusing to leave his flat. The constant threat of eviction and destitution is playing havoc with his mental health. 

Evicted highlights a dire social injustice. The odds are stacked against these kids, no one should have to struggle like this.

Scotland Sings – Thursday, BBC Scotland, 10pm

Yvie Burnett from Aberdeen is one of Britain’s most successful vocal coaches. She’s tutored the likes of Susan Boyle, Leona Lewis and Sam Smith among many others. 

In this new series, Burnett assembles a choir of talented singers struggling with anxiety and social isolation. 

She’s not looking for a star, that’s not the point. This is a commendable study of how creative expression and collaboration can improve our mental health. 

Burnett has worked with Simon Cowell, but Scotland Sings doesn’t operate along that man's lines. 

Sure, it hits the talent show beats we’re all familiar with. Those beats work, however, when the driving spirit is generous and encouraging. Burnett comes across as a nice person whose aim is true. An uplifting exercise.  

Unreported World – Friday, Channel 4, 7:30pm

The 44^th series of this global current affairs juggernaut continues with a Japan-based community of North Koreans who feel a close bond with their notoriously oppressive homeland. 

They’re part of the Chongryon, a powerful residents association directly linked to the North Korean regime. Its members have faced decades of discrimination in Japan. Pupils who attend Chongryon-funded schools hide their uniforms while walking down the street. 

Has this awful everyday racism encouraged their allegiance towards North Korea? How could it not? 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I tip my hat to Channel 4 for investigating complex socio-political issues every Friday at 7:30pm. TV of this nature should always be encouraged.

PAINTING BIRDS WITH JIM & NANCY MOIR | DEBORAH JAMES: BOWELBABE IN HER OWN WORDS | THE HIGHS AND LOWS OF A KOSHER MARRIAGE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 15th April 2023.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Painting Birds with Jim & Nancy Moir – Thursday, Sky Showcase, 8pm

Jim Moir, aka Vic Reeves, has combined his lifelong passion for drawing and painting with a love of birdwatching. 

In this tranquil new series, Jim and his wife Nancy travel around the more scenic parts of Britain in search of feathered treasure. It’s an absorbing celebration of creativity and the natural world. 

Jim is no dilettante, he’s a talented artist; each episode involves him painting a delicate portrait of the birds he spies along the way. His sweet relationship with Nancy is central to the show’s appeal, they’re easy-going company. 

Fans of Great Canal Journeys with Prunella Scales and Timothy West – as well as Gone Fishing with Jim’s erstwhile comedy partner Bob Mortimer – will find much to enjoy here.

Deborah James: Bowelbabe in Her Own Words – Monday, BBC Two, 9pm

Deborah James was diagnosed with incurable bowel cancer at the age of 35. Via podcasts, blogs and a hugely popular social media presence, she shared her story to raise awareness and reach out to people in a similar situation. 

This moving documentary, which was filmed during the last few months of her life in 2022, follows Deborah as she arranges her “death admin”. It’s an understandably difficult watch at times, especially towards the end, but Deborah’s frankness is to her eternal credit. 

She was funny, charming, articulate and always truthful about just how awful it is to live with cancer. Her Bowelbabe Fund for Cancer Research UK has so far raised more than £7 million. She made a difference.

First Dates – Monday, Channel 4, 10pm

The latest series of this romantic old warhorse commences with a father of three who can’t find someone to accommodate his somewhat complicated family commitments. 

We also spend time with an avid gamer who’d quite like to meet a fellow ‘geek’, a former holiday rep and fulltime dog lover, and an acting student who requires a similarly creative partner in her life. 

I haven’t seen this particular episode, preview copies weren’t available, but I’ll always flag up First Dates whenever space allows. 

If you’ve somehow never seen it before, well, it’s not what you might expect from a shamelessly contrived show in which we eavesdrop upon first daters in a restaurant. Voyeuristic, yes, but never cruel. A cute endeavour.

Manhunt: The Raoul Moat Story – Wednesday, STV, 9pm

Thirteen years ago, Raoul Moat from Tyneside embarked upon a killing spree. One of the biggest manhunts in British police history ensued. 

This grimly compelling documentary features interviews with police officers, journalists and, most importantly, family members of one of Moat’s victims, Christopher Brown. 

There’s no denying that programmes of this nature prey upon our discomfiting fascination with terrible crimes and the circumstances surrounding them, but this one is more tasteful than most. It does at least pay tribute to the people who lost their lives during those eight days of high alert. 

The Hunt for Raoul Moat, a three-part ITV drama based on the case, begins on Sunday 16th April. I’ll review that in next week’s column.

The Highs and Lows of a Kosher Marriage – Wednesday, BBC One, 10:40pm

This epistle from the Love, Faith and Me strand focuses on Saul and Shoshi, a happily married young couple who observe the strict laws of their Orthodox Jewish faith. They avoid all physical contact for twelve days of every month, when Shoshi has her period. The marital bed is separated to avoid temptation. 

The couple, who first met as teenagers, ruminate candidly about their devout faith and their struggle to conceive. 

They also gently disagree at times. Shoshi asserts that she already has a loving family with Saul, she’s content with what they have together, but he thinks there’s no such thing as a family without children. 

Like every episode of this series, it’s illuminating and non-judgemental.

Taskmaster – Thursday, Channel 4, 10:30pm

In this week’s crackerjack tumult of entertaining silliness, Kiell Smith-Bynoe is forced to play Bingo without any shoes on, Mae Martin treats us to an unorthodox drum solo, and the entire team of our professionally mirth-making contestants - Smith-Bynoe, Martin, Frankie Boyle, Jenny Éclair and Ivo Graham – are tasked with devising an ingenious egg-carrying boat race. 

Taskmaster is basically Heinz Wolff’s Great Egg Race – there’s a reference for the teenagers – with a more knowing cadence, and that’s precisely why it works. An endless streak of inventiveness and a whole load of nonsense unified in tandem for our entertainment. 

And your kids, if you have kids or find yourselves kid adjacent, will enjoy it too. Actual family fun.

Unreported World – Friday, Channel 4, 7:30pm

The latest episode of this current affairs stalwart involves investigative reporter Guillermo Galdos following Brazilian federal police officers as they crack down on illegal Amazonian gold mining. 

Brazil officially exports a hundred tonnes of gold each year, but evidence suggests that almost half of the country’s gold trade comes from illegal sources. This has raised serious concerns for tech companies using gold in their products. 

Galdos discovers that the police have spent the last two years building a case against gold traders suspected of selling their ill-gotten gains to tech giants such as Apple. He also travels deep into the Amazon rainforests to witness first-hand the huge amount of damage wrought by the illegal gold mining trade.

PAUL O'GRADY: FOR THE LOVE OF DOGS | COLIN FROM ACCOUNTS | RAIN DOGS

This article was originally published in The Courier on 8th April 2023.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Paul O’Grady: For the Love of Dogs – Thursday, STV, 8:30pm

When Paul O’Grady passed away recently at the untimely age of 67, the multitude of tributes spoke volumes. 

This was no mere showbiz personality. He was beloved, unique, a naturally funny and thoroughly decent human being whose kindness was informed by his lifelong loathing of social injustice. 

I can’t, off the top of my head, think of another acerbic working-class socialist drag queen who became – and he always understandably blanched at this mantle – a national treasure. 

We’ll miss him. Hence why this final series of For the Love of Dogs, recorded not long before he died, will be a bittersweet viewing experience. A reliably lovely show hosted by a reliably lovely man. RIP.

Designing the Hebrides – Monday, BBC Scotland, 10pm/Wednesday, BBC Two, 8pm

The talented interior designer Banjo Beale (great name, great guy) fronts this charming new series in which he gets his own business off the ground. 

Beale, who was born in Australia, has lived on the Isle of Mull for the last eight years. In episode one, the BBC’s Interior Design Masters winner is tasked with transforming a traditional family-run Tobermory fish shop while making sure to retain its tasteful heritage. 

Along the way he seeks advice from his husband Ro and a supportive team of merrily toiling artisan recruits. “This is my first big commercial job here on Mull,” he declares. “If I don’t get it right there will be no more.” SPOILER: There will be more.

Colin from Accounts – Tuesday, BBC Two, 10pm

Written by and starring husband-and-wife team Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer, this likeable, dry-witted Australian comedy revolves around Gordon and Ashley, a rather dysfunctional and seemingly mismatched couple who ‘meet cute’ when Gordon accidentally hits an adorable little dog with his car. 

As you would expect, Brammall and Dyer share a natural chemistry, they bounce off each other nicely. Fumbling awkwardness can sometimes be an irritating comic conceit, but Colin from Accounts uses it as a starting point for some satisfying silliness and sharp lines. This is not your standard rom-com. 

And just in case you’re wondering, the meaning behind that title is explained towards the end of episode one. 

Rain Dogs – Tuesday, BBC One, 10:40pm

In episode two of this excellent black comedy-drama about a group of misfits barely scraping by, we spend some time with single mum Costello (Daisy May Cooper) as she goes through the motions of her unloved day job in a Soho peep show. 

Costello prefers making a bit of money from posing as a cleaner for a sleazy yet harmless old alcoholic artist played by Adrian Edmondson. We also discover that she’s a talented writer.

Rain Dogs is a refreshingly blunt and bitterly funny attack on the ways in which people living on the breadline are cruelly disregarded by right-wingers and patronised by shallow middle-class liberals. Both groups misunderstand the likes of Costello and her surrogate family. 

Stacey Dooley: Ready for War? – Wednesday, BBC Three, 9pm

Dooley’s latest investigative report follows a group of young Ukrainian civilians as they arrive in the UK for five weeks of intensive army training. They will be taught how to kill and how to survive in the war against Russia. 

“This isn’t training on the off chance that one day they may end up in a warzone,” says Dooley, “this is them seriously preparing themselves to be on that frontline in five weeks’ time.” 

Her interviewees include a welder who is prepared to give his life in order for his child to grow up in a free country, and a florist who has family members already fighting on the frontline. As always, Dooley asks all the right questions and listens. 

Unreported World – Friday, Channel 4, 7:30pm

Lebanon is currently in the grip of a catastrophic banking crisis. The so-called ‘Switzerland of the Middle East’ crashed back in 2019. Over a million Lebanese people have been locked out of their bank accounts; if they’re lucky, they can withdraw a few hundred pounds a month. 

The latest series of Channel 4’s long-running foreign affairs strand kicks off with the story of an utterly desperate couple who are planning to rob a bank. It’s the only way to get hold of their savings. 

Your roving reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy illustrates just how dire things are. Lebanon’s government is paralysed and its banks resemble fortresses. The people are angry, revolution is in the air 

Late Night Lycett – Friday, Channel 4, 10pm

Two weeks ago, Joe Lycett signed off the first episode of his latest comedy vehicle with these poignant words: “This one’s for Paul O’Grady”. 

It was no mere showbiz platitude; Late Night Lycett is infused with O’Grady’s recently departed spirit. He would’ve loved the daft chaos and pointed subversion of this thoroughly inclusive hoot of alternative light entertainment hosted by a vocally left-wing gay comedian gleefully needling bores and bigots. 

It’s a live show, so God only knows what Friday’s episode will involve, but this much I can guarantee: it won’t be drab. The sly, unflappable Lycett was born to do this, he’s finally found a TV format to suit his talents.

LAST WEEK’S TV

Magpie Murders – Saturday 1st April, BBC One

The great Lesley Manville stars in this meta-textual murder mystery as a literary editor whose comfortable life is capsized when one of her most successful authors delivers an unfinished manuscript. 

Why is the last chapter missing? The ailing and preternaturally cantankerous author has apparently taken his own life. 

Magpie Murders is admirably ambitious for a mainstream show of this nature. A la The Singing Detective, writer Anthony Horowitz weaves the melancholy period exploits of a fictional sleuth into his present-day narrative. 

However, it’s all a bit too arch for its own good. I welcome the cleverness and irony, but I don’t find it particularly engaging as a piece of entertainment. It feels so far like a theoretical exercise.

Highland Cops – Sunday 2nd April, BBC Scotland

This resolutely solemn frontline series follows Police Scotland’s Highlands and Islands Division as they go about their daily crime and emergency-solving business in an otherwise beautiful part of the world. 

It began with an investigation into suspected deer poaching, the seizure of some illegal drugs being sent through the post, a nocturnal detour into the apparently widespread problem of antisocial drivers in their souped-up cars, and the rigorous yet ultimately fruitless search for a missing survival expert. 

That last case lingered as the closing credits rolled, there was no uplifting coda: the poor man still hasn’t been found. 

Highland Cops is a solidly-crafted addition to an unstoppable TV genre. It fulfils its duty.

DOG DAYS | RAIN DOGS | HOLLYWOOD BULLDOGS: THE RISE AND FALLS OF THE GREAT BRITISH STUNTMAN

This article was originally published in The Courier on 1st April 2023.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Dog Days – Friday, BBC iPlayer

Set in Dundee, this outstanding social-realist drama follows a guitar-toting homeless man as he struggles to rebuild his life. 

Hats off to writer/director James Price and his brilliant cast for presenting a sometimes darkly funny, fundamentally moving yet entirely unsentimental depiction of people who have fallen through the cracks in society. 

Dog Days is raw and honest, it exposes the ways in which vulnerable people are exploited by opportunistic street-level criminals and left to rot by our ruling classes. 

The whole series, which unfolds over six ten-minute episodes, will be exclusively available on iPlayer from Friday 7th April. I'm not one for hyperbole, but it’s the best thing you’re about to see on TV so far this year.

Long Lost Family: What Happened Next – Tuesday, STV, 9pm

In the latest spin-off from this reliably touching series, hosts Nicky Campbell and Davina McCall revisit some of the families they’ve reunited over the last 12 years. 

How easy is it to build a relationship with someone after a lifetime spent apart? And what happens when one of the show’s searches doesn’t go quite as planned? In episode one we catch up with two memorable cases. 

Joselyn had been desperately searching for her brother, James, for over 20 years. Roy, who discovered at eighteen that he’d been adopted, asked the show to help him find his birth mother. Needless to say, their lives have never been quite the same since. 

Long Lost Family never fails to tug the heartstrings. It's a sincere endeavour. 

Rain Dogs – Tuesday, BBC One, 10:40pm

Daisy May Cooper stars as the brilliantly named Costello Jones in this commendably anger-fuelled black comedy drama about a homeless single mum and her young daughter. 

It begins with them being evicted from their London flat. The only person they can count on is a dissolute Withnail-esque fop with a violent streak. He’s Costello’s best friend. 

A deftly written and performed riposte to disingenuously concerned ‘poverty porn’, Rain Dogs is – as per its Tom Waits-inspired title – a sympathetic portrayal of people living on the margins. 

By sheer coincidence, it just so happens to be a more overtly comic yet no less serious companion piece to this week’s similarly titled highlight, Dog Days.  

Get On Up: The Triumph of Black America – Thursday, BBC Two, 9pm

In the final chapter of David Harewood’s absorbing essay about the global impact of African American pop culture, he covers the rise of Hip Hop - the most significant and influential musical movement of the last 40 years. 

Adjacent detours include Spike Lee’s seminal Do The Right Thing and hit 1990s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, both of which did so much to challenge negative stereotypes about Black people. 

Harewood also reflects upon the vital legacy of The Wire, an unvarnished expose of systemic racism and economic inequality featuring a primarily Black cast. 

He concludes by celebrating artists such as Ryan Coogler and Donald Glover, who continue the conversation while drawing inspiration from their African heritage.

Hollywood Bulldogs: The Rise and Falls of the Great British Stuntman – Thursday, ITVX

This fascinating feature-length documentary pays heartfelt tribute to some of Britain’s greatest stunt performers, those unsung stars of cinema who made action heroes such as James Bond and Indiana Jones look so fine. 

Packed with often terrifying clips of death-defying stunts, the Ray Winstone-narrated film pivots around candid interviews with a lovely bunch of elder statesmen, all of whom are only too happy to share their colourful tales while eulogising fallen comrades. 

These guys are pros, experts, pivotal players in the creative process. They deserve our respect, hence why they only have a bad word to say for one particular director. The late Michael Winner comes across as an awful bully with scant regard for the safety of his gifted stuntmen.

Pilgrimage: The Road Through Portugal – Friday, BBC Two, 9pm

If, like me, you’ve always dreamed of following Su Pollard on a profound journey towards spiritual enlightenment, then strap yourselves in for a dream come true. 

Yes, it’s the return of Pilgrimage, a show in which celebrities of differing faiths and beliefs trek through scenic vistas while contemplating the very nub of existence. 

This time they’re following in the footsteps of three early 20^th century Catholic children who reportedly witnessed apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Pollard’s fellow pilgrims include former boyband sensation Shane Lynch, reality TV star Vicky Pattison and the endearingly nerdy maths teacher/broadcaster Bobby Seagull. 

Ignore my knee-jerk snark, folks, this is a perfectly pleasant and well-meaning exercise. It means no actual harm. 

The Cleaner – Friday, BBC One, 9:30pm

In the latest episode of Greg Davies’ enjoyable blood-stained farce about a disgruntled crime scene cleaner, Wicky is working a night shift. Begrudgingly of course. 

“This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” he moans. “And bear in mind an old fiancée left me for a taxi driver, my mum is dead and a doctor recently described me as uniquely fat.” 

While cleaning a technology shop, he’s startled by the unsettling presence of a shelf stacker (Asim Chaudhry from People Just Do Nothing). He’s a conspiracy theorist who’s preparing for the End of Days. 

A lesser show would make fun of this deluded fool and leave it there, but Davies squeezes some pathos from his futile plight.

LAST WEEK’S TV

Blue Lights – Monday 27th March, BBC One

I daresay you’re aware of the term ‘copaganda’: police-based films and TV shows which unquestioningly present law enforcement officers as great people doing everything they can to protect the public under difficult circumstances. 

Reality is obviously more nuanced and complicated than that. 

BBC drama Blue Lights, although it inevitably flirts with all the usual copaganda tropes, does deliver a seemingly quite authentic portrayal of Belfast-based response officers. Not that I’d know, I’m a largely housebound television critic, but if nothing else its dry wit elevates it beyond certain shows of this nature. 

Blue Lights is an above average cop show. We’ve seen it all before, though, and we’ll see it all again.

Jason & Clara: In Memory of Maudie – Thursday 30th March, ITV

In the early hours of 1^st January 2011, a two-and-a-half-year-old girl by the name of Maudie died of sepsis. Maudie was, and is, the daughter of actor Jason Watkins and his wife Clara Francis. 

A moving meditation on grief, this documentary followed Jason and Clara as part of their campaign to raise awareness of sepsis while offering some hope to other bereaved parents. 

A genuinely valuable piece of television, it highlighted the importance of talking about bereavement. It’s far from easy, that goes without saying. 

Losing a loved one, especially one so young, is utterly devastating; but there are people out there who understand what you’re going through. Help is available.