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86 Articles

This week in RT

At school, I hated cricket. The ball was too hard and the game took for ever and lacked the physicality of football, rugby or hockey. It took a summer illness in my 20s that saw me laid up with only a radio for company for me to fall in love with Test Match Special. I’m still not a huge fan of cricket, I can’t watch it on television and I’ve only been to Lord’s, the home of cricket, once and got terribly sunburnt. But TMS is the soundtrack to my summers and it’s been a fixture on the BBC for 60 years – on Radio 4 on long wave, on 5 Live Sports Extra and the BBC Sport website. On page 8 we catch up with Henry Blofeld, who sadly…

This week in RT

This week in RT

At school, I hated cricket. The ball was too hard and the game took for ever and lacked the physicality of football, rugby or hockey. It took a summer illness in my 20s that saw me laid up with only a radio for company for me to fall in love with Test Match Special. I’m still not a huge fan of cricket, I can’t watch it on television and I’ve only been to Lord’s, the home of cricket, once and got terribly sunburnt. But TMS is the soundtrack to my summers and it’s been a fixture on the BBC for 60 years – on Radio 4 on long wave, on 5 Live Sports Extra and the BBC Sport website. On page 8 we catch up with Henry Blofeld, who sadly retires…

This week in RT

WHAT I’M WATCHING…

CRAIG REVEL HORWOOD ‘I watch a lot of Gogglebox; I like the gay hairdressers,” says the Strictly judge who is the subject of this week’s Who Do You Think You Are? “I love binge-watching box sets and I’m about to restart Game of Thrones. I loved it at first but lost interest when the dragons appeared. But I have to watch it.’ At home with Craig, page 16 BRIDGET KENDALL ‘I’m very much enjoying The Handmaid’s Tale with Elisabeth Moss on Channel 4,” says the BBC’s former diplomatic correspondent. “I’m also watching as much of Wimbledon as I can. If I can’t see it live I try to catch the evening highlights show.’ Bridget Kendall examines the state of East-West relations, page 114 WHAT WE’VE LEARNT THIS WEEK The British…

WHAT I’M WATCHING…

WHAT I’M WATCHING…

CRAIG REVEL HORWOOD ‘I watch a lot of Gogglebox; I like the gay hairdressers,” says the Strictly judge who is the subject of this week’s Who Do You Think You Are? “I love binge-watching box sets and I’m about to restart Game of Thrones. I loved it at first but lost interest when the dragons appeared. But I have to watch it.’ At home with Craig, page 16 BRIDGET KENDALL ‘I’m very much enjoying The Handmaid’s Tale with Elisabeth Moss on Channel 4,” says the BBC’s former diplomatic correspondent. “I’m also watching as much of Wimbledon as I can. If I can’t see it live I try to catch the evening highlights show.’ Bridget Kendall examines the state of East-West relations, page 114 WHAT WE’VE LEARNT THIS WEEK The British are the world’s greatest bird lovers. Over…

WHAT I’M WATCHING…

Relax with Ross

It’s very nice to go trav’ling To Paris, London and Rome It’s oh so nice to go trav’ling But it’s so much nicer, yes it’s so much nicer, To come home TWEAK THE END of that last line to “stay home”, and Frank Sinatra’s laid-back lyrics from the 1958 album Come Fly with Me could have been written for the 21st-century Age of the Staycation. This summer the weak pound and ever-more complex airport security checks mean that four in five Brits plan to take their holidays in this country. We could do a lot worse. Whether it’s the Lake District with its soaring peaks, glittering silver tarns and plunging green valleys; the Caribbean-blue waters and white sandy beaches of north-west Scotland (the Gulf Stream laps the Highland shores and, improbably, palm…

Relax with Ross

NOT SO MOBILE HOME Is TV going caravan crazy? The BBC is piloting a new comedy called Static, in which Phil Davis (Jud from Poldark) plays a man who gives up a City job to return to his wife and kids — only to find that the new family home is a caravan park in Margate. Brian Pern creator Rhys Thomas is also setting his next series in a caravan park — one full of divorced men. For the lead roles in this comedy drama he has his eyes on Christopher Eccleston (above) and Michael Kitchen. It’s modelled on the experience of Thomas’s own father, who moved into a caravan site temporarily and stayed for 18 years. FAST FOOTWORK Ex-cricketer Andrew Flintoff will make his TV acting debut this autumn. In…

Relax with Ross

It’s very nice to go trav’ling To Paris, London and Rome It’s oh so nice to go trav’ling But it’s so much nicer, yes it’s so much nicer, To come home TWEAK THE END of that last line to “stay home”, and Frank Sinatra’s laid-back lyrics from the 1958 album Come Fly with Me could have been written for the 21st-century Age of the Staycation. This summer the weak pound and ever-more complex airport security checks mean that four in five Brits plan to take their holidays in this country. We could do a lot worse. Whether it’s the Lake District with its soaring peaks, glittering silver tarns and plunging green valleys; the Caribbean-blue waters and white sandy beaches of north-west Scotland (the Gulf Stream laps the Highland shores and,…

Relax with Ross

NOT SO MOBILE HOME Is TV going caravan crazy? The BBC is piloting a new comedy called Static, in which Phil Davis (Jud from Poldark) plays a man who gives up a City job to return to his wife and kids — only to find that the new family home is a caravan park in Margate. Brian Pern creator Rhys Thomas is also setting his next series in a caravan park — one full of divorced men. For the lead roles in this comedy drama he has his eyes on Christopher Eccleston (above) and Michael Kitchen. It’s modelled on the experience of Thomas’s own father, who moved into a caravan site temporarily and stayed for 18 years. FAST FOOTWORK Ex-cricketer Andrew Flintoff will make his TV acting debut this autumn.…

WHEN IT WAS announced that Test Match Special’s Henry Blofeld was retiring after 45 years in the commentary box, ex-England captain and TMS regular Michael Vaughan said, “All pigeons are going to have a minute’s silence at 11am.” “Dear Michael,” says Henry Blofeld three days later, sitting in his small back garden in Chelsea, west London, wearing a panama hat and still basking in the outpouring of affection that has met the decision to end his radio career. Vaughan was alluding to a distinctive broadcasting style that finds as much to comment on around the ground as it does on the pitch. The style is based, says Blofeld, on “going over the boundary” and beyond the actual play. “I paint the whole thing,” he says. “If you don’t tell listeners where…

“Aggers, do stop it!”

Do you ever regret saying Ian Botham “couldn’t quite get his leg over” in a Test against the West Indies in 1991, which caused Brian Johnston to dissolve into laughter for a full two minutes? No, that was the best thing that ever happened to me. It was my first summer and the incident established me as an individual in the TMS team. But it was a mistake at the time – we nearly fell off air and the whole thing descended into farce. I remember feeling really sick, because I felt this was potentially disastrous. It was a proper, genuine, uncontrived cock-up. Johnners begged, “Aggers, do stop it!” If I had said it to anyone else it would have been OK, but he had this puerile sense of humour. The…

“Aggers, do stop it!”

WHEN IT WAS announced that Test Match Special’s Henry Blofeld was retiring after 45 years in the commentary box, ex-England captain and TMS regular Michael Vaughan said, “All pigeons are going to have a minute’s silence at 11am.” “Dear Michael,” says Henry Blofeld three days later, sitting in his small back garden in Chelsea, west London, wearing a panama hat and still basking in the outpouring of affection that has met the decision to end his radio career. Vaughan was alluding to a distinctive broadcasting style that finds as much to comment on around the ground as it does on the pitch. The style is based, says Blofeld, on “going over the boundary” and beyond the actual play. “I paint the whole thing,” he says. “If you don’t tell listeners…

“Aggers, do stop it!”

Do you ever regret saying Ian Botham “couldn’t quite get his leg over” in a Test against the West Indies in 1991, which caused Brian Johnston to dissolve into laughter for a full two minutes? No, that was the best thing that ever happened to me. It was my first summer and the incident established me as an individual in the TMS team. But it was a mistake at the time – we nearly fell off air and the whole thing descended into farce. I remember feeling really sick, because I felt this was potentially disastrous. It was a proper, genuine, uncontrived cock-up. Johnners begged, “Aggers, do stop it!” If I had said it to anyone else it would have been OK, but he had this puerile sense of humour.…

“Aggers, do stop it!”

Is cricket scoring like stand-up comedy? No, it’s basically just watching cricket and writing things down in coloured pens. I wouldn’t even describe it as hard work. Or even work. Hard leisure is what it is. Do you follow an established system of scoring or are you more improv? I’ve developed my own system but it’s largely based on [legendary TMS scorer] Bill Frindall’s, so it’s quite different from normal scorebooks. It’s a matter of being able to look at the sheet and immediately see the information the commentator wants or to be able to pick things out. I’ll do some prep on the two teams and the players involved but I’ve also got a fair amount of useless information rattling about in my head. It’s actually a relief to finally…

Lesley Garrett One of the great joys of my life is listening to Aggers talking about how tricky it is to get the rubber down the handle of the bat, and avoid dangly bits! David Cameron I had the fortune of going on TMS. I told Aggers I’d always worshipped Geoffrey Boycott, to which he replied, under his breath, “Yes, but you don’t have to work with him all year round.” Piers Morgan My favourite TMS commentary was delivered by John Arlott about New Zealand fast bowler Bob Cunis. “This is Cunis at the Vauxhall End. Cunis, a funny sort of name: neither one thing nor the other.” Jim Carter Listening to the 2005 Edgbaston Test match in the car. Australia need three to win — Michael Kasprowicz gloves a catch to Jones!…

Is cricket scoring like stand-up comedy? No, it’s basically just watching cricket and writing things down in coloured pens. I wouldn’t even describe it as hard work. Or even work. Hard leisure is what it is. Do you follow an established system of scoring or are you more improv? I’ve developed my own system but it’s largely based on [legendary TMS scorer] Bill Frindall’s, so it’s quite different from normal scorebooks. It’s a matter of being able to look at the sheet and immediately see the information the commentator wants or to be able to pick things out. I’ll do some prep on the two teams and the players involved but I’ve also got a fair amount of useless information rattling about in my head. It’s actually a relief to…

Where the wild things are

THEY MAY be public enemy number one to the nation’s gardeners, munching through fortunes spent on herbaceous perennials and fresh lettuce every summer, but Chris Packham has a message for gardeners: leave your slugs alone. “The slug’s been offered a free banquet. You have to expect it to eat it. If you’re planting a row of lettuce, you’re planting a free supermarket for molluscs. If you turned up at Sainsbury’s and they said, ‘And everything today is free,’ you’d fill your basket, wouldn’t you? That’s what humans would do. So put yourself in the mind of the slug. You have to find a degree of tolerance, find ways of managing slugs without killing them. “If you make draconian choices like ‘I don’t want slugs and snails to eat my plants’, then you’re…

Where the wild things are

Strictly common

ASK CRAIG REVEL HORWOOD – famously the panto villain Mr Nasty of Strictly Come Dancing – if he is a kind person, and he doesn’t miss a beat. “Yes,” he says at once. “I’m very kind. All my ex-boyfriends, bar one, are my best friends. I’m a lovely person, considerate and loving.” Actually, it’s easy to believe it. That may sound a big leap on the evidence of a one-hour chat with a telly celeb, who is practised at putting across a certain version of himself in an interview. But talk to people who have encountered him when the cameras are off, and they will tell you that he is indeed kind, approachable and fun – and in the case of this interview at his Hampshire home, courteous. In bucketing rain, he walked…

Strictly common

Lesley Garrett One of the great joys of my life is listening to Aggers talking about how tricky it is to get the rubber down the handle of the bat, and avoid dangly bits! David Cameron I had the fortune of going on TMS. I told Aggers I’d always worshipped Geoffrey Boycott, to which he replied, under his breath, “Yes, but you don’t have to work with him all year round.” Piers Morgan My favourite TMS commentary was delivered by John Arlott about New Zealand fast bowler Bob Cunis. “This is Cunis at the Vauxhall End. Cunis, a funny sort of name: neither one thing nor the other.” Jim Carter Listening to the 2005 Edgbaston Test match in the car. Australia need three to win — Michael Kasprowicz gloves a…

My life in crime

The problem with novelists, says Mark Billingham, is that “as a rule, they tend not to play well with others. You spend a year on your own writing a book. So it’s difficult suddenly to be thrown in a room with loads of other people.” But the bestselling crime writer is, in three senses, coming out to play at the moment. He spent time on the set and in the editing suite of In the Dark, a four-part adaptation of two of his novels featuring DS Helen Weeks, a young detective who investigates a child murder while heavily pregnant. The day after we meet at his north London home, he’s off to Liverpool to start a promotional tour for Love like Blood, his 14th novel featuring London homicide detective DI Tom…

My life in crime

Where the wild things are

THEY MAY be public enemy number one to the nation’s gardeners, munching through fortunes spent on herbaceous perennials and fresh lettuce every summer, but Chris Packham has a message for gardeners: leave your slugs alone. “The slug’s been offered a free banquet. You have to expect it to eat it. If you’re planting a row of lettuce, you’re planting a free supermarket for molluscs. If you turned up at Sainsbury’s and they said, ‘And everything today is free,’ you’d fill your basket, wouldn’t you? That’s what humans would do. So put yourself in the mind of the slug. You have to find a degree of tolerance, find ways of managing slugs without killing them. “If you make draconian choices like ‘I don’t want slugs and snails to eat my plants’,…

Where the wild things are

Strictly common

ASK CRAIG REVEL HORWOOD – famously the panto villain Mr Nasty of Strictly Come Dancing – if he is a kind person, and he doesn’t miss a beat. “Yes,” he says at once. “I’m very kind. All my ex-boyfriends, bar one, are my best friends. I’m a lovely person, considerate and loving.” Actually, it’s easy to believe it. That may sound a big leap on the evidence of a one-hour chat with a telly celeb, who is practised at putting across a certain version of himself in an interview. But talk to people who have encountered him when the cameras are off, and they will tell you that he is indeed kind, approachable and fun – and in the case of this interview at his Hampshire home, courteous. In bucketing…

Strictly common

ILLUMINATING THE DARK

IT HAS TWO FOREIGN DIRECTORS… Yes — and both are old hands when it comes to crime noir. The first two episodes are directed by Gilles Bannier, known for his work on French dramas The Tunnel and Spiral, and the second two by Norwegian director Ulrik Imtiaz Rolfsen, who directed Varg Veum and Taxi, which he also wrote. AND A LEAD CHARACTER WHO’S RARELY OFF THE SCREEN… “Helen Weeks is central to the whole show,” says screenwriter Danny Brocklehurst. “She is in 90 per cent of the scenes, so finding the right Helen was crucial. I wanted her to have a warmth and wit but also be strong and formidable.” SO NO WEAKNESSES? “She is damaged emotionally and that is a huge part of the story,” says Brocklehurst. “In bringing her to…

Where’s Dippy?

MEET WINNIE THE whale, although let’s be clear, it’s not her “official” name. It’s alliteration on our part. But in telling her intriguing story she needs the personality that a name helps bestow. And so, until the Duchess of Cambridge officially “christens” her next week, let’s stick with Winnie. In 1891 this 25-metre-long teenage blue whale beached in the Irish harbour town of Wexford and died. Her story could have ended there amid a frenzy of blubber boiling and bone business. Instead, a far-sighted employee of the Natural History Museum in London decided Winnie would make a spectacular addition to the museum’s burgeoning new collection and so purchased her carcass for the princely sum of £250 from an enterprising town merchant. Stripped of her blubber – boiled down, she produced 640 gallons of…

IT WAS DURING the walk to the train that I felt I’d become part of a utopian future – as if in the course of a single summer the world had become a wiser, jollier and altogether nicer place. That train had been part of my life during the London Olympic Games of 2012, and it was playing a central role again as the astonishing Paralympic Games unwound. I had been watching the great – in every sense save in size – Ellie Simmonds as she won one of her two gold medals in the pool. A good night, then, in a summer that was packed with good nights. And now it was time for the train. And it really was a great train. But it wasn’t your everyday sporting crowd.…

My life in crime

The problem with novelists, says Mark Billingham, is that “as a rule, they tend not to play well with others. You spend a year on your own writing a book. So it’s difficult suddenly to be thrown in a room with loads of other people.” But the bestselling crime writer is, in three senses, coming out to play at the moment. He spent time on the set and in the editing suite of In the Dark, a four-part adaptation of two of his novels featuring DS Helen Weeks, a young detective who investigates a child murder while heavily pregnant. The day after we meet at his north London home, he’s off to Liverpool to start a promotional tour for Love like Blood, his 14th novel featuring London homicide detective DI…

My life in crime

Hurricane Hannah

HANNAH COCKROFT PONDERS the question for a split second – just as long as it might typically take to transfer her immense upperbody power through to the wheels of her racing chair. What sacrifices does she have to make to remain at the very top of her sport, I ask. Bang! And she’s off. “I find the word sacrifice a really hard word to use because it’s not. I’ve just missed my dad’s birthday because we were racing in Switzerland, and I missed my little brother’s 21st-birthday celebrations. It’s hard being away from family at those times. Also, everything happening in Manchester and London while you’re away… that’s hard. You want to be at home to make sure everyone you love is OK. But these are not sacrifices. OK, I miss…

Hurricane Hannah

ILLUMINATING THE DARK

IT HAS TWO FOREIGN DIRECTORS… Yes — and both are old hands when it comes to crime noir. The first two episodes are directed by Gilles Bannier, known for his work on French dramas The Tunnel and Spiral, and the second two by Norwegian director Ulrik Imtiaz Rolfsen, who directed Varg Veum and Taxi, which he also wrote. AND A LEAD CHARACTER WHO’S RARELY OFF THE SCREEN… “Helen Weeks is central to the whole show,” says screenwriter Danny Brocklehurst. “She is in 90 per cent of the scenes, so finding the right Helen was crucial. I wanted her to have a warmth and wit but also be strong and formidable.” SO NO WEAKNESSES? “She is damaged emotionally and that is a huge part of the story,” says Brocklehurst. “In bringing…

Where’s Dippy?

MEET WINNIE THE whale, although let’s be clear, it’s not her “official” name. It’s alliteration on our part. But in telling her intriguing story she needs the personality that a name helps bestow. And so, until the Duchess of Cambridge officially “christens” her next week, let’s stick with Winnie. In 1891 this 25-metre-long teenage blue whale beached in the Irish harbour town of Wexford and died. Her story could have ended there amid a frenzy of blubber boiling and bone business. Instead, a far-sighted employee of the Natural History Museum in London decided Winnie would make a spectacular addition to the museum’s burgeoning new collection and so purchased her carcass for the princely sum of £250 from an enterprising town merchant. Stripped of her blubber – boiled down, she produced…

Facing my fears

Donmar Presents Julius CaesarIn cinemas from Wednesday 12 July When you’re younger, you worry whether you can do it at all. Later on, it’s about whether you can do it as well as you want to,” admits Dame Harriet Walter who, despite being a regular at the world’s top theatres, had genuine concerns about doing her most recent productions justice. At the end of last year, she was in a trilogy of Shakespeare plays performed by an all-female cast at a temporary theatre location next to King’s Cross and St Pancras railway stations in London. The productions were a huge success – a film recording of one, Julius Caesar, is released in cinemas this week – but, early in the run, the location gave the actress a temptation that she had never previously…

Facing my fears

IT WAS DURING the walk to the train that I felt I’d become part of a utopian future – as if in the course of a single summer the world had become a wiser, jollier and altogether nicer place. That train had been part of my life during the London Olympic Games of 2012, and it was playing a central role again as the astonishing Paralympic Games unwound. I had been watching the great – in every sense save in size – Ellie Simmonds as she won one of her two gold medals in the pool. A good night, then, in a summer that was packed with good nights. And now it was time for the train. And it really was a great train. But it wasn’t your everyday sporting…

Who’s laughing now? FoxcatcherSundayBBC2(MondayBBC2 Scotland) Robin Williams dialling down the improvisational fireworks to play the creepy stalker in One Hour Photo. Whoopi Goldberg breaking hearts in The Color Purple. Jonah Hill stowing the stoner-schtick in the Oscar-nominated Moneyball for director Bennett Miller. It’s compelling when comic performers play it straight. And so it proved for Steve Carell, who “came out” of the comedy closet for the bleakly atmospheric 2014 factual sports drama Foxcatcher — coincidentally, also under the directing wing of the Midas-like Miller. Carell made his name in TV sketch comedy, going overground in NBC’s nine-season smash Americanisation of The Office, as Michael Scott — Scranton, Pennsylvania’s equivalent of Slough’s David Brent. It was accompanied by big-screen comic success — Anchorman, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Despicable Me. So you might unkindly call his…

Hurricane Hannah

HANNAH COCKROFT PONDERS the question for a split second – just as long as it might typically take to transfer her immense upperbody power through to the wheels of her racing chair. What sacrifices does she have to make to remain at the very top of her sport, I ask. Bang! And she’s off. “I find the word sacrifice a really hard word to use because it’s not. I’ve just missed my dad’s birthday because we were racing in Switzerland, and I missed my little brother’s 21st-birthday celebrations. It’s hard being away from family at those times. Also, everything happening in Manchester and London while you’re away… that’s hard. You want to be at home to make sure everyone you love is OK. But these are not sacrifices. OK, I…

Hurricane Hannah

This is the news…

MY VERY OWN amber alert indicating an Incoming Crass Question lit up when BBC Special Correspondent Luc y Manning looked pained as she addressed a man whose wife had died in the Grenfell Tower fire. He couldn’t accompany her body home to Morocco because his passport was destroyed in the blaze. “I’m sorry to ask you this…” came the preface, the one that led me to put my head in my hands as I groaned, “What fresh hell is this?” even before she opened her mouth to continue… “but, how do you feel that you can’t accompany your wife back home?” Yes, there it was. The “how do you feel?” question, the most redundant, thoroughly vacuous piece of tasteless blancmange in the journalist’s emotional armoury. OK, once and for all, let’s…

This is the news…

Facing my fears

Donmar Presents Julius Caesar In cinemas from Wednesday 12 July When you’re younger, you worry whether you can do it at all. Later on, it’s about whether you can do it as well as you want to,” admits Dame Harriet Walter who, despite being a regular at the world’s top theatres, had genuine concerns about doing her most recent productions justice. At the end of last year, she was in a trilogy of Shakespeare plays performed by an all-female cast at a temporary theatre location next to King’s Cross and St Pancras railway stations in London. The productions were a huge success – a film recording of one, Julius Caesar, is released in cinemas this week – but, early in the run, the location gave the actress a temptation that she…

Facing my fears

Who’s laughing now? Foxcatcher Sunday BBC2 (Monday BBC2 Scotland) Robin Williams dialling down the improvisational fireworks to play the creepy stalker in One Hour Photo. Whoopi Goldberg breaking hearts in The Color Purple. Jonah Hill stowing the stoner-schtick in the Oscar-nominated Moneyball for director Bennett Miller. It’s compelling when comic performers play it straight. And so it proved for Steve Carell, who “came out” of the comedy closet for the bleakly atmospheric 2014 factual sports drama Foxcatcher — coincidentally, also under the directing wing of the Midas-like Miller. Carell made his name in TV sketch comedy, going overground in NBC’s nine-season smash Americanisation of The Office, as Michael Scott — Scranton, Pennsylvania’s equivalent of Slough’s David Brent. It was accompanied by big-screen comic success — Anchorman, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Despicable Me. So you might…

1 THE BEST OF THE BEATLES Sgt Pepper’s Musical RevolutioniPlayer (BBC2) Howard Goodall, the best explainer of music on TV, rises to the challenge of assessing pop’s crowning achievement. His selection of Sgt Pepper’s key tracks draws on unheard studio outtakes and master tapes, but it’s Goodall’s own careful dissection of what was so ground-breaking that helps make the album sound fresh and new, 50 years on. Available until 9 July 2 WINDOW ON THE PAST Borrowed Pasture iPlayer Newly added to iPlayer’s archive of documentaries, this sad, peaceful 1960 film documents a year in the life of Eugenius Okolowicz and Vlodek Bulaj, two Poles who fled their country after the Second World War and took over a derelict farm in Carmarthenshire. Eleven years later they’re still there, just the two of them, making agonisingly…

A new superstar – and your new best friend

Michaela Coel is a star: a striking, rapid, feverish talent, who nurtured her coming-of-age quasi-sitcom Chewing Gum from a 15-minute monologue written at drama school all the way to Baftas for Best Female Comedy Performance and Breakthrough Talent last year. Two seasons in, it’s an unmissable joy. Coel plays 24-year-old Tracey, a guileless yet libidinous shop assistant desperate to experience the world beyond the confines of her devoutly religious — and celibate — life on a London council estate. The vivid universe Coel has created is refreshingly devoid of the gloomy, apologetic treatment black working-class life is usually given on TV. It’s filled with bright characters: Tracey’s pious sister Cynthia; her savvy, wry best friend Candice; her gormless street-poet boyfriend Connor. Much of the series revolves around Tracey’s bullish determination to…

A new superstar – and your new best friend

When children join in the fun

Children have been playing along with TV since Muffin the Mule, but with Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale (Netflix) they can take part in the action. At key points the audience makes decisions using the TV remote or touchscreen. Watch it again, make different choices and the story changes. Netflix plans to release more of these interactive stories — Buddy Thunderstruck: the Maybe Pile for slightly older kids is scheduled for 14 July, with Stretch Armstrong: the Breakout following next year — but the experience isn’t perfect yet. The interactive elements of Puss in Book currently work on Apple phones and tablets (using the Netflix app), but not on Android, nor Apple TV, nor the Netflix website itself. The iPad has been a natural home for interactive storybooks since…

When children join in the fun

SATURDAY Choices

PICK OF THE DAY Museum of the Year 9.30pm BBC2 (Wales: 10.30pm ARTS If the picture above is anything to go by, the Hepworth art gallery in Wakefied looks a beautiful place to visit. So is that enough? Or do museums need to do more to attract and entrance visitors, not least if they’re to have a chance of luring us (and crucially youngsters) off sofas and away from screens of a weekend? Here, BBC2 televises the prize for institutions around the country whose staff and curators are doing the best job. Last year’s winner was the V&A in London, and its director Tristram Hunt (the former Shadow Education Secretary) presents the coverage, which should allow us to sample the pleasures of some particularly fine museums and galleries without, er, leaving our…

SATURDAY Choices

PICK OF THE DAY Poldark 9.00pm BBC1 DRAMA OF THE WEEK Big waves, a big ship and a big mission… Ross and his motley crew must prepare for derring-do because there is much derring to be done. Dwight Enys, disfigured by a horrible beard, is festering in a hellhole of a jail in revolutionary France, and Ross leads a rescue. But it’s dangerous and involves everyone in lots of anxious looking out to sea as plans are made. It’s a head-rush of an episode, full of adventure, romance and one particular moment of great sadness, so prepare to blub like a wet seal in the closing moments. But you’ll be cheered by pipsqueak George Warleggan’s attempts to ooze his way into the top echelons of Cornish society being stymied at every turn. Unfortunately, he…

PICK OF THE DAY Catching a Killer: the Wind in the Willows Murder 9.00pm C4 DOCUMENTARY OF THE WEEK A Thames Valley Police detective tells the camera, “It’s like an episode of Morse: an antique dealer in Oxford found murdered. Everything about it is just like fiction.” But as the officer is very quick to acknowledge, the murder of 42-year-old Adrian Greenwood in April 2016 was all too real for the victim and his family. When details of the sustained, savage attack, which also showed signs of torture, are revealed to the murder squad after a postmortem that lasted more than seven hours, the room is shocked into silence. In a riveting, painstaking film, we follow investigators as they comb Adrian Greenwood’s belongings. He was well known for his valuable art and book…

This is the news…

MY VERY OWN amber alert indicating an Incoming Crass Question lit up when BBC Special Correspondent Luc y Manning looked pained as she addressed a man whose wife had died in the Grenfell Tower fire. He couldn’t accompany her body home to Morocco because his passport was destroyed in the blaze. “I’m sorry to ask you this…” came the preface, the one that led me to put my head in my hands as I groaned, “What fresh hell is this?” even before she opened her mouth to continue… “but, how do you feel that you can’t accompany your wife back home?” Yes, there it was. The “how do you feel?” question, the most redundant, thoroughly vacuous piece of tasteless blancmange in the journalist’s emotional armoury. OK, once and for all,…

This is the news…

TUESDAY Choices

PICK OF THE DAY In the Dark 9.00pm BBC1 DRAMA New series This has everything you could possibly want from and expect of a generic crime drama — a maverick woman cop with a tormented past, mysterious woods, missing teenage girls, pouring rain, a jobsworth boss and a blinkered senior officer who just wants to get a conviction. Welcome to In the Dark, a four-part series of adaptations of Mark Billingham novels (spot the author playing a court usher). MyAnna Buring is DI Helen Weeks, who heads home to a small Derbyshire town when the husband of a friend is arrested on suspicion of murder. It’s not Helen’s case, of course, and her boss tells her not to become too involved. “No stepping on anyone’s toes, Helen.” Of course, Helen steps on…

TUESDAY Choices

1 THE BEST OF THE BEATLES Sgt Pepper’s Musical Revolution iPlayer (BBC2) Howard Goodall, the best explainer of music on TV, rises to the challenge of assessing pop’s crowning achievement. His selection of Sgt Pepper’s key tracks draws on unheard studio outtakes and master tapes, but it’s Goodall’s own careful dissection of what was so ground-breaking that helps make the album sound fresh and new, 50 years on. Available until 9 July 2 WINDOW ON THE PAST Borrowed Pasture iPlayer Newly added to iPlayer’s archive of documentaries, this sad, peaceful 1960 film documents a year in the life of Eugenius Okolowicz and Vlodek Bulaj, two Poles who fled their country after the Second World War and took over a derelict farm in Carmarthenshire. Eleven years later they’re still there, just the…

WEDNESDAY Choices

PICK OF THE DAY Joanna Lumley’s India 9.00pm ITV TRAVEL There are highs and lows for Joanna Lumley as she travels from the intensity of Mumbai to palace-strewn Rajasthan. She’s on an emotional high when she spots a photo of her uncle in the Times of India building (he was once editor), but she’s literally among the clouds when she’s taken 54 floors up what, when it’s finished, will be the highest residential building in the world. “It’ll be a big fat column of billionaires,” she says bluntly. However, she’s brought down to earth by the plight of the Dalit caste — the untouchables. They are still considered the lowest of the low in India and the distressing story of a young Dalit man’s murder shocks her to the core. Commendably, Lumley eschews…

WEDNESDAY Choices

A new superstar – and your new best friend

Michaela Coel is a star: a striking, rapid, feverish talent, who nurtured her coming-of-age quasi-sitcom Chewing Gum from a 15-minute monologue written at drama school all the way to Baftas for Best Female Comedy Performance and Breakthrough Talent last year. Two seasons in, it’s an unmissable joy. Coel plays 24-year-old Tracey, a guileless yet libidinous shop assistant desperate to experience the world beyond the confines of her devoutly religious — and celibate — life on a London council estate. The vivid universe Coel has created is refreshingly devoid of the gloomy, apologetic treatment black working-class life is usually given on TV. It’s filled with bright characters: Tracey’s pious sister Cynthia; her savvy, wry best friend Candice; her gormless street-poet boyfriend Connor. Much of the series revolves around Tracey’s bullish determination…

A new superstar – and your new best friend

THURSDAY Choices

PICK OF THE DAY Who Do You Think You Are? 9.00pm BBC1 DOCUMENTARY Australian-born Craig Revel Horwood says, “I’d love to know there was some entertainer in my past. I’m hoping to find something wonderful in my blood line.” Instead the Strictly Come Dancing judge’s first discovery is that one of his ancestors on his father’s side was a convict deported to the colonies for stealing. Now there’s a surprise for an Australian with British connections. He’s also slightly horrified to learn his great-great-greatgrandfather Charles Tinworth hailed from Essex, although he perks up a bit when he hears about Charles’s profitable gold-mining activities in Ballarat, which is where Craig was born. He still hasn’t found any connection to showbiz or theatricality (let alone royalty, which is what he’d really like) until he…

THURSDAY Choices

PICK OF THE DAY First Night of the Proms 8.00pm BBC4, 9.00pm BBC2 MUSIC “What would I do to puncture that silence?” says young British composer Tom Coult, who is thrilled to have the honour of launching the 123rd Proms season with his short new piece St John’s Dance. “It’s a relentless series of dances — often spiralling out of control.” In the long tradition of the Proms, the First Night celebrates old and new — and big birthdays. John Adams is 70 this year and tonight we’ll hear Harmonium, which had its Proms debut in 1990. Described as “an intricate tapestry of sound” with urgent brass and percussion, it features the BBC Proms Youth Choir. Acclaimed soloist Igor Levit breathes life into Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3. “It’s very intense, incredibly…

When children join in the fun

Children have been playing along with TV since Muffin the Mule, but with Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale (Netflix) they can take part in the action. At key points the audience makes decisions using the TV remote or touchscreen. Watch it again, make different choices and the story changes. Netflix plans to release more of these interactive stories — Buddy Thunderstruck: the Maybe Pile for slightly older kids is scheduled for 14 July, with Stretch Armstrong: the Breakout following next year — but the experience isn’t perfect yet. The interactive elements of Puss in Book currently work on Apple phones and tablets (using the Netflix app), but not on Android, nor Apple TV, nor the Netflix website itself. The iPad has been a natural home for interactive…

When children join in the fun

SATURDAY Choices

PICK OF THE DAY Museum of the Year 9.30pm BBC2 (Wales: 10.30pm ARTS If the picture above is anything to go by, the Hepworth art gallery in Wakefied looks a beautiful place to visit. So is that enough? Or do museums need to do more to attract and entrance visitors, not least if they’re to have a chance of luring us (and crucially youngsters) off sofas and away from screens of a weekend? Here, BBC2 televises the prize for institutions around the country whose staff and curators are doing the best job. Last year’s winner was the V&A in London, and its director Tristram Hunt (the former Shadow Education Secretary) presents the coverage, which should allow us to sample the pleasures of some particularly fine museums and galleries without, er,…

SATURDAY Choices

The Cold War’s hot again

Cold War: Stories from the Big FreezeMonday—Friday 1.45pmRadio 4 With the United States and Russia increasingly at odds over Syria, you might assume we are entering a new and perilous phase in East-West relations. But the potential for conflict has been simmering for a while. It was the crisis over Ukraine in 2014 that sharpened fears of a new Cold War. Western leaders declared they would ramp up the pressure if Russia persisted in “throwing out the rule book”. Russians berated Nato as the aggressor and warned that it would get worse. “We are rapidly rolling into a period of a new Cold War,” said the Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev last year, comparing heightened tensions to the brinkmanship during the Cuban Missile Crisis. “I am sometimes confused,” he added. “Is this 2016…

The Cold War’s hot again

PICK OF THE DAY Poldark 9.00pm BBC1 DRAMA OF THE WEEK Big waves, a big ship and a big mission… Ross and his motley crew must prepare for derring-do because there is much derring to be done. Dwight Enys, disfigured by a horrible beard, is festering in a hellhole of a jail in revolutionary France, and Ross leads a rescue. But it’s dangerous and involves everyone in lots of anxious looking out to sea as plans are made. It’s a head-rush of an episode, full of adventure, romance and one particular moment of great sadness, so prepare to blub like a wet seal in the closing moments. But you’ll be cheered by pipsqueak George Warleggan’s attempts to ooze his way into the top echelons of Cornish society being stymied at…

PICK OF THE WEEK

A Split in the SisterhoodMonday 8.00pmRadio 4 The journalist and broadcaster Anita Anand (below) has always been a feminist and has no qualms in describing herself as such. She had always believed in a universal sisterhood that transcended country of birth, religion, race and skin colour. So she was genuinely surprised by a dispute following the premiere of the Hollywood film Suffragette, when she refused calls by black feminists to criticise the movie for failing to depict suffragette Sophia Duleep Singh, daughter of an exiled Indian maharajah, whose biography she had written. “I was urged to attack the film for being racist, and to condemn suffragettes for hating women of colour,” she explains. In response to the criticism, Anand has made this documentary, in which she talks to black feminist activists who…

PICK OF THE WEEK

PICK OF THE DAY Catching a Killer: the Wind in the Willows Murder 9.00pm C4 DOCUMENTARY OF THE WEEK A Thames Valley Police detective tells the camera, “It’s like an episode of Morse: an antique dealer in Oxford found murdered. Everything about it is just like fiction.” But as the officer is very quick to acknowledge, the murder of 42-year-old Adrian Greenwood in April 2016 was all too real for the victim and his family. When details of the sustained, savage attack, which also showed signs of torture, are revealed to the murder squad after a postmortem that lasted more than seven hours, the room is shocked into silence. In a riveting, painstaking film, we follow investigators as they comb Adrian Greenwood’s belongings. He was well known for his valuable…

A fistful of krone

W hen I take a holiday I try to organise things around places made famous by songs. If it wasn’t for New York, New York, I Left My Heart in San Francisco, Mother Glasgow and Gee Whiz, Skegness Can Be Bleak in the Rain, I doubt I would leave the house. Songs about cities have rarely let me down (though I won’t be rushing back to Amarillo), so last weekend I took myself off to the city immortalised in Danny Kaye’s 1952 movie ditty, Wonderful Copenhagen. That’s right: Copenhagen. So good they said it was wonderful twice in the lyrics. The lyrics also promise “a welcome so warm and so gay”, and describe the city as the “salty old queen of the sea”. Perhaps there was a subtext to the film that…

A fistful of krone

TUESDAY Choices

PICK OF THE DAY In the Dark 9.00pm BBC1 DRAMA New series This has everything you could possibly want from and expect of a generic crime drama — a maverick woman cop with a tormented past, mysterious woods, missing teenage girls, pouring rain, a jobsworth boss and a blinkered senior officer who just wants to get a conviction. Welcome to In the Dark, a four-part series of adaptations of Mark Billingham novels (spot the author playing a court usher). MyAnna Buring is DI Helen Weeks, who heads home to a small Derbyshire town when the husband of a friend is arrested on suspicion of murder. It’s not Helen’s case, of course, and her boss tells her not to become too involved. “No stepping on anyone’s toes, Helen.” Of course, Helen…

TUESDAY Choices

Meet Radio 3’s Doctor of Music Good to hear that Donald Macleod, presenter of Radio 3’s Composer of the Week (Mon—Fri 12 noon/6.30pm), has been made an honorary Doctor of Music by the University of St Andrews. At noons since 1999 he has not only gently and expertly widened the musical horizons of tens of thousands of listeners but, for the programme’s 6.30pm repeat, he’s offered a refuge from the ruder outbursts of Radio 4 comedies. The programme has been running since 1943, beginning as This Week’s Composer on the old Home Service, acquiring its new title and style in 1988. Macleod joined Radio 3 in 1982, which means he has not only explored the lives and work of musicians as varied as Hildegard of Bingen and Frank Zappa, he’s survived…

WEDNESDAY Choices

PICK OF THE DAY Joanna Lumley’s India 9.00pm ITV TRAVEL There are highs and lows for Joanna Lumley as she travels from the intensity of Mumbai to palace-strewn Rajasthan. She’s on an emotional high when she spots a photo of her uncle in the Times of India building (he was once editor), but she’s literally among the clouds when she’s taken 54 floors up what, when it’s finished, will be the highest residential building in the world. “It’ll be a big fat column of billionaires,” she says bluntly. However, she’s brought down to earth by the plight of the Dalit caste — the untouchables. They are still considered the lowest of the low in India and the distressing story of a young Dalit man’s murder shocks her to the core.…

WEDNESDAY Choices

THURSDAY Choices

PICK OF THE DAY Who Do You Think You Are? 9.00pm BBC1 DOCUMENTARY Australian-born Craig Revel Horwood says, “I’d love to know there was some entertainer in my past. I’m hoping to find something wonderful in my blood line.” Instead the Strictly Come Dancing judge’s first discovery is that one of his ancestors on his father’s side was a convict deported to the colonies for stealing. Now there’s a surprise for an Australian with British connections. He’s also slightly horrified to learn his great-great-greatgrandfather Charles Tinworth hailed from Essex, although he perks up a bit when he hears about Charles’s profitable gold-mining activities in Ballarat, which is where Craig was born. He still hasn’t found any connection to showbiz or theatricality (let alone royalty, which is what he’d really like)…

THURSDAY Choices

PICK OF THE DAY First Night of the Proms 8.00pm BBC4, 9.00pm BBC2 MUSIC “What would I do to puncture that silence?” says young British composer Tom Coult, who is thrilled to have the honour of launching the 123rd Proms season with his short new piece St John’s Dance. “It’s a relentless series of dances — often spiralling out of control.” In the long tradition of the Proms, the First Night celebrates old and new — and big birthdays. John Adams is 70 this year and tonight we’ll hear Harmonium, which had its Proms debut in 1990. Described as “an intricate tapestry of sound” with urgent brass and percussion, it features the BBC Proms Youth Choir. Acclaimed soloist Igor Levit breathes life into Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3. “It’s very…

The Cold War’s hot again

Cold War: Stories from the Big Freeze Monday—Friday 1.45pm Radio 4 With the United States and Russia increasingly at odds over Syria, you might assume we are entering a new and perilous phase in East-West relations. But the potential for conflict has been simmering for a while. It was the crisis over Ukraine in 2014 that sharpened fears of a new Cold War. Western leaders declared they would ramp up the pressure if Russia persisted in “throwing out the rule book”. Russians berated Nato as the aggressor and warned that it would get worse. “We are rapidly rolling into a period of a new Cold War,” said the Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev last year, comparing heightened tensions to the brinkmanship during the Cuban Missile Crisis. “I am sometimes confused,” he added.…

The Cold War’s hot again

PICK OF THE WEEK

A Split in the Sisterhood Monday 8.00pm Radio 4 The journalist and broadcaster Anita Anand (below) has always been a feminist and has no qualms in describing herself as such. She had always believed in a universal sisterhood that transcended country of birth, religion, race and skin colour. So she was genuinely surprised by a dispute following the premiere of the Hollywood film Suffragette, when she refused calls by black feminists to criticise the movie for failing to depict suffragette Sophia Duleep Singh, daughter of an exiled Indian maharajah, whose biography she had written. “I was urged to attack the film for being racist, and to condemn suffragettes for hating women of colour,” she explains. In response to the criticism, Anand has made this documentary, in which she talks to black feminist…

PICK OF THE WEEK

A fistful of krone

W hen I take a holiday I try to organise things around places made famous by songs. If it wasn’t for New York, New York, I Left My Heart in San Francisco, Mother Glasgow and Gee Whiz, Skegness Can Be Bleak in the Rain, I doubt I would leave the house. Songs about cities have rarely let me down (though I won’t be rushing back to Amarillo), so last weekend I took myself off to the city immortalised in Danny Kaye’s 1952 movie ditty, Wonderful Copenhagen. That’s right: Copenhagen. So good they said it was wonderful twice in the lyrics. The lyrics also promise “a welcome so warm and so gay”, and describe the city as the “salty old queen of the sea”. Perhaps there was a subtext to the…

A fistful of krone

Meet Radio 3’s Doctor of Music Good to hear that Donald Macleod, presenter of Radio 3’s Composer of the Week (Mon—Fri 12 noon/6.30pm), has been made an honorary Doctor of Music by the University of St Andrews. At noons since 1999 he has not only gently and expertly widened the musical horizons of tens of thousands of listeners but, for the programme’s 6.30pm repeat, he’s offered a refuge from the ruder outbursts of Radio 4 comedies. The programme has been running since 1943, beginning as This Week’s Composer on the old Home Service, acquiring its new title and style in 1988. Macleod joined Radio 3 in 1982, which means he has not only explored the lives and work of musicians as varied as Hildegard of Bingen and Frank Zappa, he’s…

May’s loss is your gain

FOLLOWING THE GENERAL ELECTION last month, we now know more about what will be changing in our personal finances. The Government has no majority to pass the policies in its manifesto, so those that are opposed either by its new political partners, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), or by a significant number of Conservative MPs, are almost certainly dead. Here’s a summary of what it all means in relation to some of the key manifesto proposals. WINTER FUEL PAYMENT Every winter about 12 million people of state pensionable age get a tax-free payment to help with their fuel bills. It is £200 per pensioner household and £300 if someone in the household is over 80. Currently it is paid without regard to income or assets. But the Conservative Manifesto said, “We will means-test…

May’s loss is your gain

Elizabeth Day’s new novel, The Party, couldn’t be more topical. The main action is set in 2015, at the height of David Cameron’s Conservative government. “I was a bit worried when Theresa May came to power,” the author says now. “But I think we’re almost looking back at the Cameron/Osborne era with a hint of nostalgia.” The Party is Day’s fourth novel (she’s also a journalist, and writes for RT). It isn’t published until 13 July, but it’s already attracting attention. Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge boasted on Twitter that she had “practically murdered it” at one sitting and television rights have been optioned for a four-part drama. The story is focused on the heart of the British establishment, following a group of privileged young men as they progress from public school to Oxford…

GARDENS FOR FAMILIES and children certainly don’ t have to be turned into playgrounds. Mine had a pergola/ climbing frame with two tyre swings, slate paving for chalk drawings, decking, stepping stones for jumping across and a safe raised pond with fish to feed. My kids are now 20 and 18 (how did that happen?) and the swings have come down, but the basic layout still works well for me, which was part of the cunning masterplan all along. To think about what to include in a family garden, put yourself in your children’s shoes and consider the things they like to do. All children love dens, for one thing. Temporary canopies can be made but consider a living willow structure if you have the room, or a well-positioned shrub, or…

That Riviera touch

RivieraThursday 9.00pmSky Atlantic MY DRIVER turns out to be an invaluable guide. I’d planned to tour the Côte d’Azur by train, but from Jean Jacques I get the gossip that makes the hills come alive. Collecting me from my base at the Negresco, Nice’s famous seafront hotel, he drives me along one of the three corniches on the side of Mont Boron, east of the city. The sun is out, the sky is blue and the air is fresh. He points to a cream-coloured house called Le Roc Fleuri. “That used to belong to Sean Connery,” he tells me. It’s a fitting location for 007. Higher up, next to a 16th-century château, he indicates Elton John’s pad, which the star is said to have bought for £5 million 20 years ago and…

That Riviera touch

PRIZE CROSSWORD One winner will receive two top-price tickets* to see the six-time Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald make her West End debut in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill at Wyndhams Theatre, London. *Any performance except Saturday night. Does not include travel or accommodation. WORDFINDER Find the name of the show in the shaded squares to win the prize below. EASY CLUES For fun! Email your answers to xword28@radiotimescomps.co.uk PRIZE CROSSWORD ACROSS 7 Look hard when English vermin return (5) 8 Endeavour to get to ecstasy in betrayal (9) 9 US actor’s pleasure trip (6) 11 Writing about edge of flower (8) 12 Fighting beyond Rhodes resort when wounded (4,2,6) 15 PM has spoken of a leader (7) 16 Smelly duck, prepare to get excited — almost! (7) 18 Parisienne, maybe, prepared wine I swallowed (12) 20 Musical piece for ten, following…

Only Connect with Victoria Coren Mitchell The connecting wall from the BBC2 game show Only Connectis an inventive combination of general knowledge, word playand lateral thinking to give your brain cells a workout! How to play Your task is to sort the 16 seemingly random words/phrases below into four groups of four connected words. You may find some clues fall into more than one category, but there is only one complete solution. If you get stuck, have a look at the clues, on the side of the page… The Enigma code Can you crack the Enigma code? Each grid number represents a letter. Every letter of the alphabet is used. Use the given letter or letters — below the main grid — to start. The solution is on the previous page. Difficulty: 15/20 Target…

LETTER OF THE WEEK It’s been a Ripping ride A sad farewell approaches to Ripper Street (BBC2), which could win a set of awards all by itself. Here are my nominations: Best screenplay Beyond brilliant. Best direction, lighting, design and camerawork So stylish, so sharp, so atmospheric, so haunting. Best villain ever How often does a part as juicy as Jedediah Shine (Joseph Mawle) come along? Sexiest ne’er-do-well Captain Jackson, with his booze, cigarettes and stubble. Thank you Adam Rothenberg! Most interesting part for a woman Long Susan. This was always her story, and MyAnna Buring has wrung every drop from it. Best acting Reid and Drake had a great partnership, showing wit, anger, distrust, even love. Matthew Macfadyen and Jerome Flynn should have a sockful of awards. Best guests Iain Glenn, Anton Lesser, David Threlfall, Haydn Gwynne,…

‘I love Alan Partridge’

In Riviera you’re living the lavish life on the south coast of France – are things as glamorous at home? No! My house is pretty modest – I live in Vancouver in a loft, and our main living area is one big room. The TV is on a big wooden dresser, with a black couch in the centre of the room. Do you snack when you watch TV? Not really, but we’ll often have dinner in front of the TV because we don’t have a dining room… That will all change when we move. Who’s your favourite person to watch TV with? My fiancé [camera assistant Preston Cook], definitely. He usually introduces me to shows, and mostly they’re on Amazon or Netflix but it takes so long to decide what to watch, even when…

‘I love Alan Partridge’

May’s loss is your gain

FOLLOWING THE GENERAL ELECTION last month, we now know more about what will be changing in our personal finances. The Government has no majority to pass the policies in its manifesto, so those that are opposed either by its new political partners, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), or by a significant number of Conservative MPs, are almost certainly dead. Here’s a summary of what it all means in relation to some of the key manifesto proposals. WINTER FUEL PAYMENT Every winter about 12 million people of state pensionable age get a tax-free payment to help with their fuel bills. It is £200 per pensioner household and £300 if someone in the household is over 80. Currently it is paid without regard to income or assets. But the Conservative Manifesto said,…

May’s loss is your gain

YOUR COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE PROMS

JULY PROM 1 Fri 14 July7.30pmTom CoultSt John’s Dance (BBC commission: world premiere)BeethovenPiano Concerto No 3 in C minorJohn AdamsHarmonium Igor Levit (piano), BBC Proms Youth Choir, BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra conductor Edward Gardner Ì First half on BBC2, second half on BBC4 this evening PROM 2 Sat 15 July7.30pmSibeliusViolin Concerto in D minorElgarSymphony No 1 in A flat Lisa Batiashvili (violin), Staatskapelle Berlin, conductor Daniel Barenboim PROM 3 Sun 16 July3.45pmMozartSymphony No 38 in D (Prague); Violin Concerto No 3 in GSchumannSymphony No 2 in C Isabelle Faust (violin), Chamber Orchestra of Europe/Bernard Haitink Ì On BBC4 on 23 July PROM 4 Sun 16 July7.45pmHarrison BirtwistleDeep Time (BBC co-commission: UK premiere)ElgarSymphony No 2 in E flat Staatskapelle Berlin/Daniel Barenboim Ì Also on BBC4 this evening PCM1 Mon 17 July1.00pmMonteverdiCruda Amarilli; Sfogava…

YOUR COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE PROMS

Elizabeth Day’s new novel, The Party, couldn’t be more topical. The main action is set in 2015, at the height of David Cameron’s Conservative government. “I was a bit worried when Theresa May came to power,” the author says now. “But I think we’re almost looking back at the Cameron/Osborne era with a hint of nostalgia.” The Party is Day’s fourth novel (she’s also a journalist, and writes for RT). It isn’t published until 13 July, but it’s already attracting attention. Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge boasted on Twitter that she had “practically murdered it” at one sitting and television rights have been optioned for a four-part drama. The story is focused on the heart of the British establishment, following a group of privileged young men as they progress from public school…

GARDENS FOR FAMILIES and children certainly don’ t have to be turned into playgrounds. Mine had a pergola/ climbing frame with two tyre swings, slate paving for chalk drawings, decking, stepping stones for jumping across and a safe raised pond with fish to feed. My kids are now 20 and 18 (how did that happen?) and the swings have come down, but the basic layout still works well for me, which was part of the cunning masterplan all along. To think about what to include in a family garden, put yourself in your children’s shoes and consider the things they like to do. All children love dens, for one thing. Temporary canopies can be made but consider a living willow structure if you have the room, or a well-positioned shrub,…

Any mention of John Williams, the world’s most hummable living film composer, deserves a fanfare. But which one to choose? The imperious opener from the first chapter of Star Wars, whose massed trumpets deliberately recall a saluted entrance to the Roman Colosseum? The lively reveille of Raiders of the Lost Ark, one of action cinema’s great calls to arms? What about the slow-building theme from Jurassic Park, told in strings rather than brass, its sense of wonder so infectious it has you craning your neck upwards as if surveying a 30ft-tall brachiosaurus? John Williams, 85 this year and still performing and composing at the top of his game, has literally created his own accompaniment. There’s a handful of veteran film composers for whom age is no barrier: Italian maestro Ennio Morricone,…

That Riviera touch

Riviera Thursday 9.00pm Sky Atlantic MY DRIVER turns out to be an invaluable guide. I’d planned to tour the Côte d’Azur by train, but from Jean Jacques I get the gossip that makes the hills come alive. Collecting me from my base at the Negresco, Nice’s famous seafront hotel, he drives me along one of the three corniches on the side of Mont Boron, east of the city. The sun is out, the sky is blue and the air is fresh. He points to a cream-coloured house called Le Roc Fleuri. “That used to belong to Sean Connery,” he tells me. It’s a fitting location for 007. Higher up, next to a 16th-century château, he indicates Elton John’s pad, which the star is said to have bought for £5 million 20 years…

That Riviera touch

This year, 25 Proms can be seen on TV or online. Many are shown on the same night that the concert is held in the Royal Albert Hall. BBC2 Every Saturday (from 22 July) Katie Derham returns with Proms Extra, her magazine show with special guests showcasing the week’s highlights. The First Night of the Proms (Friday 14 July) will be split between BBC2 and BBC4, while the Last Night (9 September) will, as usual, be shared by BBC2 and BBC1. BBC4 will show standout classical concerts on Sundays and popular concerts on Fridays. RADIO 3 will air live concerts every day. ON DEMAND Catch up on all radio programmes and all the works from any Prom filmed for TV for 30 days after broadcast via BBC iPlayer and at bbc.co.uk/proms WHO TO WATCH David Pickard…

PRIZE CROSSWORD One winner will receive two top-price tickets* to see the six-time Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald make her West End debut in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill at Wyndhams Theatre, London. *Any performance except Saturday night. Does not include travel or accommodation. WORDFINDER Find the name of the show in the shaded squares to win the prize below. EASY CLUES For fun! Email your answers to xword28@radiotimescomps.co.uk PRIZE CROSSWORD ACROSS 7 Look hard when English vermin return (5) 8 Endeavour to get to ecstasy in betrayal (9) 9 US actor’s pleasure trip (6) 11 Writing about edge of flower (8) 12 Fighting beyond Rhodes resort when wounded (4,2,6) 15 PM has spoken of a leader (7) 16 Smelly duck, prepare to get excited — almost! (7) 18…

Only Connect with Victoria Coren Mitchell The connecting wall from the BBC2 game show Only Connectis an inventive combination of general knowledge, word playand lateral thinking to give your brain cells a workout! How to play Your task is to sort the 16 seemingly random words/phrases below into four groups of four connected words. You may find some clues fall into more than one category, but there is only one complete solution. If you get stuck, have a look at the clues, on the side of the page… The Enigma code Can you crack the Enigma code? Each grid number represents a letter. Every letter of the alphabet is used. Use the given letter or letters — below the main grid — to start. The solution is on the previous…

LETTER OF THE WEEK It’s been a Ripping ride A sad farewell approaches to Ripper Street (BBC2), which could win a set of awards all by itself. Here are my nominations: Best screenplay Beyond brilliant. Best direction, lighting, design and camerawork So stylish, so sharp, so atmospheric, so haunting. Best villain ever How often does a part as juicy as Jedediah Shine (Joseph Mawle) come along? Sexiest ne’er-do-well Captain Jackson, with his booze, cigarettes and stubble. Thank you Adam Rothenberg! Most interesting part for a woman Long Susan. This was always her story, and MyAnna Buring has wrung every drop from it. Best acting Reid and Drake had a great partnership, showing wit, anger, distrust, even love. Matthew Macfadyen and Jerome Flynn should have a sockful of awards. Best guests…

‘I love Alan Partridge’

In Riviera you’re living the lavish life on the south coast of France – are things as glamorous at home? No! My house is pretty modest – I live in Vancouver in a loft, and our main living area is one big room. The TV is on a big wooden dresser, with a black couch in the centre of the room. Do you snack when you watch TV? Not really, but we’ll often have dinner in front of the TV because we don’t have a dining room… That will all change when we move. Who’s your favourite person to watch TV with? My fiancé [camera assistant Preston Cook], definitely. He usually introduces me to shows, and mostly they’re on Amazon or Netflix but it takes so long to decide what…

‘I love Alan Partridge’

Any mention of John Williams, the world’s most hummable living film composer, deserves a fanfare. But which one to choose? The imperious opener from the first chapter of Star Wars, whose massed trumpets deliberately recall a saluted entrance to the Roman Colosseum? The lively reveille of Raiders of the Lost Ark, one of action cinema’s great calls to arms? What about the slow-building theme from Jurassic Park, told in strings rather than brass, its sense of wonder so infectious it has you craning your neck upwards as if surveying a 30ft-tall brachiosaurus? John Williams, 85 this year and still performing and composing at the top of his game, has literally created his own accompaniment. There’s a handful of veteran film composers for whom age is no barrier: Italian maestro Ennio…

This year, 25 Proms can be seen on TV or online. Many are shown on the same night that the concert is held in the Royal Albert Hall. BBC2 Every Saturday (from 22 July) Katie Derham returns with Proms Extra, her magazine show with special guests showcasing the week’s highlights. The First Night of the Proms (Friday 14 July) will be split between BBC2 and BBC4, while the Last Night (9 September) will, as usual, be shared by BBC2 and BBC1. BBC4 will show standout classical concerts on Sundays and popular concerts on Fridays. RADIO 3 will air live concerts every day. ON DEMAND Catch up on all radio programmes and all the works from any Prom filmed for TV for 30 days after broadcast via BBC iPlayer and at…

YOUR COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE PROMS

JULY PROM 1 Fri 14 July 7.30pm Tom Coult St John’s Dance (BBC commission: world premiere) Beethoven Piano Concerto No 3 in C minor John Adams Harmonium Igor Levit (piano), BBC Proms Youth Choir, BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra conductor Edward Gardner Ì First half on BBC2, second half on BBC4 this evening PROM 2 Sat 15 July 7.30pm Sibelius Violin Concerto in D minor Elgar Symphony No 1 in A flat Lisa Batiashvili (violin), Staatskapelle Berlin, conductor Daniel Barenboim PROM 3 Sun 16 July 3.45pm Mozart Symphony No 38 in D (Prague); Violin Concerto No 3 in G Schumann Symphony No 2 in C Isabelle Faust (violin), Chamber Orchestra of Europe/Bernard Haitink Ì On BBC4 on 23 July PROM 4 Sun 16 July 7.45pm Harrison Birtwistle Deep Time (BBC co-commission: UK premiere) Elgar Symphony No 2 in E flat Staatskapelle Berlin/Daniel Barenboim Ì Also on BBC4 this evening PCM1 Mon…

YOUR COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE PROMS

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