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 13th? 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.
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