This week, Paul examines the extraordinary wartime exploits of Helena Bonham Carter’s grandparents and spends time with some families in need…
THIS WEEK’S TV
MY GRANDPARENTS’ WAR
Wednesday, Channel 4, 9pm
Lady Violet Bonham Carter was a staunch anti-fascist and a close friend of Winston Churchill. In the first dramatic episode of this thesp-fronted history series, her granddaughter, Helena, goes in search of the remarkable old gal. She also dips into the European Jewish side of her impeccably posh family, about which she knows very little. Bonham Carter’s grandfather, Eduardo, was an unassuming war hero who saved the lives of hundreds of Jewish refugees by granting them visas. Her grandparents were good, kind people, hence why Violet, who also volunteered as an air raid warden during the Blitz, was placed on the Gestapo’s blacklist: in the event of a German invasion, she would’ve faced execution. A fascinating saga.
SAVE MY CHILD
Monday, Channel 4, 8pm
Every day in Britain, people are diligently raising funds to pay for cutting-edge medical treatment that’s not available for free on the NHS. This faith-restoring documentary follows two families and their local communities as they embark on urgent quests to support seriously ill children. 15-year-old Mia has scoliosis, which is causing her spine to become increasingly curved. If she doesn’t receive surgery, this condition will kill her. Six-year-old Pranav has cerebral palsy, which has left him unable to walk, but there’s a pioneering surgeon in America who may be able to help. Enter the magic of crowd-funding. Well I never, you actually can rely on the kindness of strangers after all.
THE BABY HAS LANDED
Wednesday, BBC Two, 9pm
This is rather nice, a new observational documentary series in which people prepare for the imminent arrival of newly born infants. Six families, six life-changing, human-bringing weeks, intimately captured via fixed-camera rigs. Hormonal tears and anxieties abound. Rearing children, something I know nothing about, looks like a stress-fuelled zeppelin of chaos, but also quite rewarding. We meet families in the grip of all it entails: drama, comedy, compassion, oddness. The Baby Has Landed is the sort of service only television can provide, a granular depiction of everyday life stretched over several captivating hours. You’ll find yourself investing in these little stories, these funny, unsentimental capsules of what it means to be alive. It’s a sprig of hope.
VIC & BOB’S BIG NIGHT OUT
Wednesday, BBC Four, 10pm
I don’t use this term lightly, believe you me, but Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer are actual geniuses. Even with a combined age of 202, they’re still brimming with fecund invention. The latest series of their Big Night Out revival (which doesn’t really resemble the original version, it’s just a loose excuse for their usual nonsense) begins with cameos from a long-armed, bongo-playing Jeremy Paxman, a piccolo-playing Steven ‘Making a Murderer’ Avery and the spooky ghost of Freddie Mercury, plus Bob’s spirited tribute to 1980s synth-pop. It also boasts some lovely explosions, Vic’s toilet-based superhero illustrations and the tragically alcoholic return of Judge Nutmeg’s twisted wheel of justice. What more could you possibly want?
FILM of THE WEEK
BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II
Tuesday, Film4, 6:50pm
Unfairly maligned as an inferior sequel, this is actually an ingenious piece of work that builds upon and subverts events from the original film. When time-travelling teen Marty McFly (the charming Michael J. Fox) arrives in an amusingly far-fetched 21st century, he has to vanquish a potentially catastrophic rewriting of history. BTTF Part II is giddy on its own invention, and the effect is contagious.
LAST WEEK’S TV
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
Sunday November 17, BBC One
The umpteenth adaptation of H.G. Wells’ seminal science-fiction novel is a handsomely-produced and commendably bleak affair that places themes of hypocrisy, prejudice and xenophobic jingoism squarely front and centre. It’s not overcooked, though. Writer Peter Harness (a Doctor Who alumnus) explores this itchy moral maze territory without losing sight of the fundamental fact that The War of The Worlds is an apocalyptic yarn about Earth being invaded by Martians. A creeping sense of dread infused episode one, in which a crash-landed ‘meteor’ unleashed all sorts of horror: the scene in which the aliens caused onlookers to spontaneously combust was particularly effective. It’s a fine addition to the canon.
GREG DAVIES: LOOKING FOR KES
Tuesday November 19, BBC Four
Barry Hines’ novel A Kestrel For A Knave and Ken Loach’s film adaptation are among our greatest human achievements. In this delightful documentary, comedian and former teacher Greg Davies visited Yorkshire to work out just why the story of a working-class lad rearing a kestrel remains so relevant and powerful. He spoke to Loach, Kes fan Jarvis Cocker and Dai Bradley, who played Billy Casper on screen. It also featured an archive interview with the late, great Hines. In France they’d build a statue of him.
