Saturday, 2 June 2018

Must see TV - Week beginning Sat 2 June 2018



It is back after a break due to a lack of new programming this week there is an abundant of new stuff on TV. The World Cup is closing in football programming is becoming more prevalent before the big kick off. Versailles is back and for its last series it is reported and I would highly recommend Hidden on BBC Wales it will probably appear nationally on the BBC of BBC4 at a later date. Alex Polizzi  is back with her The Hotel Inspector.

3 June Sunday – BBC 2 – Frankie Goes To Russia 9pm ***New Series***
With stories of spy poisoning, hooliganism and an imminent World Cup hitting the headlines, who better to send to Russia than perhaps the BBC’s hardest comedian, the irrepressible Frankie Boyle? The comic, whose viciously acerbic material and style of delivery belies a highly thoughtful mind, visits several of the tournament’s host cities, and discovers the Soviet-era drunk tanks that are being brought out of retirement for unruly fans.
He also has a lot of fun visiting a city twinned with Glasgow that’s renowned for its football violence, recording a World Cup rap and swishing sabres with some of the Cossacks who’ll be policing the stadia. Eventful.
In the first episode, he visits the seaside town hosting the England team and a city renowned for football-related violence. He also joins a daredevil motorbike football team, records a world cup rap, and meets the sabre-wielding Cossacks policing the World Cup stadiums.

4 June Monday – BBC 2 – Versailles 9pm ***New Series***
This towering camp croquet bouche of corn and porn returns for reputedly its final series, and the Sun King Louis XIV (George Blagden) feels invincible. His brother Philippe, Duke of Orleans, returns victorious from war with the vanquished Emperor Leopold in tow, and the palace of Versailles is complete.
Louis celebrates France's victory over the Protestant Dutch and their allies by welcoming Leopold of Hungary and his niece Eleanor to Versailles, but the defeated emperor's own ambitions could have personal consequences for the French king. Madame de Montespan finds a way to hurt a former friend in the king's prim companion Francois de Maintenon, while Philippe returns a war hero, accompanied by his brother-in-arms Guillaume, who is rewarded by the King for his bravery in battle. Return of the period drama, starring George Blagden.

4 June Monday – History Channel – Football Godfathers 9pm ***New Series***
If you want to get in the zone for the World Cup, History is catering for you with every inch of its schedules. The channel is showing non-stop football-themed original series and tactical repeats across every day this week. Tonight Geoff Shreeves starts a run of interviews with managers by visiting former England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson in Sweden.
Of his tabloid-tinged private life, Shreeves notes, “The average England fan can name three of your former girlfriends…” Eriksson bats that away and defends the strengths of his England side at big tournaments, noting that at the 2006 World Cup, “We were ready…We should have done it.” The strand continues later in the week with Louis Van Gaal, Roy Hodgson, Claudio Ranieri, and Gerard Houllier. 

5 June Tuesday – Channel 5 – The Hotel Inspector 9 pm ***New Series***
Return of the hostelry-assistance strand. Alex Polizzi has been called to help Alan, tenanted landlord of the Crown Inn, nestled in the Wiltshire village of Aldbourne. Seven years ago, Alan took on the Crown hoping it would set him up for retirement. But now at 69 years old, he is still working every hour of every day just to get by. With the Crown failing to pull any profit, no pension in place and no Plan B, Alan is desperate for Alex's help.

6 June Wednesday – BBC 1 Wales – Hidden 9pm ***New Series***
I watched this when it was on S4C the Welsh TV channel with English subtitles so happy to re-watch the drama in my native language. Hidden tells the story of Detective Sergeant Cadi John, played by Siân Reese-Williams, who returns to North Wales after a career in the army’s Military Police to move home to care for her ailing father a former Police Officer.
When the body of a local woman is found in a river, it becomes obvious that sinister secrets lie within the region as the body links to other missing woman over a number of year. Cadi’s world is changed forever as she delved into the case, which comes close to home mischarge of justice involving her father.

6 June Wednesday – BBC 1 – Who Do, You Think You Are. 9pm/11:05 on BBC Wales ***New Series***
The genealogy documentary follows eight more celebrities as they trace their family trees to uncover facts about their heritage. First up is Our Girl actress Michelle Keegan, who discovers the dark story of how her great-grandmother Leonor, who lived on Gibraltar, was evacuated during the Second World War. She then goes further back to her great-great-grandmother, who lived in poverty in Manchester at the start of the 20th century. But as Michelle investigates, she unearths a special connection to the suffragette movement.

7 June Thursday – History Channel – Matthews 7pm ***Film***
Nicknamed "The Wizard of the Dribble", Stanley Matthews remains the greatest English footballer of all time. The first player to be knighted and among the earliest to profit from product endorsements, he helped bring the game into the modern era before retiring at the age of 50. Ryan Scott Warren's documentary could easily have run another 15 minutes to provide a few more statistics about Matthews's dual stints at Stoke City and his time at Blackpool, for whom he appeared in three FA Cup Finals before winning his long-cherished medal in a remarkable 4-3 victory over Bolton Wanderers in 1953.
More might also have been said about his pioneering fitness regime, his England career, his all-star testimonial in 1965 and his enduring popularity with fans nationwide. But Warren creditably devotes considerable time to "Stan's Men", an all-black team in Soweto that he formed at the height of apartheid oppression. Full of glorious newsreel footage, this is affectionate, engaging, and well overdue.

7 June Thursday – BBC 2 – Mock The Week 10pm ***New Series***
Dara O Briain returns with a new run of the topical comedy show. Regular panellist Hugh Dennis looks back on another eventful week in news and politics, with the help of fellow comedians James Acaster, Angela Barnes, Ed Gamble, Darren Harriott, and Zoe Lyons. Yet again, stand-up and improvisation are the name of the game as the contestants try to get one up on each other.

8 June Friday – Channel 4 – George Clark’s Amazing Spaces 8pm ***New Series***
This is a sort of greatest hits package. George looks back over some of the best projects from past series of Amazing Spaces. Given the levels of supportive enthusiasm he expresses on a routine show, the prospect of a best-of compilation may send him into overdrive.
The architect looks back over some of the best off-grid projects from Amazing Spaces, from a wooden yurt in a Devonshire, quarry to a medieval summerhouse in a suburban Kent garden made out of cob. George also views the stunning results of a campervan restoration in Shropshire and visits a Victorian shepherd's hut in Worcester.

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