We are not, it is true, the most obviously deserving bunch. No one has ever held a knit sale in our honour or gone on a sponsored walk to fund the tea and biscuits that are the lifeblood of the profession. But spare a thought for the poor blooming television previewers, for now is the summer of our discontent.
Yup, the fitba is on. Then it will be the tennis and the Olympics, and day by day the cupboard empties of new programmes to recommend. Swathes have been cut out of the schedules, programmes pushed en masse to other channels. Who knows where anything is. This must be what it is like to be a River City fan.
In fact, the schedulers have done not too shabby a job in keeping regular shows, the soaps, the quizzes, on the road. (That said, viewers of Coronation Street were told on Wednesday they would have to wait till Tuesday for the next instalment.) Overall there is a notable shortage of new series. It’s off to the streamers or the cinema if you can afford it, but if not your best bets are past glories, beginning with Talking Heads: The Hand of God (BBC4, Sunday, 11.35pm). Showing as part of an evening to celebrate Dame Eileen Atkins’ 90th birthday, this is the one where she plays an antiques dealer fallen on tough times.
Celia is a lady of uncertain provenance but she believes herself to be a cut above. Not for her the desperate ploys of other dealers to bring in money, such as making jams and chutney, as requested by a customer the other day.
“I said, I’ll start doing chutney, madam, when Tesco start doing gate leg tables.”
Every line is unmistakably Alan Bennett, yet the actors chosen to perform his material bring their own treasures to the table. Atkins, for instance, is a dab hand at lethal haughtiness. Her Celia may appear concerned for the increasingly frail old lady who passes by the shop window each day, or she could be planning to rob her blind.
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I vaguely remember a media fuss about The Cops (BBC4, Wednesday, 10.15pm), and the opening scene of a young woman doing class A drugs in a club toilet before heading off to her job - as a police officer.
More than two decades on the scene still holds up. As does the filming style (shaky cameras a go-go), the terrific cast and the general “broken Britain” attitude towards policing and politics. “Dirty, thieving lying scumbags,” is how one officer describes the locals in the fictional town of Stanton. It’s not The Wire out there, but it is not Dixon of Dock Green either.
John Henshaw and Katy Cavanagh, playing an old timer and a probationer respectively, introduce the series at 10pm. Four episodes follow and all three series are on iPlayer. Should see you through the Euros. You can always add to the fun by spotting as many Coronation Street actors as possible (in the first episode I bagged a young Eileen Grimshaw and a Beth Tinker).
A last root around in the cupboard turned up something new for next week. Waitrose: Trouble in the Aisles? (Channel 5, Wednesday, 8pm) is one of those Channel 5 staples that take apart a big brand to see what makes it tick (or not).
In the case of Waitrose, sales took a dive in 2023 with the drop blamed on the cost of living crisis, increased competition from M&S and Sainsbury’s, and supply problems causing empty shelves (a major supermarket no-no).
“Has our passion for Waitrose gone cold?” asks narrator Emerald O’Hanrahan. There follows the usual trolley dash around a range of subjects in the company of retail experts and consumer journalists. I enjoyed the bit on Waitrose’s most expensive products, if only to be scandalised that people can spend that much on a bottle of wine.
Some of the topics are past their sell-by date. Who doesn’t know about yellow sticker shopping and the best time to do it, or the advantages, and some would say disadvantages, of loyalty cards?
Interest levels perk up at the end when the film looks at what Waitrose is doing to adapt and survive in the intensely competitive market, including having outlets in Dobbies.
I know you are probably sick of heated political debates by now, but it’s worth leaving some room for Question Time Leaders’ Special (BBC1, Thursday, 8pm). Joining Rishi Sunak for the Conservatives, Labour’s Keir Starmer, and the Lib Dems’ Ed Davey, is Scotland’s First Minister and SNP leader John Swinney.
The four will spend half an hour each answering questions from a studio audience in York. It’s a tough gig, as a similarly styled debate on Sky News this week showed, and the leaders will have to keep their wits about them right to the end. Take particular care, gents, on leaving the set. Ed Miliband probably still has nightmares about stumbling off the giant “Q” in the 2015 Question Time Leaders’ Special.
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