ARTS

April 29 | 2022

Heaving corsets

Bulging breeches

hap py e nd i ngs
And

Why we men love a costume drama too

By Downton fan Robert Crampton
2 Friday April 29 2022 | the times
times2
Caitlin
Moran
Celebrity Watch
10
UP
Partygate
While the nation awaits the verdict of
the forthcoming local elections to see
if there has been any actual political
fallout from Partygate, another
consequence of Boris Johnson’s stance
over the whole issue has started to
play out among what we might briskly
refer to as “The Youth”. Last week,
police in Dorset moved to shut down
an illegal rave that had been going on
for 21 hours. More than 1,000 people
had gathered “with sound systems,
tents, vehicles” and the amazing-
sounding “rave-rending lighting”.
However, in the aftermath of the
shutdown — and with the police now
investigating the possibility of
prosecution for a criminal offence —
the partygoers have fallen back on a
classic tactic: pointing out that older,
bigger boys have been just as naughty.
“It wasn’t a rave — it was just cheese
and biscuits, while listening to
repetitive beats,” one said, while
another chipped in with: “The only
question is — was there cake?”
I suspect the police have a whole
summer of this arch, verbal titting
about to look forward to. And that’s
just from the cabinet.
9 “That’s a jooooicy cwumble!”)
UP
Jennifer Grey
The true history of pop
is still being uncovered
— and so it was this
week that we learnt
the unlikely-yet-
amazing fact that
Madonna’s eternal
dancefloor banger
Express Yourself was
inspired by, and written
for, her then-friend
Jennifer Grey — best
known for playing Baby in
Dirty Dancing.
“[Madonna] said, ‘Come
into my car.’ And I got in her
Mercedes where she had a
really good sound system
and she was, like, ‘Listen to
this song I just did. It’s about
you,’ ” Grey reveals in her
forthcoming autobiography.
And, on closer inspection, the
lyrics do seem to reference
Grey’s most famous role: “You
deserve the best in life/ So if
the time isn’t right, then move
on/ Second best is never
enough/ You’ll do much better, baby,
on your own.”
Now we know of the Madonna/Dirty
Dancing crossover, I can’t be the only
one who wishes Madonna had made
it . . . less subtle? That she’d really gone
there? A verse about Baby’s immortal
party accessory would only have made
the song better: “When you go to a
party then take a watermelon/ Don’t
take a cantaloupe/ Sometimes they
look just like a big lemon.”
8 6
UP
Gregg Wallace
and Greg James
To an unexpected showbiz friendship,
revealed in this week’s Heat, when
MasterChef presenter Gregg
Wallace (catchphrase, issued
approvingly, on eating a crumble:
mentioned his latest celebrity pal.
“We notice you have a bit
of a bromance with [Radio 1] DJ
Greg James!” Heat observed,
amused.
“He’s lovely!” Wallace
replied. “He’s a fan of Inside
the Factory, and we bumped
into each other at the
cricket. He phones me up
to take part in any silly
competition he might
have on Radio 1 — I
always oblige, and now he
has a Gregg Wallace
jingle! We get on really
well. He’s a big cricket
fan, and I’ve just started
watching cricket, so
we’ve agreed to
meet up in the
summer for a match.”
How lovely! A get-
together! This is very
wholesome content!
And, after the match,
the pair could go to eat at the
most appropriate place for them:
Greggs (the bakery). Because they are
Gregs. If you are two Gregs, you must
go to the Place of Plural Gregs, which
is — Greggs. Greggs.
Thank you. Thank you for
listening to my joke.
7 5
UP
Nicola Peltz
Two weeks on from “The Wedding
of the Year” — that of the heiress/
actress Nicola Peltz to Brooklyn
Beckham — and details of the
event are still coming to light, in
the same way that, after a
wedding, guests are often
still “coming to light” passed
out in toilets/various parts of
the garden.
This week, we learnt that
Nicola’s mother, Claudia, had a
“message” from herself
embroidered into the skirt of
Nicola’s wedding dress. As the
contents of this message have
not yet been revealed, it feels
as if it is absolutely down to
us to wildly speculate over
what it might be. Perhaps it
will be an inspiring poem or
motto about love? Maybe it
is a sweet memory from
childhood? Or perhaps it’s
the two most useful
advices a bride can receive:
“1) When asked, just reply,
‘Oh — I bought it years
ago’, and 2) You can
machine-wash pretty
much anything at
40 degrees.”
UP
The Osbournes
As the war in Ukraine rages, refugees
continue to be offered shelter by
generous people across the globe.
Among those offering a place to stay
are a raft of celebrities: so far, Cher,
Gary Lineker, Sue Perkins, Chris
Tarrant and Benedict Cumberbatch
have either welcomed refugees into
their homes or are waiting for their
visas. This week, we learnt of a new
offer, encapsulated in the MailOnline
headline: “Welcome to Ozzy’s House!
Sharon Osbourne, 69, says she and
former Black Sabbath frontman, 73,
are set to move two Ukrainian
refugee families into properties”.
I’m aware that celebrities have an
“on-camera” mode and “off-camera”
mode but, as someone who watched
The Osbournes, I do wonder if the
Ukrainian refugee families in
question are fully prepared for what
is in store? A house where bug-eyed
chihuahuas do their business hither,
thither and yon; Ozzy deciding that
the best place to hide a large
hunting knife is “under a
banana”; Kelly complaining that
the valet guy had farted in her
car “and it smells ungodly”; and
Sharon getting into a feud with
her neighbours that ended with
her throwing a whole ham over
the fence at them.
I’m not saying life would be
more peaceful back in Ukraine,
but I suspect the Osbournes’
families will be texting eg Gary
Lineker’s family with questions
along the lines of, “So, does
your celebrity threaten to send
a poo in a box to their enemies?”
DOWN
Headline of
the week
This one is a real “good news/bad
news” two-hander from MailOnline.
“Tiny bat sets new migration record
— flying up to 1,800 miles from
Russia to the French Alps over 63
days” — HURRAH! — “before
drowning in a water tank.” Oh.
4
UP
Cynthia
Plaster Caster
Sad news, for one of
the true legends of the
rock’n’roll era has
died. Cynthia
Albritton, better
known as Cynthia
Plaster Caster, became
famous in the Sixties for taking plaster
casts of the “alert-mode” genitalia of
rock stars. Her collection included
Jimi Hendrix, Anthony Newley and
Wayne Kramer of MC5. There was an
attempt made with Eric Burdon from
the Animals but, as her now-defunct
website noted, in his case, there was
“mould failure”, which is, I think, a
very bad phrase to have written next
to a description of your genitals. It
suggests Burdon’s wedding tackle had
been stored at the wrong temperature
and had, unfortunately, “gone off”.
With no one taking on her business,
it seems that “being the kind of person
who covers a rock star’s genitals with
plaster and makes a permanent record
of their knob” has joined the
lamplighter, the barrel-maker, the
plague doctor and the orange-seller as
jobs now consigned to history. We are
losing our artisan crafts.
3
DOWN
Anonymous
pervy MP
A report in Wednesday’s Mirror
revealed the allegation, made during a
meeting of the 2022 (the female
grouping of the 1922 Committee), that
one Tory frontbencher had been seen
watching porn on his mobile phone
while sitting in the Commons.
Apparently the revelation caused
the former prime minister Theresa
May, who was present for some of the
MPs’ testimony, to have a “face like
thunder” and the chief whip to be
“genuinely horrified”.
And quite rightly, for that is quite
the sexual kink — watching nuddy
flicks while actually in parliament.
However, porn being what it is —
always ready to cater to any market!
— I presume there will soon be
specialist stuff made just for this MP.
“Right honourable members” enjoying
a “supreme legislative body” and its
“state openings”, ending in everyone
shouting: “AYE! AYE! AYE!”
the times | Friday April 29 2022 3

times2
while the pair had to smile politely as

2 the prime minister of Antigua and

Barbuda told them that his country
should “one day become a republic”.
The hot list
DOWN
The Earl and
I’m no PR genius, but with things
as they are at the moment, it looks
like the best chance the
Your guide to the weekend
Countess of royal family have of
retaining sovereignty in
Wessex the Commonwealth is
to just . . . stay at home
Film
Following and hope people kind Playground you’re dead!” Yet
controversy over of forget they exist? This gut-wrenching Nora’s presence by
the recent Base it on the business feature debut from the Abel’s side suddenly
Caribbean trip of the model of Amazon Belgian writer-director exposes his potential
Duke and Duchess Prime, which offers you Laura Wandel follows weakness, and the
of Cambridge — a free month of viewing, seven-year-old Nora bullies, sensing blood,
where the royals in exchange for your (Maya Vanderbeque, turn on him instead. A
were met with credit card details. uncannily brilliant) and belongs to a gang of truthful dissection of
protests over You mean to her reassuring older bullies, one of whom schoolyard morality.
the legacy of cancel it, of brother Abel (Gunter says: “We run this See review, page 9.
British course, but forget Duret, far right). Abel school! If you snitch In cinemas
colonialism — it — and they start
seems that the quietly rinsing
Wessexes’ present trip out your account
there is meeting a similar
fate. An excursion to Grenada
for £7.99 every
month. Passive
Theatre
had to be cancelled over worries monarchy. On a The Corn Is Green autobiographical harmonising
that it would provoke further outcry, direct debit. Nicola Walker, right, play from 1938. from a chorus
impresses as the single- Dominic of miners.
minded idealist who Cooke’s Lyttelton,
Rayner was doing — politics is a dirty sets up a school in production National Theatre

1 business — but when she appeared

on Tuesday’s Lorraine in a pair of
trousers, explaining that she wore
them because “I didn’t want people at
a mining village, in
this stylish revival of
Emlyn Williams’s semi-
inserts Williams
as a character
and adds elegiac
(nationaltheatre.
org.uk), tonight,
tomorrow
UP home thinking, ‘Let’s have a look to
Angela see what her legs are like and how
Rayner’s legs short her skirt is or not’ ”, I personally
believed she was innocent in all this.
Comedy
I’m not saying this country is getting No woman on Earth would do Barry Humphries: Humphries in suburban Melbourne
stupider — but this week a lot of something that meant she had to The Man Behind centre stage as to huge success as
people spent an awful lot of time commit to wearing trousers, in public, The Mask himself for the Dame Edna. Devonshire
talking about Angela Rayner’s legs. for the foreseeable future, at the end Back for a second first time, a Park, Eastbourne,
The Mail on Sunday ran a piece of April. You don’t want to be wearing farewell tour, ramshackle tonight; Birmingham
quoting claims by “Conservatives” — trousers all summer — you start aged 88: but this raconteur going Rep, Sunday,
note the plural — that the Labour walking down that path and, by July, one sidelines the through his life (manbehindthemask.
deputy leader was deliberately trying you’re desperate, and in three-quarter- characters and puts from a childhood co.uk)
to put the prime minister “off his length culottes. It’s a no.
stride” by crossing and uncrossing her As a seasoned feminist philosopher,
legs during PMQs, in the manner of I have to admit that this whole story
Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. made me boggle, yet again, at how Pop
In the hoo-ha that followed, both much of women’s lives are dictated by
Johnson and Rayner issued furious men actually verbalising their “Inside Nick Mason’s before retreating See Emily Play and
denials, the Commons Speaker Head” voices out loud. We just don’t Saucerful of Secrets from view. other songs
Lindsay Hoyle summoned the MoS need to know what any man in Syd Barrett led Pink Floyd’s admirably.
editor to attend a meeting about parliament thinks about Angela Floyd through their drummer City Hall,
the “misogynistic and Rayner’s legs. Ever. I’m sure 1967 debut of Mason leads Sheffield,
offensive” article, and, like there are numerous women surrealistic whimsy this Barrett tomorrow;
battle-weary pros, exactly on both sides of the House and psychedelic tribute, with De Montfort
the people you would who are daily more intensity, until mental Gary Kemp Hall, Leicester,
expect took up exactly the distracted by eg the hair of disintegration left him making for an Sunday
positions you would Michael Fabricant — and to make two fractured, unlikely Syd, but (thesaucerful
expect, in every column/ yet they aren’t ringing up brilliant solo albums tackling Arnold Layne, ofsecrets.com)
phone-in/social-media the Mail, shouting, “I
spat Paul the Psychic mean, what search results
Octopus would have is he getting when he
predicted — were he not, googles ‘normal hair for Classical
sadly, dead. And the late men’? Where is he getting his
Paul’s views were, perhaps, the information from? I can’t stop Hallé/Elder Roderick Williams is
only ones worth having — as looking at it. It’s putting me off The Manchester project the baritone soloist, is a
someone with eight legs, he was my stride.” bringing the city’s two choral work with the
well qualified to preside over Also, I want to use the opportunity symphony orchestras mystical settings of
LegGate. afforded by Angela Rayner’s LegsGate together to mark the Walt Whitman;
Of course, one would have to be a to raise another issue: I have never 150th anniversary of Symphony No 6 alludes
particularly huge owl to give the sheer understood why “legs” are up there the birth of Ralph to nuclear apocalypse.
quantity of side-eye needed for a story with “tits” and “bums” as a Primary Vaughan Williams the Hallé in two Bridgewater Hall,
in which a beleaguered Boris Johnson Lady Sex Area. Legs? Your . . . hairy continues with Mark contrasting works. A Manchester (halle.co.uk),
has the novel opportunity to shout, walk-stumps? With FEET at the Elder, right, conducting Sea Symphony, in which tomorrow
“Actually, in this instance, I am not an bottom of them? How did that
absolute sex-case!” in the week before happen? Is it because legs terminate at
the local elections. What tops Vag Station — and are therefore rude
throwing a dead cat on a table?
Throwing a woman’s legs on the table.
by association? If our vaginas were in
our armpits, would arms be seen as
Visual art
Chaos merchants gonna chaos sexy? “I’m an arms man, me.” “She’s Walter Sickert the painter. A powerful
merchant. got such long arms.” Would Rod This retrospective of show, but not a pleasant
Part of the chaos came from an Stewart have written Hot Arms? As the artist — once one. Tate Britain,
online cohort who were convinced someone who owns the legs of a rumoured to be Jack London (tate.org.uk),
that Rayner knew “exactly what she woman, I find the whole thing the Ripper — offers a today, tomorrow,
was doing” and was now “milking” the genuinely confusing. The whole thing revealing and creepily Sunday. See review,
“woke outrage”. Of course, there is is putting me off my stride now. And intimate insight into page 13
the chance that this was, indeed, what it’s making this country look stupid.
4 Friday April 29 2022 | the times

cover story

Romance, corsets, big houses: JAY BROOKS/HBO/LOOKOUT POINT/BBC; FOCUS FEATURES/ALAMY

As a new Downton film arrives, Robert Crampton

declares his love for aristos in hats and Ben Dowell
and Ed Potton pick the finest examples of the genre

I
don’t care what the critics say, I
know I’m going to thoroughly
enjoy Downton Abbey: A New
Era. I loved the last film and I
re-inhaled all 52 episodes of the
series in about a month in the
winter lockdown last year.
I also know I’ll like the new
movie because I’m in love with
costume dramas as a genre. I’m
capable, just about, of distinguishing
between a good one and a bad one.
But even a bad one will have much
to enjoy. Look no further than
Bridgerton: in the absence of a decent
script, plot or performance, the
clothes, set design, cheekbones and
chests make it worth the watch. As do
the crowd scenes: it’s all a load of balls,
but what fun those balls can be! Also,
like all middlebrow entertainment,
costume drama operates in a safe
moral universe. Nothing truly bad is
going to happen, or if it does it will be
punished and there will be a happy
ending. As I get older, that’s what I
look for in my leisure hours.
Let’s establish our parameters. The
genre could in theory encompass any
production set at a time when people
wore less comfortable clothes. There
has to be a cut-off and I reckon it’s the
Second World War. Thus, Brideshead is
fine. But, say, Our Friends in the North
is too recent. During wartime also
doesn’t count: no Nazis allowed. And
no Romans or Vikings either. Nor
indeed anything from before the
Stuarts. Prior to the 17th century the
clothes and haircuts were crap and
anyway most people were dead before
they were 30. Or deformed.
Also, there has to be a hefty toff
quotient. Not because they were the
only ones with decent clobber (the
clothes in Peaky Blinders are fab), but
because you need baddies and in most
British literature worth adapting, rich
people are generally wrong ’uns.
Pretty much every costume drama is
It all started for me with Upstairs,
Downstairs in 1971. The family
ensconced on the sofa, two out of four
bars on the gas fire roaring, the
vertical hold on the telly for once not
playing up. From the first notes of the
theme music, I was mesmerised.
You’ve got to appreciate how few
entertainment options there were in
1971, especially on a Sunday, when
you’d be reduced to watching Songs
of Praise just to see moving pictures.
Upstairs, Downstairs was really
classy, often comic, often poignant.
The first episode was written by Fay
Weldon. Angela Baddeley and Jean
Marsh — who, with Eileen Atkins,
came up with the idea for the show
— were superb. If Gosford Park was
John the Baptist to Downton, then
There has Upstairs, Downstairs is the Old
to be a Testament of TV costume drama.
Julian Fellowes would be the first to
hefty toff acknowledge the debt.
Also, even at seven, I fancied Lesley-
quotient — Anne Down and Nicola Pagett. If you
wanted to reduce the appeal of costume
because drama to one word, it would be lust. I
cut their pictures out of the TV Times
you need and stuck them on my bedroom wall.
So it went on through the Seventies:
baddies The Onedin Line, Lillie, Poldark . . . but
not Clayhanger or When the Boat
Comes In. Not enough toffs, right?
Unlike, as we moved into the 1980s,
Brideshead Revisited, which had
plenty. I didn’t fancy Anthony Lydia Leonard, Suranne Jones and
Andrews or Jeremy Irons, seductive Sophie Rundle in Gentleman Jack
as their outfits were, but I watched
them voraciously.
As did my whole generation, at
an impressionable age. If anyone
doubts the sociological impact of this
apparently innocuous genre, they
OK, OK — I cried during
should know that Brideshead fashion,
hairstyles and high-camp high
Toryism swept the nation in the early
the latest Downton movie
Eighties. Bridgerton has boosted sales
of croquet sets; Brideshead set the
Our critic reaches for his hanky
political tone for a whole decade.

a tale of an attractive protagonist from
a humble background thwarted by the
hierarchy of the age. Given social
mobility is still so limited, we remain
drawn to this storyline.
Also, sorry to be nationalistic but a
costume drama needs to be British.
Witness the recent failure of Julian
Fellowes’s The Gilded Age. We all knew
that in New York in 1880, if you made
and spread around enough
money, you were going to
be allowed into “society”.
In Britain, it’s never been
quite that simple.
So we’re looking at
1600-1939, in Blighty, with
toffs. The thing is, like right
and wrong, or charm, or
charisma, most of us know a
costume drama when we see one.
If the men are in tight trousers
and silly hats, the women are in
something hooped, frilly and
impractical, and people say,
“Madam, I bid you good day!”
or “Sir, you are impertinent!” —
we’re in business.
Margaret Thatcher had good reason
Lily James and to be grateful to Evelyn Waugh.
Callum Turner in Sometimes I suspect my love of
War and Peace costume drama suggests I’m not the
radical I think I am. As someone
known to say our side should have
finished the job properly at Marston
Moor, I ought to loathe the whole
category. Fair enough, posh snobs
are often the baddies, but then again
posh not-snobs (Lady Sybil, Ross
Poldark, countless fair-minded
landowners who understand
noblesse oblige) are often
the heroes or heroines.
I’m not supposed to
root for people such
as Lord Grantham,
especially as I covet
his wife. But hey,
his suits are to die for.
As is his labrador. As is
his house. Anyway,
it doesn’t do to let
politics rule your
cultural choices.
There should always be
room for joyful escapism.
I
admit it, I cried during the new
Downton Abbey movie. I won’t
tell you what prompted the
waterworks but boy did they flow.
How embarrassing. I glanced
around the screening room to make
sure nobody was looking as I did that
tell-tale wipe of the cheeks with the
back of the hand. It’s less that I was
blubbing in public, more that I was
blubbing at something so . . . cheesy.
I love Downton but I would never
argue that it’s high art.
Sometimes it’s the most saccharine
stuff that makes me well up, though.
There’s a scene in The Sopranos
where Tony sobs to a slushy TV
advert about life insurance or
something. I’ve done that too, and
I’ve cried at a Bobby Charlton
montage in Sports Personality of
the Year and bad kids’ films such
as Pete’s Dragon (not just Pixar —
surely everyone cries at those).
Like many men, I’ve found my
weeping threshold has been lowered
by entering middle age and having
children. At 47, I’m about the same
age as Tony Soprano was in that
scene, and affected by the same
pressures — impending sense of
mortality, expanding waistline, kids,
ageing parents, demanding job (even
if mine does involve watching
Downton Abbey movies). No
Sopranos-style murder or extortion
yet, but there’s still time. Brexit,
Covid, Ukraine and the cost-of-living
crisis probably haven’t helped my
emotional state.
In truth, though, I’ve always been
a wuss. I cried on the last day of
primary school and I cried watching
E.T. — unlike my mate Philip, whose
mum called him a psychopath for
his lack of tears. Sometimes I worry
that it compromises my ability as a
critic. We’re meant to be alert to
the manipulative ruses of film
directors, the sweeping strings and
stirring close-ups, but I still fall for
them. I’m not alone, though — the
chief film critic of another national
newspaper told me he cried in
Downton too. Sometimes you’ve just
got to let it all out, man. Ed Potton
the times | Friday April 29 2022
the 20 best costume dramas
Joanne Froggatt and Michelle
Dockery in Downton Abbey
10 best on TV
Brideshead Revisited (1981)
Anthony Andrews’s Lord Sebastian
Flyte holding his teddy bear, Aloysius,
is not the only lasting memory from
Granada’s sumptuous adaptation of
Evelyn Waugh’s longest and probably
best novel. The journey of Waugh’s
alter ego Charles Ryder (Jeremy Irons)
from callow Twenties Oxford
undergraduate to world-weary
wartime captain captivated the nation.
Bodice-ripper rating a firm 4. Never
more than a few cricket pitches away
from a powerful gay subtext.
Britbox, ITV Hub
Middlemarch (1994)
For his first attempt at
adapting a classic Andrew
Davies chose what many
regard as the greatest English
novel. He re-energised the
occasionally sedate pace of
George Eliot’s text into a
compelling drama that was
packed with incident and great
performances but never lost
sight of her key theme of social
reform in 1830s England. Juliet
Aubrey made for a warm and
attractive heroine, Dorothea.
Bodice-ripper rating 3, thanks
to Rufus Sewell’s chocolatey
stares as Dorothea’s eventual
love interest, Will Ladislaw.
DVD/Blu-ray
Pride and Prejudice (1995)
Perhaps the greatest TV period drama
of them all, Davies showed what the
form could do with his sensitive
exploration of the passions below
the surface of Jane Austen’s prose.
Bodice-ripper rating 5, for a dripping-
wet Colin Firth emerging from the
Pemberley lake. Britbox, Sky
Bleak House (2005)
Davies robustly answered those
critics who said his classic adaptations
were too soapy by . . . making it as
soapy as possible. Told in 30-minute
chunks, this was a triumph, crowned
by Gillian Anderson’s haunting
performance as Lady Honoria
Dedlock.
Bodice-ripper rating 1. A drama
centred on a protracted legal battle?
Even “TV’s Mr Sex”, as Davies was
then known, couldn’t give this much
carnal appeal. Amazon, Apple
Little Dorrit (2008)
Dickens’s sprawling, frequently angry
story of a family legacy and the evils
of the debtors’ prison was expertly
brought together by Davies (him
again). Among the scores of speaking
parts, Tom Courtenay’s performance
as poor William Dorrit and Claire Foy
as Amy Dorrit stand out.
Bodice-ripper rating 1. Marshalsea
prison was known for many things, but
not rumpy-pumpy. Britbox, Apple
Downton Abbey (2010-present)
Just as the critics were insisting that
the period drama had had its day,
Julian Fellowes gloriously proved
them wrong with his unashamedly
soapy above-and-below-stairs saga
centred on the Crawley clan in early
20th-century Yorkshire.
Bodice-ripper rating a solid 4, if only
for the moment when Lady Mary
Colin Firth and shagged her lover, Mr Pamuk, to death.
Jennifer Ehle in Britbox, Netflix, Now
Pride and Prejudice
Parade’s End (2012)
Tom Stoppard’s adept adaptation of
Ford Madox Ford’s supposedly
unadaptable tetralogy was defiantly
highbrow, with superb performances
and luxuriant production values
spilling from every starched fly collar.
Bodice-ripper rating “I stand for
monogamy and chastity,” declares
Benedict Cumberbatch’s hero, the
government statistician Christopher
Tietjens. “And for not talking about
it.” Still, his wayward wife, Sylvia
(Rebecca Hall), peps things up on the
sex front. So 3. Amazon, Apple
War and Peace (2016)
Davies’s superlative adaptation
distilled the essence of this
magnificent book with
consummate skill, capturing
the intensity of feeling, gliding
effortlessly over the complex
plot and getting to the
dramatic meat of the story
with pace and some beautifully
tender moments.
Bodice-ripper rating 3. The scenes
between James Norton and Lily
James had their moments. Amazon,
Apple, Sky
Poldark (2015-19)
Debbie Horsfield’s fresh take on
Winston Graham’s clunky novels
captured the propulsive nature of a
saga set among the landowners and
tin mines of 18th-century Cornwall.
Bodice-ripper rating 5. Scythe no
more, ladies, bare-chested Aidan
Turner showed us all how it should
be done. Netflix
Gentleman Jack (2019-present)
Suranne Jones’s leading lesbian Anne
Lister barely catches breath in this
account of the real 19th-century
landowner who struck business deals
and wrote down every sexual escapade
in her coded diary. Enormous fun.
Bodice-ripper rating a solidly
sapphic 5. BBC1 and iPlayer
Ben Dowell
10 best films
The Leopard (1963)
You don’t get more sumptuous than
the ball scene in Luchino Visconti’s
tale of 19th-century Sicilian aristocrats.
A dashing Alain Delon, Burt Lancaster’s
brooding nobleman, lace-clad ladies
waving fans and Claudia Cardinale in
a gown the size of a small town.
Bodice-ripper rating 3. Fading
grandeur wins out over sensuality.
Amazon, Apple
Tom Jones (1963)
Albert Finney channelled the
permissiveness of swinging London
into his portrayal of Henry Fielding’s
brawling, lady-killing hero. Time
magazine called it “as bawdy as
the British were bawdy when a wench
had to wear five petticoats to
barricade her virtue”.
Bodice ripper rating 4.
Tom goes to a masked
ball and is seduced
by an amoral
noblewoman.
We’ve all been
there. Amazon
Doctor Zhivago
(1965)
You want costumes? Dangerous Liaisons
David Lean’s epic had
Omar Sharif, dashing in
dinner jacket, and Julie
Christie, a Venus in furs. You want
drama? How about a sweeping
romance between the two, set against
the backdrop of the First World War
and the Russian Civil War?
Bodice ripper rating 3. More baked
Alaska than Molotov cocktail. Apple
A Room with a View (1985)
Merchant Ivory’s Forster adaptation
ticked all the prestige boxes: Tuscan
scenery porn, Helena Bonham Carter
in ingenue mode, Daniel Day-Lewis
unrecognisable as a bookish prig and
Maggie Smith as a brilliantly passive-
aggressive chaperone.
Bodice-ripper rating 3. Unless you
count Simon Callow skinny-dipping.
Amazon; also at the Prince Charles
Cinema, London WC2, May 17
Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
Stephen Frears’s pre-revolutionary
French romp put the emphasis on the
romping. John Malkovich made a
5
cover story
kinky pact with Glenn Close, pursued
Michelle Pfeiffer and had blackmail
sex with Uma Thurman.
Bodice-ripper rating 5. The carnal
fireworks even extended off screen
— Malkovich had a fling with Pfeiffer.
Amazon, Apple
Sense and Sensibility (1995)
He’s done westerns, superheroes and
suburbia and here the Taiwanese
director Ang Lee tackled Austen with
aplomb. Emma Thompson won an
Oscar for her lucid first screenplay,
and was nominated for another for
playing stoic Elinor Dashwood,
opposite Kate Winslet as her volatile
sister, Marianne.
Bodice-ripper rating 3. This is Austen,
not Bridgerton. Apple, Starz
Gosford Park (2001)
The country house drama that
Fellowes wrote — and won an Oscar
for — before Downton Abbey. This was
Downton for grown-ups, though, a far
more subversive yarn directed by an
expert outsider in Robert Altman.
Maggie Smith played another acerbic
matriarch, glancing at a younger
woman’s frock and muttering,
“Difficult colour, green.”
Bodice-ripper rating 3. For some
unsavoury upstairs-downstairs
infidelity. Amazon, Apple, Netflix
Love and Friendship (2016)
Based on Jane Austen’s Lady Susan,
this was another British period piece
that benefited from a non-British
director, in this case the urbane
American, Whit Stillman
(Metropolitan). Kate Beckinsale had
indecent fun as a widow scheming to
secure rich husbands for her
daughter and herself.
Bodice-ripper rating 4.
She’s Machiavelli with
ringlets. Netflix,
BFI Player, Curzon
Home Cinema
The Favourite
(2018)
The bonkers Greek
director Yorgos
Lanthimos gave us the
monarchy as we had
never seen it before: dark,
sapphic, devilishly funny. “Have
you come to seduce me or rape me?”
Emma Stone’s Abigail asks a suitor. “I
am a gentleman,” he says. “So, rape
then,” she replies. Olivia Colman won
an Oscar for her childlike yet canny
Queen Anne, but Rachel Weisz and
Stone were just as good as the courtiers
warring for her favour, and bed.
Bodice-ripper rating 5. “I like it when
she puts her tongue inside me,” says
Anne. Crikey. Amazon, Apple
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
A painter (Noémie Merlant) is
commissioned to do a portrait of a
young noblewoman (Adèle Haenel)
but her subject won’t sit for it so she
must resort to stolen glances. They fall
in love, of course, but this being
18th-century Brittany, their chances
of a happily ever after are slim.
Bodice-ripper rating 5. There’s still
room for plenty of candlelit writhing.
Amazon, Curzon Home Cinema
EP
6 Friday April 29 2022 | the times
arts
Summer music
festivals — what
to book now
The Times music critics pick the 25 best UK rock,
pop and jazz festivals you can still get tickets for
The Great Escape
Various venues, Brighton, East Sussex,
May 11-14 (greatescapefestival.com),
from £75
Who’s playing? Lola Young, Yard Act,
Rebecca Black
What is it? Britain’s answer to SXSW
finds hundreds of new acts playing at
pretty much every venue, pub back
room and town square in Brighton,
making it the ideal place to discover
your new favourite band — if you can
take the inevitable queues. Wu-Lu,
Priya Ragu and the Goa Express are a
few worth getting in line early for.
Shindig
Dillington Estate, Somerset, May 26-29
(shindigfestival.co.uk), from £187.25
Who’s playing? De La Soul, Roy
Ayers, Odyssey
What is it? Offering “relaxation and
revelry in equal measure”, this radiant
knees-up has giants of rap, jazz and
disco alongside such fabulous DJs as
François K and Greg Wilson.
Hampton Court Palace
Hampton Court Palace, Surrey,
June 9-25 (hamptoncourtpalace
festival.com), from £62.50
Who’s playing? Elbow,
Kacey Musgraves, George
Benson, the Human
League, Crowded House,
Michael Ball
What is it? The Tudor
ZUMAPRESS.COM / MEGA THEMEGAAGENCY.COM; KEVIN MAZUR; AARON PARSONS PHOTOGRAPHY; SHIRLAINE FORREST/WIREIMAGE/GETTY IMAGES
Chosen by courtyard of Henry VIII’s riverside
palace is hard to beat as a musical
Jade Cuttle, backdrop to these standalone
concerts, with bars and stalls in the
Will Hodgkinson, gardens beyond.
Chris Pearson, Download
Ed Potton and Donington Park, Leicestershire, June 10-
Blanca Schofield 12 (downloadfestival.co.uk), from £98.40
Who’s playing? Kiss, Iron Maiden,
Biffy Clyro Megan Thee
What is it? Metal lives for ever at
Donington, a festival with a super-
friendly, all-in-it-together atmosphere.
Stallion plays
The music goes from heavy to
heavier, with highlights including
Parklife
Black Sabbath-style doom legends
Electric Wizard and US hardcore
stalwarts Descendent. the royal family, David Miliband on Isle of Wight
crisis leadership, and William Seaclose Park, Newport, June 16-19
Kite Dalrymple and David Olusoga on the (isleofwightfestival.com), from £195
Kirtlington Park, Oxfordshire, end of history. Who’s playing? Lewis Capaldi,
June 10-12 (kitefestival.co.uk), Kasabian, Muse
from £135 Parklife What is it? Born in a late-Sixties
Who’s playing? Grace Jones, Mavis Heaton Park, Manchester, June 11-12 hippy haze, with legendary
Staples, Saint Etienne, Baxter Dury (parklife.uk.com), from £84.50 performances by the Who and
What is it? This thought- Who’s playing? Tyler, the Creator; Jimi Hendrix, Isle of Wight has
provoking new festival of music Megan Thee Stallion; 50 Cent; Lewis since settled into a slightly more
and ideas blends left-of-centre Capaldi; Bicep; Chase & Status restrained affair. Young pop stars
music from Self Esteem, What is it? Held in the sprawling (Freya Ridings, Sigrid), indie bands
This Is the Kit and the like greenery of Heaton Park, this raucous, (Blossoms, the Amazons) and
with comedy and non-camping weekender is dominated bona fide legends (Mavis Staples,
Years & stimulating talks across by hip-hop and dance music this year, Nile Rodgers) contribute to the
seven stages. The talks with Lewis Capaldi flying a lone flag family-friendly line-up, while
Years play range from Richard for sensitive balladry. Sunday day Wet Leg, the Isle of Wight’s own
Dawkins on defying tickets and weekend tickets available sensations of 2022, will be the hot
Wilderness gravity to Tina Brown on (Saturday has sold out). set of the weekend.
the times | Friday April 29 2022
Black Deer
Eridge Park, Kent, June 17-19
(blackdeerfestival.com), from £196.52
Who’s playing? Van Morrison, Wilco,
the Waterboys, Imelda May, Jake Bugg
What is it? Winner of best new
festival at the Independent Festival
Awards in 2018, this rootsy hoedown
of Americana and country is one of
the friendliest events on the calendar.
The bill is stuffed with battle-hardened
legends, the stalls heave with
barbecued treats, and the gospel
brunch on Sunday is already an
institution.
Strawberries & Creem
Childerley Orchard, Cambridge, June 17-
19 (strawberriesandcreem.com), £160
Who’s playing? Lil Wayne, Mabel,
Tems, Ella Mai
What is it? The Grammy-winning
American rap superstar Lil Wayne is
the big name at this eclectic mix of
hip-hop, grime, R&B, soul, reggae,
house, drum’n’bass, dancehall and
soca, which is set in an ancient
orchard just outside Cambridge.
British Summertime
Hyde Park, London W1, June 24 to July
10 (bst-hydepark.com), from £79
Who’s playing? The Rolling Stones,
Eagles, Pearl Jam, Duran Duran
What is it? Less a festival, more a
series of all-day outdoor concerts
featuring a massive headliner. Elton
John and Adele have sold out, but
tickets to Pearl Jam, Eagles, Duran
Duran and the Rolling Stones are
still available.
Love Supreme
Glynde Place, East Sussex, July 1-3
(lovesupremefestival.com), £179.30
Who’s playing? Charles Lloyd & the
Marvels, Erykah Badu, Candi Staton,
Sister Sledge, Julian Lage
What is it? This is the one where
hardcore jazz fans can bring their
Kiss play
Download
Cambridge
Folk Festival
jazz-sceptic better halves without
risking divorce. The venerable
saxophone spiritualist Charles Lloyd is
the standout show. Saturday day
tickets have sold out, but there’s a new
release coming soon.
Henley
Henley-on-Thames, July 6-10 (henley-
festival.co.uk), day tickets from £65
Who’s playing? Tom Jones, the Script,
Boney M, Craig David
What is it? No mud and wellies at this
black-tie affair on the banks of the
Thames, which has secured the Welsh
sex bomb himself for its 40th
anniversary. Tom Jones and his fellow
headliners serenade from a floating
stage while fizz flows on the Moët
Champagne Lawn and the mezzo-
soprano Katherine Jenkins performs
with an orchestra.
TRNSMT
Glasgow Green, July 8-10
(trnsmtfest.com), from £175
Who’s playing? Paolo Nutini,
the Strokes, Lewis Capaldi,
Foals, Wolf Alice, Fontaines
DC, Sigrid, Beabadoobee
What is it? Scotland’s leading
festival has some of the most
fired-up crowds you’ll see, and
a bill thick with indie heroes,
including some local ones in
Nutini and Capaldi. No camping,
which is probably just as well.
Three-day weekender (Friday-Sunday)
and two-day weekender (Saturday-
Black Deer
Sunday) tickets are still available,
along with day tickets for Saturday Festival
and Sunday.
Doune the Rabbit Hole
Stirling, July 14-17
(dounetherabbithole.co.uk), £185
Who’s playing? Patti Smith, 10cc,
Sleaford Mods, Belle & Sebastian
What is it? Set among ancient
oak trees, this family-friendly festival
hosts golden oldies alongside bright
young things.
Latitude
Henham Park, Suffolk, July 21-24
(latitudefestival.com), from £226.80
Who’s playing? Lewis Capaldi, Foals,
Snow Patrol, Fontaines DC, Phoebe
Bridgers
What is it? Long since viewed as the
most middle class of festivals, “Latte-
tude” has actually got increasingly fun
over the years, meaning just as many
teenagers are raving in the woods
through the night as mums and dads
are attending theatre workshops in the
fields by day. Plus, the porous ground
means something important for the
comfort-conscious camper: no
flooding. Weekend and day tickets
(Friday, Saturday and Sunday) are
still on sale.
Bluedot
Jodrell Bank Observatory, Cheshire, July
21-24 (discoverthebluedot.com), £178.75
Who’s playing? Björk with the Hallé
Orchestra, Metronomy, Professor Jim
Al-Khalili
What is it? With the Lovell Telescope
as its backdrop, this engrossing four-
dayer combines tastefully picked
music acts, often with an electronic or
sci-fi bent, with talks and events
featuring scientific figures.
Standon Calling
Standon Lordship, Hertfordshire, July
21-24 (standon-calling.com), from £189
Who’s playing? Madness, Anne-
Marie, Loyle Carner, Primal Scream
What is it? Sitting in the space
between a mainstream family affair
and a place to catch hot breakout acts
such as Self Esteem and Dry Cleaning,
this cheerful event is big on activities
for the kids (Horrible Histories, dog
shows) plus late-night shindigs for
ageing raver parents (Basement Jaxx,
Grandmaster Flash).
Womad
Charlton Park, Wiltshire, July 28-31
(womad.co.uk), from £205
Who’s playing? The Flaming Lips,
Fatoumata Diawara, Angelique Kidjo,
Kae Tempest
What is it? Peter Gabriel’s world-
music extravaganza celebrates its 40th
anniversary with a cosmopolitan line-
up of music, dance, art, workshops and
lunar-themed art.
Camp Bestival
Lulworth Castle, Dorset, July 28-31,
from £210; Weston Park,
Shropshire, August 18-21, from
£190 (campbestival.net)
Who’s playing? Rag’n’Bone
Man, Sister Sledge, Kool and
the Gang, Rudimental
(Dorset); Fatboy Slim, Becky
Hill, Rag’n’Bone Man, the
Proclaimers (Shropshire)
What is it? With Bestival out
of action, its family-geared
spin-off has expanded to two
events held on different
weekends, one at the usual venue
in Dorset, the other at a new one in
Shropshire. Kids are the unashamed
focus, with Mr Tumble, Horrible
Histories and heaps of fun theatre,
comedy and activities.
Cambridge Folk
Cherry Hinton Hall, Cambridge, July 28-
31 (cambridgelive.org.uk), £187.46
Who’s playing? Passenger, Suzanne
Vega, This Is the Kit, Seasick Steve,
Gipsy Kings
What is it? Established in 1965, this is
7
arts
a genial golden oldie of the festival
circuit, with another line-up of
acoustic stars to charm the real-ale
supping punters.
Deershed
Baldersby Park, Topcliffe, North
Yorkshire, July 29-31
(deershedfestival.com), from £180
Who’s playing? Yard Act, Nadine
Shah, John Grant, Django Django
What is it? Yard Act, the witty punk-
funk outfit who are Elton John’s
favourite new band, headline this
charming festival in the North
Yorkshire countryside. There’s
comedy from Shaparak Khorsandi
and Stewart Lee and science
workshops catering for your inner
geek, from synth building to making
your own laser maze.
Wilderness
Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire, August 4-7
(wildernessfestival.com), from £230
Who’s playing? Years & Years,
Róisín Murphy, Craig Charles,
Underworld, Jungle
What is it? A candidate for most
luxurious festival, and one that has
managed to retain its hedonistic
credibility despite the occasional
visit from David Cameron. On one
hand there’s spa pampering, wild
swimming and high-end chefs
cooking banquets at long tables. On
the other there’s a dirty rave at the
bottom of a ravine.
All Points East
Victoria Park, London E3, August 19, 20,
25-28 (allpointseastfestival.com), day
tickets from £57
Who’s playing? Gorillaz, Nick Cave
and the Bad Seeds, Tame Impala, the
National, Disclosure
What is it? This series of non-
camping one-dayers in east London is
always impeccably curated, smoothly
organised and full of alternative
heroes. APE has now absorbed the
electronic knees-up Field Day, whose
excellent bill on August 20 includes
the Chemical Brothers, Kraftwerk,
HAAi and Daniel Avery.
Leeds
Bramham Park, Leeds, August 26-28
(leedsfestival.com), £94 for day tickets
Who’s playing? Dave, Arctic Monkeys,
Rage Against the Machine, Halsey
What is it? The traditional post-GCSE
blowout is strictly a pile-in-with-your-
mates, overdo-it-on-Friday-night,
call-your-mum-in-tears-at-3am affair,
with an age-appropriate line-up of rap,
pop and indie rock to help get you
through it all. Its sister festival in
Reading has sold out, but Leeds still
has day tickets available for Friday
and Saturday.
End of the Road
Larmer Tree Gardens, Dorset,
September 1-4
(endoftheroadfestival.com), £210, sold
out but official resales later in the year
(date TBC)
Who’s playing? Fleet Foxes, Pixies,
Khruangbin, Lucy Dacus, the
Weather Station
What is it? The best alternative music
festival in Britain is as good for
discovering brand new acts as it is for
reconnecting with indie rock legends,
and all within such a great set-up.
Some of it takes place in the woods,
the film and comedy programmes are
imaginative and unusual, and the
whole thing is small enough to wander
from stage to stage in a state of
pleasant delirium.
8 Friday April 29 2022 | the times

Richard Morrison the arts column

Why can’t we let these Ukrainian musicians stay in the UK?
STEVE MORGAN FOR THE TIMES

O
n a coach from
Aylesbury to
Sheffield, a brilliant
22-year-old
trumpeter offers a
quick summary of
his adult life. “My
name is Volodymyr
and I was born in the Ukrainian city
of Sievierodonetsk,” he says. “My city
has been at war since 2014.”
That’s true. Sievierodonetsk, just
50 miles from the Russian border, was
taken over by pro-Russian militants
in 2014, recaptured by the Ukrainian
army a few months later, never at
peace since then, and now braced for
a full Russian army onslaught. It has
been terribly bombed. “For now I have
no home,” Volodymyr says. “My city is
destroyed.” From his phone he sends
me photo after photo of buildings
reduced to rubble. “My parents and
all my relatives have left.”
Volodymyr himself left Ukraine in
January, almost a month before the
invasion began — not to flee the
conflict but to fulfil a professional
engagement. He is playing first
trumpet in the orchestra of the
National Opera of Ukraine, which
is performing Tosca, Carmen and English, so it would be easier,” Znak The National Opera of musicians also have to find week we learnt that the Ukrainian
Madama Butterfly on a long and says. “Partly because Britain has many Ukraine in Sheffield somewhere to live, and money to live Freedom Orchestra, comprising top
exhausting tour of mostly one- more opportunities for musicians, or on, while they await the decision. Ukrainian musicians from around the
night-stands criss-crossing Britain for any sort of work, than, say, Ireland. For Volodymyr the trumpet player, world, will perform at the Proms,
and Ireland. And partly because, while we have the situation is different. While in the Edinburgh Festival and Snape
“It was very difficult to focus on been here, British people have been UK he and another young member of Maltings this summer, as well as in
work when we first heard news of so supportive.” the orchestra, a bassoonist, auditioned mainland Europe and the US. I don’t
the invasion,” says Solomiya Znak, This being the UK, however, for the Royal Academy of Music doubt the importance of such cultural
the deputy company manager. “Our nothing is easy for would-be refugees. (RAM) in London — and both won gestures to the morale of people in
first thought was, ‘Two or three weeks Especially, oddly, for Ukrainians who places. “Since the war started we have Ukraine — but in the end, they are
and it will be all over and we can are already legitimately in the country committed to accepting up to five or just gestures. They don’t by themselves
go home.’ ” but on temporary work visas, as these six young Ukrainian refugee musicians rehouse millions of displaced families
Then reality hit. “There are 43 musicians are (the visas expire on May to study at the RAM — outstanding or give Ukraine’s creative young
Ukrainians in the company, plus 29). First they were told that to apply talent that could be lost unless we people the opportunities to study
some from Moldova and Romania,” for new visas under the government’s chose to act,” says Jonathan Freeman- and realise their full potential.
she continues. “We come from cities Homes for Ukraine scheme, they Attwood, the RAM’s principal. That requires a lot of money, a
all over Ukraine. We are all homesick would have to leave the country first. Great, but it costs about £40,000 lot of unconditional generosity and
but we realise it is not safe to go back. At least that bizarre requirement has a year for an international student to governments that are both flexible
Some of us have no homes to go back been dropped. From May 3, they will, live in London and pay the tuition and well organised about accepting
to. One player just heard that a rocket apparently, be able to apply from fees at a top conservatoire. Freeman- refugees. So far the UK has not
strike had destroyed his home. Luckily within the UK, but no details of how Attwood has started a fundraising covered itself in glory on any of those
his family were in a bomb shelter to do it have yet been given to them One operation so that these half-dozen fronts. Here’s a chance to give at least
when it happened.”
Their British tour finishes on May 8.
— and they would also be at the back
of the queue for assessment. player’s Ukrainians can be given bursaries
covering their costs. “We are also
a few highly talented young musicians
the chance to blossom into world-class
After that? Four musicians say they
will return to Ukraine, come what
That’s horribly worrying. According
to the pressure groups protesting
home was contacting friends who can help us
with accommodation for the musicians
performers, in the hope that they will
return to their homeland in the not-
may. Another 18 have found places to
stay, or jobs to do, in Poland, Germany,
outside parliament this week, more
than 800 Ukrainian families who
destroyed and their families,” he adds.
The RAM has set up a web page
too-distant future and help not just to
rebuild Ukraine’s rich cultural life, but
Italy and elsewhere.
However, 21 want to stay in the UK.
applied for visas back in March are
still waiting for a decision. And visas
by a rocket (ram.ac.uk/response-fund) for
donations, and I hope Times readers
infuse it with an even greater lustre.
For details of the Ukrainian Opera
“Partly because a lot of us speak are not the only problem. The strike will feel moved to contribute. This tour, see ellenkent.com/shows
the times | Friday April 29 2022 9

music reviews

THE Will Hodgkinson

adores Arcade Fire’s new opus p11
James Marriott

CRITICS admires Andrew Neil’s ferocity p13

Carol Midgley
is moved by Julia Bradbury p15

The dark side of schoolyard morality NEW WAVE FILMS

the big film

This is an
overwhelming
and life-affirming
drama about the
pain of childhood,
says Kevin Maher

T
here are few subjects
more indicative of the
divide that exists
between Hollywood
and European cinema
than childhood. When
Hollywood trains its
lens on those vital
pre-pubescent years, it tends to see
only colourful comedy and madcap
adventures filled with screen-chewing
stage brats. Think of Home Alone, Spy
Kids, The Goonies, My Girl, Free
Willy or even Mary Poppins. When
European film-makers do the same,
they find child actors with uncommon
abilities and cut through sentiment to
shoot formative relationships as
hugely dramatic and sometimes Maya Vanderbeque as Nora and Günter Duret as Abel in Playground, a gut-wrenching French-language debut from Laura Wandel
traumatic. Think of Truffaut’s The 400
Blows, Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander unfolded. Abel belongs to a gang of psychological impact of school — “It’s when she looks up at the teacher, at
or Louis Malle’s Au Revoir les Enfants. bullies, one of whom says with prison- a place where we spend twelve years the mention of Abel’s name, two tears
To that list we now have to add this Playground movie toughness: “We run this school. of our lives, eight hours a day, and is fall from her eyes. I haven’t seen
gut-wrenching French-language 15, 72min If you snitch you’re dead.” Yet Nora’s something that formed us.” And so her crying choreography that precise since
debut from the Belgian writer-director {{{{( presence by Abel’s side suddenly camera hangs low at all times, around Joaquin Phoenix timed a tear to fall
Laura Wandel. exposes his potential weakness and Nora’s shoulders. Arthouse buffs will just as an interior car light was
The opening close-up sets the the bullies, sensing blood, turn on him say that this recalls the shooting style dimming in The Yards in 2000. This
tone. It’s a farewell between the instead — cue beatings, toilet-dunking of Wandel’s compatriots the Dardenne is a once-in-20-years performance.
distraught seven-year-old Nora and a humiliating spell in a wheelie brothers, whose Rosetta and The Kid There are other highlights, including
(Maya Vanderbeque, brilliant), bin. Nora, meanwhile — and this is with a Bike were superb explorations a hug bestowed upon a departing
who is beginning her first day at a where Wandel’s writing is exquisite of childhood. The kiddie-height teacher that will break your heart,
school in Brussels, and her reassuring — is almost immediately tainted camera provides total immersion into and a horrible sense of how power
older brother, Abel (Günter Duret). by association with Abel, now a Nora’s world. She is often the only structures in the adult world are
Barely ten, Abel is a student at the worthless, ridiculed victim. Her element on screen filmed in total established in the putdowns,
same school and, slightly discomfited nascent community of female friends clarity, while the legs of teachers and microaggressions and unvarnished
by Nora’s theatrics, promises to meet ostracise her in a way that matches the faces of classmates disappear into tribalism of the classroom.
her in the canteen at lunchtime. But for cruelty and pain the blows raining an alienating blur. One quibble is that Wandel’s
she clings and cries nonetheless, her down on Abel. And then there’s Vanderbeque depiction of cycles of abuse, where
face stained with tears. She also briefly If it sounds small beans and the herself, an instinctive actress. There’s the bullied become bullies, though
hugs her unnamed father (Karim stuff of schoolyard tittle-tattle, it’s not. an extraordinary scene when she legitimate, happens far too speedily.
Leklou), but it’s the embrace with This is childhood as Chekhov, a place learns from a concerned teacher that This is a film of few mistakes, though
Abel that packs a punch, as if Nora of overwhelming and life-defining Abel has been found trapped in the — an unutterably truthful dissection
is desperate for safety, hers and his. drama. Wandel has said that she bin. Nora is facing her desk, failing to of schoolyard morality.
Within minutes a plot of sorts has wants to restore seriousness to the finish some mathematics work, and In cinemas

The off-camera antics during this coming actor Peter Sellers.

infamous jaunt along the Amalfi coast Plenty of that chaotic energy
classic Beat the Devil
(1953)
included Olympic-level boozing, an
accidental clifftop plunge for the
remains in a twisty noir parody that
pitches a crackerjack ensemble of
film PG, 94min
{{{{(
director John Huston (it was late and
dark, but he survived) and a serious
ne’er-do-wells (including Bogart,
Robert Morley and Gina
of the car crash for the star Humphrey
Bogart resulting in replacement
Lollobrigida) into the bars and on to
the beaches of Ravello while they
week dentures so unwieldy that some of his
dialogue had to be dubbed by up and
concoct a plan to acquire a Kenyan
uranium mine. It’s wilfully nutty, but
Truman Capote’s dialogue is sublime.
Gina Lollobrigida and Edward Kevin Maher
Underdown in the twisty noir parody Amazon, Apple TV+, Blu-ray
10
film reviews
Poor form: Harry
Hadden-Paton,
Laura Carmichael,
Tuppence Middleton
and Allen Leech
It’s game over for the Crawleys
window dressing for a movie that’s the
The clan go to equivalent of a TV episode that follows
the cast on vacation (think Friends in
France and tangle Barbados or Modern Family go to
Australia). In this case it’s “The
with a film crew in Granthams do the French Riviera” as
the writer and creator Julian Fellowes
this caper. Enough, concocts a painfully spurious reason to
drag Robert and Cora Crawley (Hugh
cries Kevin Maher Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern)
and company to a villa near St Tropez,
where parentage is questioned, health
N
ot even Maggie scares flare up — but don’t worry, it
Smith at her most will all be fine in the end because this
magisterial can is Downton at its most trite.
salvage this latest Away from France, back on the
Downton film, a titular estate, Lady Mary (Michelle
movie that’s Dockery) is tackling a ramshackle film
breathtaking in crew, led by smoothie director Jack
its emptiness, all Barber (Hugh Dancy), butch actor
syrup and no salt. with a secret Guy Dexter (Dominic
Smith does her best, invigorating West) and famous starlet Myrna
underwritten quips such as: “Do I look Dalgleish (Laura Haddock). They’re
like I’d turn down a villa in the south using the building as a location for a
of France?” But mostly she’s used as film that, in a brazen plot lift from
transformative power
of rhyme.
Casablanca Beats “No subject is taboo in
12A, 102min rap!” Anas tells his
{{{(( mesmerised acolytes.
“Rap is against the
Energised performances and a system!” Within
passionate belief in the political power minutes, the boys are
of rap are the two pillars of this dropping bars about
Moroccan teen drama from Nabil rejecting tradition, while
Ayouch. The narrative template, oddly the girls are threatening
enough, is Dead Poets Society, as a to “use our voices, break
radical young hip-hop teacher called silence, make choices!” However, they
Anas (Anas Basbousi — the cast are run smack into the bulwarks of an
non-professionals, playing versions of Islamic society that regards Anas as a
themselves) arrives at a seemingly depraved peddler of filth. It’s smartly
uninspired arts centre in Casablanca done, if a bit on-the-nose.
and helps the students to discover the In cinemas
BEN BLACKALL;2021 FOCUS FEATURES
Singin’ in the Rain, is being shot with
sound for the first time, thus revealing
Downton Abbey: the “hilarious” Cockney accent of the
A New Era egomaniacal Dalgleish. This Downton
PG, 125min is set in Europe in 1929 but might as
{{((( well be 3029 on Alpha Centauri, such
is the project’s lack of actual historical
investment. It’s the first Crawley caper
that’s cut free entirely from real-world
events and doesn’t seem to care.
And it might not have mattered if
the writing was sparkling, or if the
director Simon Curtis (Goodbye
Christopher Robin) boasted any film-
making strategy other than needless
exposition followed by meaningless
drone shots of Highclere Castle. The
cast too, with the exception of Smith
and Penelope Wilton, are on defiantly
B-grade form. Their characters are
wafer thin and sorely expose the
limitations of ability. If this was
the last ever Downton it would not
be too soon.
In cinemas
The Velvet Queen:
Snow Leopard
12A, 92min
{{{{(
Wildlife documentary meets
philosophical dissertation in this eye-
gougingly beautiful French film from
the co-directors Vincent Munier and
Marie Amiguet. Munier, a renowned
Transformative power: wildlife photographer, and his travel-
Moroccan teen drama writer companion Sylvain Tesson
Casablanca Beats spend most of the movie on camera,
inching across the vast plateau of
Tibet in army fatigues while searching
for the “holy grail of nature
Friday April 29 2022 | the times
I Love America
103min
{{(((
The French writer-director Lisa
Azuelos, maker of Gallic rom-coms
such as Hey Good Looking! and A
Chance Encounter (me neither), claims
that 99 per cent of this movie is based
on her own life. That cuts her a certain
amount of slack, and the story of a
middle-aged film-maker called Lisa
(Sophie Marceau) who flees Paris for
Los Angeles and a complicated
romantic life (dating apps are
involved) is compelling mainly for
demonstrating that an actual human
life could be hewn from so many
hoary movie clichés.
Lisa has a supportive but two-
dimensional “gay best friend” (Djanis
Bouzyani). She is swept off her feet by
an equally vacuous “young hunk”
(Colin Woodell) until a fake dramatic
conflict threatens their love. Plus she
peppers the narration with sub-Sex
and the City ruminations that veer
into the platitudinous. “Dating sites
help us forget our loneliness” is one of
her corkers. Marceau, so fierce in the
2021 Cannes hit Everything Went Fine,
is wasted here.
Amazon
We’re All Going to the
World’s Fair
15, 86min
{{(((
The sexy premise of this “online
horror” teases an intoxicating mix of
2020’s Zoom-based slasher flick Host,
the Japanese classic Ring and a dash of
Candyman. The jaded teen protagonist
Casey (Anna Cobb), desensitised by
digital culture, takes the “world’s fair
challenge” by repeating four times into
a webcam the phrase, “We’re all going
to the world’s fair!” All sorts of
psychological hell is about to follow.
Yet what this debut from the writer-
director Jane Schoenbrun produces is
something much more preachy.
As Casey becomes increasingly
zombie-like and unhinged (tears up a
teddy, strokes her father’s shotgun,
wears fluorescent make-up), the movie
seems to incessantly warn us about
the dehumanising impact of online
culture. It’s a justifiable stance, but the
methodology is insufferably simplistic.
It lost me at the point where
another teen is literally pulled into
his computer by a disembodied pair
of hands. Because the web has, like,
got him!
In cinemas
photography”, the snow leopard. In
thrilling footage they encounter bears,
foxes, falcons and bharals (aka blue
sheep) while engaging in deeply
serious debates. Often whispering so
as not to disturb the animals, they
discuss the nature of looking and the
hopelessness of humanity, with
a soulful, plaintive score from
Warren Ellis and Nick Cave.
It’s a cross between David
Attenborough and Samuel Beckett —
our two mismatched protagonists are
endlessly waiting — and is all the
more rewarding when the film’s
stunning star, the camera-shy leopard,
eventually makes an appearance.
In cinemas
the times | Friday April 29 2022
They’re like
Coldplay —
but interesting
The Canadians find the balance
between ambition and pop
appeal, says Will Hodgkinson
F
or the past decade or so,
Arcade Fire have faced
something of an identity
crisis. Having become
massive with earnest
anthems of intellectual
importance and no little
pessimism for the future
of humanity, the Montreal band — led
by husband and wife Win Butler and
Régine Chassagne — got out the
sparkly outfits and went disco. Given
they’re Arcade Fire, there had to be an
ironic tint, rather like U2 sending up
their rock-star selves on Achtung Baby.
Everything Now (2017) was an
electronic portrait of digital saturation
for which the band provided their
own (mostly negative) reviews as part
of the marketing campaign. Now
comes an album that finds the sweet
spot between the old seriousness and
the later playfulness, with seven
lengthy songs about the big subjects
— death, destruction, the meaning of
life — but with an eye on chanting
festival crowds.
Arcade Fire’s trick is to make
everything sound incredibly
important, even when it isn’t. “We
unsubscribe, f*** season five,” Butler
sings on End of the Empire I-IV, a
Bowie-esque, nine-minute epic with a
touch of Neil Young at his most
apocalyptic. The song starts as a
lament for the end of the American
empire and ends up as an expression
of disappointment with the latest
hit series on Netflix. There’s
something smug and pretentious
about it all, yet the music is so rich,
with its ponderous piano chords,
singalong acoustic strums and
Guns, ghosts, Germans: this is no ordinary opera
I
f the Belgian conductor and period
instrument specialist René Jacobs
records an opera, you know the
results won’t be ordinary. Tempos
will be brisk, phrasing pungent and
voices lively. He’ll go back to the
composer’s autograph score, or
insist on recording dialogue
exchanges that are usually cut,
with theatrical sound effects
added. The only Jacobs trademark
absent from Weber’s Der Freischütz
is a fortepiano’s bright clatter: not
required for this milestone of 1821,
from which springs so much of
German romantic opera and a fair
bit of Berlioz too.
In this dashing account, recorded
with the Freiburg Baroque
Orchestra, Jacobs’s quest for
“authenticity” led him to go further
than usual. He has restored the
pop
Arcade Fire
WE
Columbia
{{{{(
orchestral flourishes, that you can’t
help but be pulled along.
You have to wonder, with stadium-
filling, world-saving types such as U2,
Coldplay and Arcade Fire, whether
their professed concerns about global
ills serve any purpose or are just there
to make them look good. At least
Butler and co couch those concerns in
interesting ways. “Got to get this spirit
out of me, this anxiety,” he sings on
Age of Anxiety I, capturing the worry
Jazz album of information overload against music
Tigran Hamasyan that sounds like the meeting of Bruce
puts the standards to Springsteen and New Order. It doesn’t
the test. Reviewed at always work — Unconditional II (Race
thetimes.co.uk/arts and Religion), which features a
libretto’s original prologue — never set
classical to music by Weber. With this section
back in place, along with other bits
René Jacobs and bobs, Act III’s conclusion and the
Der Freischütz intervention of the hermit character
Harmonia Mundi finally make sense.
{{{{( While other reactions may vary,
I found the supernatural elements in
the opera’s tall tale genuinely
enhanced by the spectral sound
effects hovering around the
character of the “black huntsman”
Samiel, spoken with devilish lustre
by the actor Max Urlacher. When
saying their own lines, not all of
Jacobs’s singers manage to retain
a natural flow and distinctive
character while clutching their
scripts at the microphone.
Once in vocal flight, however, there’s
René Jacobs, the period little to complain about, especially
instrument specialist when Kateryna Kasper’s Ännchen, the
KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES
surprising cameo from Peter Gabriel,
sounds like one of Cyndi Lauper’s
1980s cast-offs — but for the most part
the album combines originality and
sophistication with mass appeal: not
an easy trick to pull off.
It finishes with a title track that,
after the bombast of what came
before, provides a moment of intimacy.
Against what sounds like the strum of
a mandolin, Butler whispers about
wanting to “give away everything in
this house” and return to the simple
life. Whether he will follow up on that
promise seems unlikely. Yet it
completes a record that shows Arcade
Fire at their ambitious best.
more worldly of the plot’s two girls,
sings her delightful Act II arietta.
Polina Pastirchak’s more innocent
tones are a natural fit for Agathe,
whose proposed marriage ushers in
the plot’s shooting contest, while the
principal men are in safe hands with
Maximilian Schmitt (ardently in love)
and Dimitry Ivashchenko (darkly
conniving).
The orchestra is consistently
colourful, and the lusty Zürcher
Sing-Akademie help the folksy
choral numbers go with a swing. As for
the supernatural highlight, the Wolf’s
Glen scene, shivers went down my
spine, only tempered by slight
disappointment when the casting of
the seven magic bullets produced
sounds obstinately suggesting a
humble wingnut lobbed into a bucket.
Geoff Brown
11
music reviews
Bloc Party
Alpha Games
BMG
{{{((
There’s plenty of spiky, speedy,
straight-up indie rock on the latest by
Bloc Party, who broke through 17 years
ago with their album Silent Alarm and
have kept faithful to the same essential
sound ever since. Singer Kele Okereke
sounds fantastically urgent on Day
Drinker, on which his little brother
expresses concern at his intake,
while the angular post-punker Rough
Justice depicts a secret society of
establishment types operating in a
semi-illegal underworld — strangely
prescient in the shadow of Boris’s
boozy lockdown “meetings”. It’s all
pretty straightforward, but well done
and occasionally great. A highlight is
The Girls Are Fighting, an ominous
glam-rock tune about a mass scrap
with “blood on the dancefloor,
extensions on the bar”.
Blossoms
Ribbon Around the Bomb
EMI
{{{{(
For their past two albums this
Stockport lot seemed like an average
pop act masquerading as a guitar
band, even after they adopted a
Seventies look of long hair, flared suits
and frilly shirts. Now they have found
the music to match the image, taking
inspiration from Paul Simon and
Harry Nilsson to capture smooth
songwriting charm. The Sulking Poet
is the cheery singalong Simon never
got round to writing, and the
confessional introspection of
The Writer is lovely. It’s a big step up
from the popular but unremarkable
albums that came before.
Kelly Lee Owens
LP.8
Smalltown Supersound
{{{{(
Faced with the cancellation of her
world tour during the pandemic, Kelly
Lee Owens decided to decamp to Oslo
to make music that found the missing
link between Throbbing Gristle and
Enya. What a horrible idea, and yet
the Welshwoman’s way of mixing the
industrial torments of the former
with the crystal-shop ethereality of the
latter proves absolutely captivating.
Release, which puts an unchanging
mechanistic thud over some frankly
erotic groans, is disturbingly alluring,
while amid the unrelenting
metronomy pops up a
beautiful ambient
piece called
Nana. This
album isn’t
the easiest
of listens,
but it’s
fascinating.
12
arts
FIRST
NIGHT
Yes, she’s funny — but she can’t sing
Beanie Feldstein
has been badly
miscast in the role
that made Barbra
Streisand a star,
writes Clive Davis
S
ometimes, the smart
conversation about a
Broadway show resembles
a heartless, martini-fuelled
form of blood sport. When
news broke that the young
actress Beanie Feldstein,
star of Booksmart and How
to Build a Girl, had won the lead role
in the first Great White Way revival
of Funny Girl — the show that made
Barbra Streisand into a star nearly 60
years ago — some folk were quick to
sharpen their knives.
Streisand devotees will have you
believe that no performer on earth
could possibly fill the diva’s shoes.
Giving the part to Feldstein — who
had a role in the 2017 version of Hello,
Dolly! and played Monica Lewinsky
in Impeachment: American Crime
Story — was seen by some as gross
impertinence. Have the curmudgeons
and carpers been proved right?
Sadly, yes. Watching Feldstein trying
to get to grips with the larger-than-
life personality of the vaudeville
legend Fanny Brice is a distinctly
uncomfortable experience. You badly
want her to carry it off, and there’s no
Jodie Comer has it in her to become a true great
I
f you’ve seen Jodie Comer play the
murderous Villanelle in Killing Eve
you’ll know she is a gifted
shapeshifter. Nothing, though, can
quite prepare you for the range,
energy, resilience, emotional clarity
and sheer presence she offers in this
play by the Australian lawyer turned
writer Suzie Miller.
Prima Facie is a polemical
monologue about a criminal barrister
who finds herself far less in command
of the law than she is used to when
she becomes a plaintiff in a rape trial.
It is — though you’d never guess it —
Comer’s theatrical debut. Awards
will follow.
So if you’re one of the fans who have
already made this West End run a
sell-out — give or take day seats,
returns and a weekly ticket scheme,
with a cinema broadcast to come —
rest assured you are in for something
special. And if the play itself, first seen
Beanie Feldstein as Fanny Brice and Ramin Karimloo as Nick Arnstein in Funny Girl on Broadway
doubting her enthusiasm, but with
every passing moment the casting theatre
seems more and more mystifying.
No one wants a Streisand Funny Girl
impersonation. (At this point I’d better August Wilson Theatre,
confess that I find most of her songs New York
bland and her voice overbearing —
{{(((
the effect is much like being trapped
inside a bell tower for hours on end.)
The problem is that Feldstein
struggles to impose any kind of
in Sydney in 2019, is unabashedly
theatre driven by an agenda that Comer’s
character has then been created to
Prima Facie serve, it still makes its point in style.
Harold Pinter Theatre, SW1
{{{{( Is the legal system ill-equipped to
offer justice for the one in three
women who have been sexually
assaulted? These 100 minutes of
stage time make a strong case,
which might yield an impassioned
yet over-instructive evening in
lesser hands. With Comer at its
centre, Justin Martin’s inventive,
propulsive production clears the space
for its closing arguments thanks to the
vividness with which it draws us into
Tessa’s upturned world.
The first half is played at a serious
lick, as Comer’s Tessa makes us feel
her excitement at knowing how to win
at “the game of law”. Pacing around
the stage, changing costumes, she
sometimes jumps up to perform from
on top of the two large tables that
MATTHEW MURPHY
authority on Jule Styne and Bob
Merrill’s songs: her voice is alternately
thin and shrill.
In the scenes where we see Brice as
a young girl, a beginner struggling to
make her mark in showbusiness, the
lack of polish might seem vaguely
plausible. The more you hear, the
more perplexing it becomes, especially
on the anthemic People and Don’t Rain
on My Parade.
Jodie Comer as Tessa in Prima Facie
dominate a smart set by Miriam
Buether, backed with white box files
reaching ten shelves high. No time for
self-conscious virtuosity. Instead,
Comer, speaking primarily in her own
Liverpool accent, barely draws breath
as she becomes Tessa’s working-class
mum or the posh kids who intimidated
her at Cambridge or the QC’s son she’s
Friday April 29 2022 | the times
the best
critics on
the top
shows of
the week
It doesn’t help that Michael Mayer’s
underpowered production has the air
of a low-budget touring venture, with
a slimmed-down orchestral sound
to match. David Zinn’s set design —
dominated by a curved brick structure
which could easily be mistaken for
a giant medieval outhouse — is
distinctly lacking in atmosphere, and
apart from a breezy mass tap-dance
number in the second half, when
Fanny is busy raising morale during
the First World War, Ellenore Scott’s
choreography proves anodyne.
Jane Lynch, as Brice’s worldly-wise
mother, gets to deliver some choice
The more you
hear, the more
perplexing it
becomes
wisecracks. Otherwise, Isobel Lennart’s
book, revised by Harvey Fierstein
(who also had a credit on the Menier
Chocolate Factory’s acclaimed 2015
revival starring Sheridan Smith), plods
through Brice’s troubled marriage with
the suave gambler Nick Arnstein.
Ramin Karimloo, who plays him, is a
much better singer than Feldstein,
thank goodness, and the scene where
Fanny prepares to submit to his
charms delivers winning slapstick. It’s a
rare explosion of wit. Funny Girl may
never have been a great musical. Here,
it looks and sounds merely average, or
sometimes worse.
funnygirlonbroadway.com
having a fling with who rapes her after
a night of drinking.
Comer delineates each moment
minutely without ever disrupting the
fluidity of her performance. There is
an extraordinary set piece in which a
curtain of rain falls on her as she tries
to flee home to her mother’s. And an
equally extraordinary scene in which
she casually jump-cuts between Tessa’s
brief responses to the prodding of the
defence counsel. She shows us a
woman who knows the game but still
ends up vulnerable to its caprices.
If it’s a great case study rather than
a great play, the cumulative effect is
still quite something. Comer brings it
to life in a way that suggests she has it
in her to be a true stage great.
Dominic Maxwell
To Jun 16, primafacieplay.com.
In cinemas Jul 21, ntlive.com.
This review appeared in some
editions yesterday
the times | Friday April 29 2022 13
YALE CENTER FOR BRITISH ART

comedy
Alan Partridge: Stratagem
Andrew Neil
Edinburgh Playhouse
{{(((
in big beast
mode
I
t’s hard not to hope for great things
from Steve Coogan’s first full tour
as Alan Partridge after 30 years of
playing him. The show is ostensibly
devoted to Partridge, holding court podcasts
on a nifty set of metal gangways and
ladders and staircases and screens, The Backstory with
spreading a “life management system” Andrew Neil
called Stratagem. He comes on stage {{{{{
all in white, bashes out an expertly Never Have I Ever
naff rendition of Starship’s We Built {{(((
This City. Promising!

W
Yet what you need to enjoy the show ith the launch of
best is an expectation management The Backstory,
system. As in: there are some funny Andrew Neil is the
moments along the way, it’s never latest legacy media
awful, but it’s all a bit thin. Coogan silverback to become a
performs magnificently, as always. Yet podcaster. The field is at present wide
the set pieces tend to start well then open. Jeremy Paxman hasn’t released
outstay their welcome: a meditation a new episode of his podcast The Lock
session in which Partridge tries to In for almost a year.
upstage or slap down an overkeen The big beasts of the old BBC do not

A grubbily great show

devotee (Emma Sidi), say; a deliberately always settle into podcasting
awful playlet in which he travels in comfortably. The medium is chatty
time to meet his young and old selves. and informal; listeners tune in when
Yes, the Stratagem format is they like. Paxman and Neil made their
half-baked by design and not really names with confrontational event TV
the point, but it feels a bit whiskery for audiences who cleared their
These canvases

even so: partly because Alan has been
a mock motivational speaker before,
in the 2008 tour Steve Coogan as Alan
Partridge and Other Less Successful
Characters. Partridge has had a bit
of a breakdown after a bad breakup,
but Partridge is always having a bit
of a breakdown, always having bad
breakups. And he is still harrying
his assistant Lynn (the magnificent
Felicity Montagu, on screen rather
than in person alas) and once again
risking exposure for some of his
sordid behaviour.
There are some sharp lines, the odd
inspired routine, not least a return for
Martin Brennan, the florid-faced Irish
songman from This Time with Alan
Partridge. Coogan’s directors and
co-writers, Neil and Rob Gibbons,
are experts at recapturing what made
Partridge great in the past, but not
at creating a format in which his
character flaws might tell.
Here, anything can go wrong and
most things do go wrong. If they don’t
go wrong they weren’t much good in
the first place and weren’t meant to be.
It ends with a medley of Eighties
power ballads, which is kind of how
you want it to end, but also too much
how you expect it to end.
Dominic Maxwell
Touring to Jun 3,
alanpartridgelive.com
I
have always rolled my eyes at
are murky, rumours that the artist Walter
Sickert (1860-1942) was Jack the
dirty and Ripper. Looking at Sickert’s
compelling, self-portraits in the first room
of Tate Britain’s retrospective, I can
writes Laura certainly see how they started.
Freeman In The Painter in his Studio (1907)
Sickert skulks and lurks in the
visual art shadows. In Juvenile Lead (1907) his
eyes, nose and mouth dissolve in
Walter Sickert darkness. Only his cheeks catch the
Tate Britain, SW1 light. In the Self-Portrait of c 1896, his
{{{{( nose is mashed, his hair lank.
This is a seedily revealing, creepily
intimate exhibition. Sickert’s palette is
The Camden Town as dingy as dishwater. In The Laundry
Murder (1908) by Shop (1885) linens hang in the
Walter Sickert window, all washed to a faded,
uniform grey. The Butcher’s Shop,
Dieppe (1885) is positively unhygienic,
the carcasses seen through a pall of
smut and soot. Venice has rarely
looked more choleric. When Sickert
brightened his palette in the 1910s,
his “French dealers encouraged this
change”. I bet they did.
Even a picture such as White Violets
(c 1884) is grubby and drab. Think how
prettily Sickert’s near-contemporary
William Nicholson would have
painted a posy of violets. Sickert as
a portraitist is not kind. Skin has an
absinthe tinge (Mrs Swinton, 1906),
faces are pockmarked by a corrupted
pointillism (Jacques-Émile Blanche,
c 1910), jowls melt like cheap tallow
candles (Israel Zangwill, c 1896-8).
Sickert, “stage-struck” all his life,
had wanted to be an actor. His
theatre, cinema and music-hall
paintings revel in perverse
perspectives: straight up the nostrils
of a singer, underneath a trapeze, a
crick-necked view from the stalls.
His iron-bedstead nudes contributed
to the Ripper rumours. Sheets are
invariably rumpled, chemises in need
of a wash. These pastel nudes are
technically extraordinary, but the
upskirt angles upset. One painting of a
man, head bowed, sitting on a bed
next to a naked woman, her head
turned away, her arm limp, goes by the
titles The Camden Town Murder and
What Shall We Do for the Rent?
There is something novelistic about
Sickert. His Laundry Shop made me
think of Amy Reardon in George
Gissing’s New Grub Street, eternally
fretting about how to keep collars
white in filthy Victorian London.
The couple in Dawn, Camden Town
(1909) might be Leonard Bast and
“past her prime” Jacky in EM Forster’s
Howards End.
This is a powerful show, but not a
pleasant one. Give your fingernails a
good scrub when you get home.
To Sept 18, tate.org.uk
evenings to watch news-making
clashes with fumbling government
ministers. On his podcast, Paxman
ended up stuck in a slightly awkward
place between chatty and
confrontational. Some of his guests,
such as the QI elf Andrew Hunter
Murray, did not need to be urgently
held to account for anything at all.
Interviewing General David
Petraeus, the former director of the
CIA and commander of the US army
in Iraq, Neil makes no attempt to be
chatty. In fact there are no
concessions to the new form at all. He
is in big media beast mode: tenacious,
brusque and intimidatingly well
briefed. In style it’s unlike anything
else out there. An old-school,
grown-up conversation about
geopolitics, Ukraine and the changing
nature of war. This could catch on.
Meanwhile, on Hannah Cooper and
Joel Dommett’s husband-and-wife
podcast Never Have I Ever, things are
less scintillating. Dommett is the host
of The Masked Singer and also,
apparently, a comedian. Though this is
not something you would guess
listening to the podcast, which falls
into the genre of “domestic banter”.
Several married couples have made
unexpected fortunes talking about
kitchen extensions or what to have for
dinner in a moderately humorous
tone. Shagged, Married, Annoyed,
presented by Chris and Rosie Ramsey,

A
n evening of contemporary
classical Polish orchestral music
may sound a little
London daunting. And indeed there
Sinfonietta/ were moments in Pawel
Berman Mykietyn’s new Prank for chamber
Queen Elizabeth Hall orchestra when I did feel as if I were
{{{{( trapped on a merry-go-round with a
psychopath operating the speed lever.
Nearly 30 minutes long, it was built
on a series of accelerations, usually
of rising pitches or chords, superbly
executed by the London Sinfonietta
under Jonathan Berman’s unflappable
direction. These imploded into static
“events”: a pitch-bending, pianissimo
clarinet solo, a virtuoso drum break,
and so on. I couldn’t detect any
connecting logic. Then the
accelerating merry-go-round lurched
into life again. As with most Polish
humour, I was baffled by what the
prank was supposed to be, or on
whom it was being played.
The two preceding pieces, however,
were fascinating in very different ways.
Krzysztof Penderecki’s 1992 Sinfonietta
for strings was written after the
composer had cast aside his famous
shocks and shrieks, and reverted
to more traditional language. The
Sinfonietta even includes fugal
passages and contrasts between full
strings and solo passages that evoke
the baroque concerto grosso form.
What Penderecki never cast aside,
however, was intensity. This piece
often went from lyrical melancholy to
near hysterical brutality in the space of
a few bars, yet never lost its cogency.
Then came the dazzling
kaleidoscope of sounds — acoustic,
electronic and from what its composer
calls “objectophones”, or the discarded
jumble of “civilisational waste” — that
is Wojciech Blazejczyk’s Concerto for
electric guitar, percussion, electronics
and orchestra. The composer himself
played the solo part, brilliantly, and
with a variety of accessories (from a
bow to nail files and a superball
mallet) that produced sounds so far
removed from what one expected —
one of them like a Middle Eastern call
to prayer — that I had to check to see
that they were indeed coming from
his instrument. His handling of the
orchestra was equally original, and
the emotional world he evoked — like
a horror-movie soundtrack for the
most part — was dark but always
compelling. Masterly.
Richard Morrison
is one of the most listened to podcasts
in the country. Giles Coren Has No
Idea (in my not necessarily unbiased
opinion) is the funniest of its kind.
Never Have I Ever is unusually
listless and inoffensive. The idea,
presumably, is to find the lowest
common denominator of relatability.
In a generally unsuccessful attempt to
add interest, each weekly episode
features a humorous “activity”. So
Dommett and Cooper go to a strip
club, try weightlifting, do yoga with
dogs and so on. In the most recent,
Dommett tries colonic irrigation. “Is
there a better word than poo?” Cooper
asks. “Defecation,” Dommett suggests.
“Shit.” “Plop.” Cooper giggles. I mean
it’s not exactly Oscar Wilde. It’s not
even Michael McIntyre.
James Marriott
the times | Friday April 29 2022 15

television & radio

Bradbury’s close, personal film of facing cancer TWOFOUR

moments of her treatment for breast could take Tamoxifen (a hormone

Carol cancer when she was at her most
fragile. I’m not sure I could have
therapy), but one of its side effects was
a small increased risk of tumours in
Midgley done that, even though it undoubtedly
helps others.
Perhaps when you are a TV
the lining of the womb, so she had a
lot of thinking to do. Those are the
times you want to shout: “Please, just
TV review presenter, slipping into professional
mode helps you to process what’s
tell me what to do!” It was a brave and
thoughtful film. Bradbury said that she
happening. Bradbury said that you was determined to stay around for her
speak about things differently on children and let’s wish her every bit of
camera, “as if talking about another luck and happiness with that.
person”. It didn’t, however, stop the There were few costume
presenter, who is usually upbeat and opportunities for Lucy Worsley in
the picture of glowing health, looking Rebuilding Notre Dame: The Next
frightened and vulnerable. Chapter, unless she wanted to dress up
“It’s not fair,” her older sister Gina as a raging fire (cause still unknown).
Julia Bradbury: said, weeping. “It should be me. I’m So it was just wellies, protective
Breast Cancer and Me the one who drinks and does all the clothing and a shower to guard against
ITV wrong things.” Her mother, Chrissi, the toxic lead dust as she examined the
{{{{( also said she wished she could take the rebuilding of the gothic masterpiece in
cancer away from her and have it Paris, after the roof and spire went up
Rebuilding Notre Dame: instead. This was pure family love. in flames in 2019.
The Next Chapter Bradbury also went above and It was breathtaking to see just how
BBC2 beyond the call of duty by showing much work is involved, such as
{{{{( viewers the reconstruction job after sourcing 2,000 perfect oak trees for

C
elebrity cancer journeys are
now common TV currency
and you can be cynical about
that if you like, but I have
yet to see one that isn’t a)
moving and b) very worthwhile. Julia
Bradbury: Breast Cancer and Me
was also extremely generous, with
Bradbury, the former Countryfile
presenter and a mother of three young
children, allowing the cameras to
record the most personal and intimate
her mastectomy. I know this isn’t the
most important thing in all this, but
wow — it looked like an amazingly
good job; those surgeons are artists.
I’m sure it cheered up a lot of women
awaiting a similar operation, but even
more so that it had completely
removed the tumour and she didn’t
need chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
I felt for Bradbury when her
consultant said there was a “small area
of potential microinvasion” and she
the roof beams alone. It has turned
out also to be a lesson for the experts
in how brilliant medieval builders
were, their skill and attention to detail
ensuring the walls didn’t collapse in
the fire. Nevertheless, it seems a tall
order that this will all be open to the
public by the time of the 2024
Olympic Games in Paris. But I’m sure
that where there’s a stonking global
audience and a tourism industry
The film followed Julia Bradbury before and after her mastectomy needing a boost, there’s a way.

Radio choice Times Radio 1.00pm Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert

Ben Dowell
CrowdScience
World Service, 8.30pm
Riding a bike? So easy
there’s even a phrase for it.
Well, as the presenter
Marnie Chesterton
discovers, the physics of
staying upright when we
are on a cycle is a lot more
complicated than it seems.
In response to a
CrowdScience listener
who wants to understand
what is going on in our
heads when we go for a
cycle, she speaks to
physicists and
neuroscientists as well
as cycling professionals
and novices to find out
the answers. It turns out
that balance and the brain
is a complex thing and
science actually doesn’t yet
have a proper answer to
how bicycling works.
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16
television & radio
Viewing Guide reality is looser than
the prime minister’s
Toby Earle
understanding of his
own laws. She
Shining Girls compulsively writes
Apple TV+
down what she can see
In this around her to keep
Top adaptation of track of her shifting
pick Lauren reality, and finds
Beukes’s hit herself in unexpected
thriller novel The locations. The mystery
Shining Girls, Elisabeth of Kirby’s fragmented
Moss plays Kirby perception of reality is
Mazrachi, a newspaper linked to a vicious
archivist whose grip on attack she endured six
BBC1
6.00am Breakfast 9.15 Morning Live. Magazine show,
Early
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12.15pm Bargain Hunt. Christina Trevanion hosts the
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2.30 Clean It, Fix It. The team visits Bristol to help a busy
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Raj Bisram and Paul Martin reach the Cotswolds (r) 4.30
The Bidding Room. Featuring a Danish table and a set of
antique skittles 5.15 Pointless. Quiz in which contestants
try to score the fewest points possible by giving the least
obvious correct answers to questions (r) 6.00 BBC News
at Six; Weather 6.30 BBC Regional News; Weather
7.00 The One Show Magazine, hosted by
7PM
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7.30 Question of Sport Quiz show,
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Alice Kinsella and Oliver Townend
8.00 MasterChef The contestants prepare
8PM
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8.30 Here We Go New comedy series with
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9.00 Have I Got News for You Jo Brand
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10.00 BBC News at Ten
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10.40 Cape Fear (18, 1991) A psychopathic
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defence attorney he blames for his
11PM
imprisonment. Subjecting the lawyer
and his family to a terrifying campaign
of intimidation, he uses his knowledge
of the law to stay untouchable.
Thriller remake starring Robert De
Niro, Nick Nolte and Jessica Lange.
See Viewing Guide
12.40am Killing Eve Villanelle and Eve focus on making
Late
a seismic stab at the Twelve, risking their own lives in the
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and Sandra Oh (8/8) (r) (AD) 1.30-6.00 BBC News
years earlier, and when
a body is discovered
bearing the hallmarks
of the same attacker,
her painful past invades
her present. A wounded
force of nature is a
Moss speciality and this
opener demonstrates
Kirby’s possession of
that vulnerability and
fearsome rage. Her
unbridled fury is yet to
come; for the most part
this first episode lures
BBC2
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Championship Day 14’s semi-final
action concludes with the third session
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players contest eight frames at the
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Bingham held a 13-11 lead over
Mark Selby at this stage last year
after a gruelling session, though
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advantage in the final session
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and Darren Harriott (3/6) (r)
10.30 Newsnight Headline analysis
11.05 Expedition Rhino: The Search for
the Last Northern White
Documentary about a team of experts
on an expedition to war-torn South
Sudan in search of the northern white
rhinoceros. See Viewing Guide
11.50 MOTDx Football discussion
12.20am Snooker: World Championship Extra
Action from day 14 in Sheffield, as both semi-finals
continued 1.10 Sign Zone: The Post Office Scandal —
Panorama. Post Office employees falsely accused of
losing or stealing money (r) (SL) 2.10-4.10 Thatcher
& Reagan: A Very Special Relationship (r) (AD, SL)
in viewers with and Wendy (Laura
foreboding signs of
Ozark Linney). In this final
Netflix
imminent horrors half of the split fourth
enacted by a nameless At the very least this series the question is:
creep (Jamie Bell), crime drama must have how many members of
who doesn’t age a day really put people off the Byrde family will fly
between his first laundering money for away unscathed from
appearance in 1964 a drug cartel and their dealings with the
and reappearance becoming so unbalanced cartel boss
in 1992. So what is entrenched in Javi (Alfonso Herrera),
the reason for his organised crime that the FBI and the wrath
ageless state? The there’s no visible escape of the heroin dealer
answer is much darker route. Crime is for the Ruth (Julia Garner),
than a rigorous Byrdes, specifically who is incensed by the
moisturising regimen. Marty (Jason Bateman) murder of her cousin.
ITV Channel 4
6.00am Good Morning Britain 9.00 Lorraine. 6.05am Countdown (r) 6.45 Cheers (r) 7.35 The King of
Entertainment, current affairs and fashion news, as well Queens (r) (AD) 9.00 Frasier (r) (AD) 10.30 Undercover
as showbiz stories and celebrity gossip. Presented by Boss USA (r) 11.25 Channel 4 News Summary 11.30
Lorraine Kelly 10.00 This Morning. Daily magazine, Couples Come Dine with Me (r) 12.30pm Steph’s Packed
featuring a mix of celebrity chat, showbusiness news, Lunch. Weekday magazine show, hosted by Steph
lifestyle features, topical discussion, health and beauty McGovern 2.10 Countdown. Justin Webb joins Susie
advice and more. Including Local Weather 12.30pm Loose Dent in Dictionary Corner 3.00 A Place in the Sun. A
Women. Celebrity interviews and topical debate from a Lancashire couple search for a property in Chiclana de la
female perspective 1.30 ITV News; Weather 2.00 Frontera, Spain (r) 4.00 A New Life in the Sun. Holiday
Dickinson’s Real Deal. David Dickinson and the team are in cottage owners in France learn the perils of having
Blackpool, where Jo Brayshaw gets flattered into parting pet-friendly accommodation. Last in the series (r) 5.00
with her cash, and, for once, a tableful of bling does not Sun, Sea and Selling Houses. In Almería, mother-and-son
do it for Henry Nicholls (r) 3.00 Lingo. Contestants use duo Sharon and Shaun Garner catch up with a pair who
their powers of deduction to work out words that appear back in 2019 wanted to swap their UK life for Spanish
in the grids. Presented by Adil Ray (r) 4.00 Tipping inland country views 6.00 The Simpsons. Homer buys a
Point. Ben Shephard hosts the arcade-themed quiz in DIY barbecue kit but makes a complete mess of
which contestants drop tokens down a choice of four assembling it — much to the delight of a passing art
chutes in the hope of winning a £10,000 jackpot 5.00 critic, who mistakes the end result for a masterpiece
The Chase. Bradley Walsh presents the quiz show as of modern sculpture (r) (AD) 6.30 Hollyoaks. An
contestants from Chesterfield, Great Yarmouth, Woking anonymous text message worries Ste and Sienna, Olivia
and New York take on one of the ruthless Chasers 6.00 is shocked when Theresa rejects her offer for drinks, and
Regional News; Weather 6.30 ITV News; Weather Shaq has a shocking proposition for Nadira (r) (AD)
7.00 Channel 4 News
7.30 Emmerdale Ethan’s day goes from 7.30 Unreported World Investigating a
bad to worse, Kim gets tough and drugs epidemic disproportionately
Marlon is worried about finances (AD) affecting black people in Missouri (AD)
8.00 Coronation Street With the weight 8.00 Richard Hammond’s Crazy
of the world on his shoulders, Max has Contraptions New series. Engineering
a huge fall-out with David, who has enthusiasts compete to create the best
confiscated his phone, and Toyah and chain-reaction machines from everyday
Leanne settle their differences (AD) objects. Here, two teams set out to
create devices to make the host’s bed.
See Viewing Guide (1/7) (AD)
9.00 It’ll Be Alright on the Night Joanna 9.00 Gogglebox The armchair critics share
Lumley struggles with a busy road in their opinions on what they have been
India, Michael McIntyre regrets watching, with cameras capturing
inventing his game show and cameras their instant reactions (AD)
catch the world’s most famous leads
suffering humiliating accidents (AD)
10.00 ITV News at Ten 10.00 Open House: The Great Sex
Experiment A London couple want to
explore if opening up sexually to other
people will future-proof their
10.30 Regional News relationship and help them stay
together for the long-term (5/6) (AD)
10.45 Man of Steel (12, 2013) An alien
child from a dead world is raised on
Earth, and grows up keeping his
origins and extraordinary abilities a 11.05 Derry Girls The Quinns prepare for
secret. He is forced to take a stand to the annual trip to Barry’s amusement
protect his adopted home from a park in Portrush (3/6) (r) (AD)
fanatical general from his own world,
who intends to wipe out the human
race. Sci-fi adventure starring Henry 11.40 Hullraisers Toni accidentally takes
Cavill and Amy Adams (AD) home a Gucci coat (3/6) (r) (AD)
1.05am Teleshopping 3.00 Winning Combination. 12.15am FILM: Mike and Dave Need Wedding
Another batch of contestants take part, with the four Dates (15, 2016) Comedy starring Zac Efron and Anna
that make the final trying to win the four-digit jackpot. Kendrick 2.00 Ramsay’s Hotel Hell. A failing hotel in
Omid Djalili hosts (r) (SL) 3.50 Unwind with ITV. Daily Starkville, Mississippi (r) (AD) 2.50 Come Dine with
escape designed to calm the mind and encourage Me. Dinner parties in Derby (r) 5.05 Moneybags. Quiz,
relaxation and reflection 5.05-6.00 Cash Trapped (r) (SL) hosted by Craig (r) (AD) 5.55-6.15 Mike & Molly (r)
Friday April 29 2022 | the times
Richard
Hammond’s Crazy
Contraptions
Channel 4, 8pm
“Get in the middle of a
chain reaction,” Diana
Ross once encouraged,
but you could insist that
if she’s so keen she
should be the first to
place herself among the
deliberately daft chain-
reaction machines on
display here. Videos of
Channel 5
6.00am Milkshake! 9.15 Jeremy Vine. The broadcaster
and guests discuss the issues of the day, with co-host
Storm Huntley joining him for phone-ins and reading
out viewers’ correspondence 12.15pm George Clarke’s
Build a New Life in the Country. The architect helps a
Buckinghamshire couple relocate to Scotland and
modernise an old farmhouse — but bad weather causes
problems (r) 1.10 5 News at Lunchtime 1.15 Home and
Away. Jasmine and Cash find their housemate rhythm
1.45 Neighbours 2.15 FILM: Murder in a Small Town
(PG, TVM, 2018) A teenage girl who is prone to
uncontrollable and sometimes violent rages thinks that
she murdered her best friend. Thriller starring Cristine
Prosperi and Blake Burt 4.00 Bargain-Loving Brits in the
Sun. An 82-year-old originally from Wales, who is now a
bargain-loving Brit living in Mijas on the Costa del Sol.
Cameras also follow the staff of the Mad Munk in
Benidorm 5.00 5 News at 5 6.00 Neighbours. As Ned’s
Fashion Week stress climbs, Harlow’s encouragement lifts
his spirits. Hyped about Fashion Week, Mackenzie bails on
her commitments, much to Hendrix’s disapproval (r) 6.30
Eggheads. The Pink Flamingos take on the quiz masters
7.00 Primark: How Do They Do It?
The secrets of the UK’s biggest
clothing retailer, revealing how a
small Irish department store grew to
become a high-street behemoth
7.55 5 News Update
8.00 Cruising with Susan Calman
The comedian crosses the Atlantic and
starts her adventure in the cruising
capital of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
After boarding the Eurodam, she
sails south to the Caribbean (5/6)
9.00 Lighthouses: Building the
Impossible New series. Rob Bell
uncovers the secrets of one of Britain’s
most heroic feats of engineering —
the rock lighthouse. In this edition,
he heads to Wolf Rock, situated
off the Cornish coast (1/3)
10.00 Stanley Baxter’s Best Bits — And
More The life and career of the
entertainer, from his early days as an
actor in Glasgow, to his long and
celebrated career in radio, theatre,
TV and films, to the present day (r)
11.30 Britain’s Favourite Comedy:
The 80s Jo Brand celebrates great
sketches from the decade (2/3) (r)
1.25am The LeoVegas Live Casino Show Interactive
gambling 3.25 Entertainment News on 5. Showbiz
news and gossip 3.30 Police Interceptors (r) 4.20
Tribal Teens (r) 5.10 House Doctor (r) (SL) 5.35 Peppa
Pig (r) (AD) 5.40 Paw Patrol (r) (SL) 5.50-6.00
Milkshake! Monkey’s Amazing Adventures (r) (SL)
the times | Friday April 29 2022 17

television & radio

outrageously gatecrashed a birthday Decades of conflict and
complicated Heath
Here We Go trip to Jungle World
Expedition Rhino poaching condemned
Film Cape Fear
BBC1, 8.30pm BBC2, 11.05pm BBC1, 10.40pm
Robinson contraptions adventure park. This the subspecies to
are big draws on Lord Sugar, desperate family might seem Millions of years of extinction. Yet there is In Martin Scorsese’s
social media and this for the loo, is running familiar — they made evolution ended in 2018 a flicker of hope. remake, a convicted
light entertainment wild in a park and their debut in the 2020 when Sudan, the last When a report of a rapist is released after
challenge celebrates nobody can find him. pilot Pandemonium. male northern white northern white rhino a long sentence and
ingenious solutions to While this would make The name of Tom rhino, was euthanised sighting filtered out of starts to torment the
nonexistent problems. for a gripping if unusual Basden’s comedy has after a long period of ill South Sudan in 2019 a family of his defence
A gently tweeded episode of The changed, but health. Two females team of specialists, lawyer. Nick Nolte is
Richard Hammond Apprentice, in the first pandemonium still survived him — his accompanied by a the lawyer, Jessica
asks two teams of episode of this excellent reigns as 15-year-old daughter Najin and BBC film crew, flew Lange his wife, and a
engineers to construct sitcom the Jessop son Sam films the chaos granddaughter Fatu — there to discover if charismatic Robert
devices to make his family are on the hunt his family introduce which left the species these creatures still De Niro the vengeful
life easier. for a rogue dog that has into every situation. functionally extinct. had a future. ex-con. (18, 1991)

Sky Max
6.00am Stargate SG-1 (r) 8.00 The Flash (r)
9.00 DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (r) 10.00
Supergirl (r) 11.00 NCIS: Los Angeles (r)
1.00pm Hawaii Five-0 (r) 2.00 S.W.A.T (r)
(AD) 3.00 DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (r)
4.00 The Flash (r) 5.00 Supergirl (r)
6.00 Stargate SG-1 (r)
7.00 Stargate SG-1. A teenage boy turns up at
SGC claiming to be Colonel O’Neill (r)
8.00 Rob & Romesh vs Strongman. Comedians
Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan enter
the world of strongman competitions (r)
9.00 The Rising. Neve follows the detectives
who are investigating her murder
10.00 Never Mind the Buzzcocks (r) (AD)
10.45 Never Mind the Buzzcocks (r) (AD)
11.30 A League of Their Own Road Trip:
Dingle to Dover (r)
12.30am DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (r)
1.30 Road Wars (r) 2.00 Brit Cops: Frontline
Crime UK (r) 3.00 Hawaii Five-0 (r) 4.00
S.W.A.T (r) (AD) 5.00 Air Ambulance ER (r)
Sky Atlantic
6.00am Storm City (r) (AD) 7.55 Big Love (r)
10.05 Devils (r) (AD) 12.15pm Game of
Thrones (r) (AD) 1.20 Six Feet Under (r) 3.35
Boardwalk Empire (r) (AD) 5.45 Devils (r) (AD)
7.55 Game of Thrones. Robb’s bannermen make
a momentous declaration. Catelyn confronts
Jaime Lannister about Bran’s near-fatal fall,
and Arya tries to flee the capital (r) (AD)
9.00 Devils. New series. Dominic Morgan warns
Massimo Ruggero that a new geo-political data
war between China and the West has begun.
Thriller starring Patrick Dempsey (1/8)
10.05 Devils. Massimo and his team vow to
discover the truth about Brexit’s tragic
aftermath, and Dominic tries to convince
Massimo that the Chinese are behind it (2/8)
11.10 The King. Prosecutor Lombardo does not
believe Lackovic committed suicide (2/8) (r)
12.10am Succession. Shiv speaks candidly
to Kira, a victim who is set to be a key
witness (r) (AD) 1.20 True Blood (r) 3.30
xIn Treatment (r) 4.00 Storm City (r) (AD)
Sky Documentaries Sky Arts
6.00am The Guest Wing (r) (AD) 7.00
Discovering: Robert Mitchum (r) (AD) 8.00 The
Directors (r) 8.50 Gary Cooper: The Irresistible
(r) 9.50 Expecting Amy (r) 11.00 Josephine
Baker: The Story of an Awakening (r) 12.00
Michael X: Hustler, Revolutionary, Outlaw (r)
2.00pm FILM: In the Same Breath (PG,
2021) Documentary 4.00 Discovering: Robert
Mitchum (r) (AD) 5.00 The Directors (r)
5.50 Gary Cooper: The Irresistible (r)
6.50 Expecting Amy (r)
8.00 Josephine Baker: The Story of an
Awakening. Documentary (r)
9.00 FILM: Going Clear — Scientology and
the Prison of Belief (15, 2015) Documenting
the Church of Scientology’s leaders (AD)
11.15 FILM: Dave Not Coming Back (PG,
2020) Two divers’ efforts to retrieve a
dead body from a freshwater cave
1.00am FILM: Missile from the East (U,
2021) (AD) 3.00 SIC: Prince of MotoGP (r)
5.00 Gary Cooper: The Irresistible (r)
6.00am Arts Uncovered 6.15 Discovering Dance
on Film 7.45 Pavarotti: 10th Anniversary Gala
9.00 Tales of the Unexpected (AD) 10.00
Discovering: Michael Douglas 11.00 James
Taylor: Music Icons 11.30 Video Killed the Radio
Star 12.00 Sherlock Holmes vs Arthur Conan
Doyle 1.00pm Tales of the Unexpected (AD)
2.00 The Art of Architecture 3.00 Mystery of
the Lost Paintings (AD) 4.00 Tales of the
Unexpected (AD) 4.30 Discovering: Roy Scheider
5.30 Portrait Artist of the Year 2014
7.00 Video Killed the Radio Star
7.30 Video Killed the Radio Star
8.00 Classic Albums
9.00 FILM: Joan Jett — Bad Reputation
(15, 2018) A look at the career of the musician
11.00 Rock and Roll. Documentary charting
the history of rock ’n’ roll (AD)
12.30am Isle of Wight Festival Greatest Hits
1.30 Billy Joel Live at the Shea 4.15 Don
Henley: Austin City Limits 5.30 Inside Art:
Derek Jarman at Manchester Art Gallery
Sky Main Event
6.00am Sky Sports News 7.00 Good Morning
Sports Fans 7.30 Early Kick-Off 8.00 Good
Morning Sports Fans 10.00 The Football Show
10.30 My Icon: Casey Stoney (AD) 10.40 Live
Super Rugby 12.45pm My Icon: Casey Stoney
(AD) 12.55 Live Super Rugby 3.00 Live Indian
Premier League: Punjab Kings v Lucknow
Super Giants. Coverage of the match from
Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium
7.00 Live EFL: Queens Park Rangers v Sheffield
United (Kick-off 7.45). Live coverage of the
Championship clash at Loftus Road
10.30 Live PGA Tour Golf: The Mexico Open.
Coverage of day two of the inaugural staging of
the tournament at Vidanta Vallarta in Mexico
11.30 Sky Sports News. Round-up of the sports
news with live analysis and comment
12.00 Live NFL Draft. Coverage of the second
and third round of selections in Las Vegas
4.00am Total Access 5.00 Sky Sports News
5.30 Live Super Rugby: Fijian Drua v
Highlanders (Kick-off 5.35)
Vari ati ons
BBC1 N Ireland
As BBC1 except: 6.55-7.00pm Party Election
Broadcast. By Ulster Unionist Party (r)
BBC1 Wales
As BBC1 except: 7.30-8.00pm Weatherman
Walking. Derek Brockway takes a walk on a
picturesque circular route in Snowdonia
BBC2 N Ireland
As BBC2 except: 10.00-10.30pm Mortimer
& Whitehouse: Gone Fishing. Bob and Paul
head to the Lake District (r) (AD)
BBC2 Wales
As BBC2 except: 7.00pm The Hairy Bikers’
Pubs That Built Britain. Si and Dave take a pub
tour of Oxford (r) 7.30 Live Scrum V: Munster
v Cardiff (Kick-off 7.35) 9.30-10.30
Gardeners’ World. Monty Don plants tender
perennials including salvias and gingers
ITV Wales
As ITV except: 7.00-7.30pm Coast &
Country. Ruth Dodsworth and Sean Fletcher
explore the secrets of Tredegar House

STV
As ITV except: 10.30-10.45pm STV
News 3.50-5.05am Unwind with STV.
Daily escape designed to calm the mind
and encourage relaxation and reflection

UTV
As ITV except: 6.25pm-6.30 Party Election
Broadcast. By the Ulster Unionist Party
7.00-7.30 UTV Life. Stories and studio guests

BBC Scotland
7.00pm The Seven 7.30 Live Sportscene:
Friday Night Football 10.00 Still Game (r) (AD)
10.30 Walter: A Life in Football (r)
Talk TV BBC4 Talking Pictures Film4 More4 11.30-12.00 Scary Adult Things (r) (AD)

6.00am James Max 6.30 Jeremy Kyle 10.00
The Independent Republic of Mike Graham. The
host thumbs through the morning newspapers
1.00pm Afternoons with Ian Collins.
Monologues, debates and dedicated time for
viewers’ calls 4.00 Rob Rinder. The barrister
scours through the week’s top stories and
offers answers to the week’s big questions
7.00 The News Desk. Tom Newton-Dunn is
joined by panellists Miatta Fahnbulleh, Emily
Sheffield and Isabel Oakeshott to debate
the biggest stories of the day
8.00 Piers Morgan Uncensored Best Of. The host
presents his verdict on the week’s global events
with an hour of debate, interviews with the
world’s leading figures and plenty of fun
9.00 The Talk. Join Sharon Osbourne and a panel
of opinionated famous faces from the worlds of
politics, showbiz, business and current affairs to
debate the hot topics everybody’s talking about
10.00 The James Whale Show. Bold opinions
and reactions to the big stories of the day
11.00 Piers Morgan Uncensored Best Of (r)
12.00 The James Whale Show 1.00am
Darryl Morris 4.00 The Talk (r) 5.00 Cristo
ITV2
6.00am Totally Bonkers Guinness World
Records 6.25 Dress to Impress (AD, SL) 7.30
The Ellen DeGeneres Show 8.25 Secret Crush
9.20 Hart of Dixie 10.15 One Tree Hill 11.10
The O.C 12.00 Secret Crush 1.05pm Dress to
Impress (AD) 2.05 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
3.00 Hart of Dixie 4.00 One Tree Hill 5.00
The O.C. Oliver shows his true colours
6.00 Celebrity Catchphrase (AD)
7.00 Superstore. Amy worries people are
making fun of her and resorts to spying (AD)
7.30 Superstore. Jonah struggles at Amy’s
daughter’s quinceanera celebration (AD)
8.00 Bob’s Burgers. Gene tries to save a
misunderstood plankton blob (AD)
8.30 Bob’s Burgers. The kids visit a marionette
theatre on a school field trip (AD)
9.00 FILM: 2 Fast 2 Furious (12, 2003)
Thriller sequel starring Paul Walker (AD)
11.10 Family Guy (AD)
11.40 Family Guy (AD)
12.10am American Dad! (AD) 1.00 Bob’s
Burgers (AD) 2.00 Superstore (AD) 2.50
Unwind with ITV 3.00 Teleshopping
7.00pm Johnny Mathis. The singer leads a
musical tribute to Nat King Cole
7.45 Pop Go the Sixties. Archive performances
8.00 TOTP: 1992. Performances by Little Angels,
Shakespears Sister and the Shamen
8.30 TOTP: 1992. The 1500th edition, which
was first aired on November 12 1992
9.00 The Carpenters: A World in Music. A
concert by the duo recorded at the New London
Theatre in 1976, featuring the hits Yesterday
Once More and Top of the World as well as
Richard Carpenter’s tributes to Spike Jones
9.50 The Everly Brothers: Harmonies from
Heaven. Don Everly revisits his home state of
Iowa to recall the influence of his parents, the
shows and the musicians he and brother Phil
played with in their formative years
10.50 Everly Brothers Reunion Concert. The duo
perform in a reunion concert in the autumn of
1983 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, which
they chose because they had memories of
playing there with their father, Ike
12.05am The Old Grey Whistle Test 12.50
TOTP: 1992 1.50 The Carpenters: A World in
Music 2.40-3.25 Johnny Mathis
ITV3
6.00am Classic Coronation Street (AD) 7.00
Classic Emmerdale 8.05 On the Buses 9.10
Upstairs, Downstairs 11.30 Heartbeat (AD)
1.40pm Classic Emmerdale 2.45 Classic
Coronation Street (AD) 3.50 Agatha Christie’s
Marple (AD) 5.50 Heartbeat (AD)
6.55 Heartbeat (AD)
8.00 Doc Martin. Louisa has problems at
school, and Mrs Tishell seems to be having a
delayed onset of mourning (5/8) (AD)
9.00 Doc Martin. Penhale decides to have
a Police Open day in an effort to raise
community awareness (6/8) (AD)
10.00 Law & Order: UK. Ronnie and Joe
investigate the death of an elderly woman found
at a well-known suicide spot, and Kate
jeopardises her career as she struggles to
remain professional during the case (5/8) (AD)
11.05 Inspector Morse. The Oxford detective
experiences the familiar pangs of unrequited
love while looking into a murder at a
peaceful college. John Thaw stars (AD)
1.25am On the Buses (SL) 2.20 Unwind
with ITV 2.30 Teleshopping
6.00am FILM: Don’t Bother to Knock (PG,
1952) (b/w) 7.35 FILM: The Young Wives’
Tale (1951) (b/w) 9.10 FILM: The Fan (PG,
1949) (b/w) 10.45 FILM: The Brothers (PG,
1947) (b/w) 12.35pm FILM: Escape from
Zahrain (PG, 1961) 2.25 FILM: The Big Day
(PG, 1960) Drama starring Donald Pleasence
(b/w) 3.40 Look at Life 3.55 FILM: The Ghost
of Greville Lodge (PG, 2000) Supernatural
family drama starring George Cole 5.45 FILM:
Call Northside 777 (U, 1948) Fact-based
crime drama starring James Stewart (b/w)
8.00 The Outer Limits (b/w)
9.00 Cellar Club with Caroline Munro
9.05 FILM: The Tomb of Ligeia (15,
1965) Horror starring Vincent Price
10.45 Cellar Club with Caroline Munro
10.50 FILM: The Return of Dracula (18,
1958) Horror starring Francis Lederer (b/w)
12.25am Cellar Club with Caroline Munro 12.30
FILM: The Vampire (18, 1957) Horror
starring John Beal (b/w) 2.00 Cellar Club
with Caroline Munro 2.05 FILM: The Hot
Rock (U, 1972) 4.10 FILM: It Always
Rains on Sunday (PG, 1947) (b/w)
ITV4
6.00am The Saint 6.50 Robin of Sherwood
7.45 The Avengers (SL) 8.50 The Professionals
(AD) 9.50 Minder (AD) 10.55 The Avengers
12.00 Robin of Sherwood 1.10pm Live
ITV Racing: From Newmarket 4.00 The
Professionals (AD) 4.55 Minder (AD)
6.00 Giant Lobster Hunters
7.00 BattleBots. The Sweet 16 round kicks off
with a night of fights featuring Tombstone,
Minotaur and Lock-Jaw, as the group of
elite bots begin the battle to become
the BattleBots World Champion
8.00 Griff’s Great Australian Adventure. The
comedian Griff Rhys Jones seeks to uncover
what makes “the good life” (AD)
9.00 FILM: Rocky III (PG, 1982) World
heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Balboa’s
title is threatened by a challenge from an
ambitious rival fighter. Drama starring Sylvester
Stallone, Mr T and Burgess Meredith (AD)
11.10 All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite
1.15am The Professionals. Two episodes
(AD, SL) 2.15 The Protectors (SL) 2.40
Unwind with ITV 3.00 Teleshopping
11.00am This Happy Breed (U, 1944) (AD)
1.15pm Ministry of Fear (PG, 1944) Spy
thriller (b/w) 3.00 High Noon (U, 1952)
Western with Gary Cooper (b/w) 4.40 Cowboy
(U, 1958) Western starring Jack Lemmon
6.30 Star Trek (12, 2009) Sci-fi adventure
starring Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto (AD)
9.00 Zombieland (15, 2009) A small group of
survivors goes in search of a safe haven in an
America overrun by ravenous zombies. Comedy
horror starring Woody Harrelson (AD)
10.45 Ready or Not (18, 2019) A bride’s
wedding night takes a sinister turn when her
in-laws force her to take part in a terrifying
game. Comedy horror starring Samara Weaving
12.35am The Cabin in the Woods (15,
2012) Five students in a remote house are
attacked by supernatural forces, but discover
that something far stranger is at work. Horror
starring Kristen Connolly and Chris Hemsworth
2.25-4.00 Pledge (18, 2018) A group of
college freshmen pledge to an exclusive
fraternity, but soon realise there is more at
stake than they could have imagined.
Horror thriller starring Zachery Byrd
Drama
6.00am Teleshopping 7.00 Ever Decreasing
Circles 7.45 Bergerac 8.40 The Bill 9.40
Classic Holby City 11.00 Casualty (AD)
12.00 The Bill 1.00pm Classic EastEnders
2.15 Bergerac 3.20 Lovejoy 4.20 Pie in
the Sky 5.20 Ever Decreasing Circles
6.00 Butterflies
6.40 Last of the Summer Wine
7.20 Last of the Summer Wine
8.00 Father Brown. Mrs McCarthy’s
goddaughter goes missing (AD)
9.00 Sister Boniface Mysteries. The sleuth
investigates when a bakery show contestant
is poisoned by her own cake (AD)
10.00 New Tricks. The team’s feathers are
ruffled by the arrival of a retired detective
from Glasgow brought in to help reinvestigate
one of his original cases (4/10) (AD)
11.20 Silent Witness. Harry befriends medical
student Holly Farr and involves her in his latest
case, the post-mortem of a woman whose body
was found at the side of a road (AD)
1.50am Dalziel & Pascoe. A housewife is
poisoned (AD) 4.00 Teleshopping
8.55am Kirstie’s House of Craft 9.15 A Place in
the Sun 11.05 Find It, Fix It, Flog It 1.05pm
Heir Hunters 2.10 Four in a Bed 4.50 Find It, Fix
It, Flog It 5.55 Escape to the Château: DIY
6.55 Love It or List It Australia (AD)
7.55 Escape to the Château. As summer arrives,
Dick Strawbridge and Angel Adoree are busier
than ever with seven weddings and 14 food
lovers’ weekends to prepare for (1/3) (AD)
9.00 The Crimson Rivers. Part one of two.
Camille and Niemans agree to meet former
colleague Arnaud Morillon. However, at
his home, they find his dead body with
signs of the bubonic plague. In French
10.00 24 Hours in A&E. A 39-year-old is rushed
to St George’s with internal bleeding from his
femoral artery, while a 19-year-old arrives after
suffering an acute sickle cell crisis (5/11) (AD)
11.05 24 Hours in A&E. A 12-year-old girl is
airlifted in after falling from a cliff near her
home in Hastings, and CT scans reveal she
requires emergency brain surgery (11/11) (AD)
12.10am 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.
Double bill of the game show 2.15 24 Hours in
A&E (AD) 3.20-3.50 Father Ted (AD)
Yesterday
6.00am Restoration Workshop 8.00 True Evil:
The Making of a Nazi 9.00 Nazi Hunters 10.00
Abandoned Engineering (AD) 12.00 The
Architecture the Railways Built (AD) 1.00pm
Great British Railway Journeys Goes to Ireland
2.00 Abandoned Engineering (AD) 4.00 True
Evil: The Making of a Nazi 5.00 Nazi Hunters
6.00 Antiques Roadshow
7.00 Great Continental Railway Journeys.
Michael Portillo uses his 1913 copy of
Bradshaw’s Continental Railway Guide to
explore Poland, visiting Warsaw, Lodz, Poznan,
Wroclaw and Krakow along the way
8.00 The Architecture the Railways Built. Tim
Dunn follows his family’s roots (5/10) (AD)
9.00 Bangers and Cash. Derek picks up an
five vehicle haul from a collector (AD)
10.00 Bangers and Cash. The team struggles to
explain how a DAF 33 gearbox works (2/10)
11.00 Abandoned Engineering. An American
canyon where fortunes were made (5/12) (AD)
12.00 Great Continental Railway Journeys.
Michael Portillo travels through Poland 1.00am
Restoration Workshop 3.00 Teleshopping
BBC Alba
6.00am Alba Today 5.00pm Treubh an
Tuathanais (r) 5.15 Pompon Am Mathan Beag/
Pompon Little Bear (r) 5.20 ’S E Iasg a
Th’Annam (I’m a Fish) (r) 5.25 Creag nam
Buthaidean (Puffin Rock) (r) 5.35 Sionnach
agus Maigheach (Fox & Hare) (r) 5.50 Rita is
Crogall (r) 5.55 Stòiridh (r) 6.00 Aithne air
Ainmhidhean (All About Animals) (r) 6.25
@12 (r) 6.30 Coig Criomagan CBBC ALBA (r)
6.35 Na Moomins/Moomin Valley (r) 7.00 An
Là (News) 7.25 Fraochy Bay (r) 7.30 Machair
(r) 7.55 Dan (r) 8.00 Cearcall (r) 8.30 Miann
na Maighdinn-mara/Mermaid Tales (r)
9.00 Rose Reilly (r) 10.20 Binneas — Na
Trads (r) 10.30 Fin ar Bed (r) 11.30 Tide
Lines 2020 (r) 12.00-6.00am Alba Today
S4C
6.00am Cyw: Peppa (r) 6.05 Guto Gwningen
(r) 6.20 Caru Canu a Stori (r) 6.30 Octonots (r)
6.45 Cei Bach (r) 7.00 Odo 7.10 Blero yn Mynd
i Ocido (r) 7.20 Anifeiliaid Bach y Byd (r) 7.30
Patrôl Pawennau (r) 7.45 Cacamwnci (r) 8.00
Bing (r) 8.10 Cymylaubychain (r) 8.20 Asra (r)
8.35 Jen a Jim Pob Dim (r) 8.50 Nos Da Cyw
(r) 8.55 Teulu Ni (r) 9.05 Y Brodyr Coala (r)
9.15 Ysbyty Cyw Bach (r) 9.30 Sion y Chef (r)
9.45 Amser Maith Maith yn Ôl (r) 10.00
Blociau Rhif (r) 10.05 Halibalw (r) 10.15 Digbi
Draig (r) 10.30 Llan-ar-goll-en (r) 10.45
Octonots (r) 11.00 Olobobs (r) 11.05
Cymylaubychain (r) 11.15 Bach a Mawr (r)
11.30 Gwdihw (r) 11.45 Byd Tad-Cu (r) 12.00
News; Weather 12.05pm Nyrsys (r) 12.30
Heno (r) 1.00 Cymoedd Roy Noble (r) 1.30 Ar
Werth (r) 2.00 News; Weather 2.05 Prynhawn
Da 3.00 News; Weather 3.05 Yr Ynys (r) 4.00
Awr Fawr: Olobobs (r) 4.05 Bach a Mawr (r)
4.20 Cacamwnci (r) 4.35 Digbi Draig (r) 4.45
Byd Tad-Cu (r) 5.00 Stwnsh: Siwrne Ni (r) 5.05
Oi! Osgar (r) 5.15 Ar Goll yn Oz (r) 5.35 Cic (r)
5.55 Ffeil 6.00 Gerddi Cymru (r) 6.30 Garddio
a Mwy (r) 6.57 News 7.00 Heno 7.30 News;
Weather 8.00 Dim Byd i’w Wisgo. A swimming
teacher is given a makeover 8.25 Welsh
Whisperer — Ni’n Teithio Nawr. A visit to the
village of Pontfaen, Cwmgwaun (r) (AD) 8.55
News; Weather 9.00 Rybish. Lorraine makes
plans to cut the council’s carbon footprint (AD)
9.30 Limbo. Huw’s parents arrive unannounced.
Last in the series 9.50 Llenni. Comedy set in a
struggling rural theatre 10.05 Stand Yp (r)
11.05-11.40 Sgwrs Dan y Lloer (r)
18
MindGames
Backgammon Chris Bray
Sat-nav off
Sat-nav is a very useful modern aid
but when it is not available you still
need to be able to navigate from first
principles. The same is true in back-
gammon. We often rely on pattern
recognition because, while exact
positions very rarely repeat, types of
positions do. You use your prior ex-
perience to assist your decision-
making.
What happens when you meet a
position that is somewhat unusual,
and you cannot use your pattern re-
cognition? Then you will have to
think things through logically as
best you can. In this week’s position
Black failed the test.
White has a 1-6 back game, a beast
that very rarely sees the light of day.
Meanwhile, black has a very dis-
jointed position, with his strange
home board and five checkers stuck
in White’s home board or on the bar.
Note that while White has the 1-6
back game, she also has a broken
four-point prime on her side of the
board that could prove to be a very
valuable asset.
Black decided that his small lead
in the race needed to be increased
Winning Move
W________WBlack to play.
árDWDWDWD]This position is a variation from
Le Du-Bacon, Fouesnant 2003.
àDWDk0W!p]
ßWDWdNDpD]At first sight everything appears
to be going well for White. He has
Þ1WDPhWDW]a material advantage, the black
ÝWDWDWDPD]king is exposed, the knight and
bishop are vulnerable and White’s
Ü)pDbDPDW]king appears to be safe. However,
this turned out to be a classic
ÛW)WDWDWD]example of the premise that, in
ÚIWDRDWDR]wild positions, tactics are everything.
Can you spot the brilliant move
WÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈWthat turned the tables?
KenKen Difficult No 5567
All the digits 1 to 6 must appear in every row and column. In
each thick-line “block”, the target number in the top left-hand
corner is calculated from the digits in all the cells in the block,
using the operation indicated by the symbol.
Friday April 29 2022 | the times
Codeword No 4575 Train Tracks No 1619
and therefore played bar/22* with
© PUZZLER MEDIA
his three. After that he decided to
make the 22-pt by moving 24/22
with his two. Regrettably for him
this was completely the wrong game
plan.
If the hit White checker enters
with a three then White will have
the makings of a very good 1-3 back
game and can release her ownership
of Black’s 6-pt whenever she sees fit.
She won’t have any problem getting
those three checkers back into play.
Meanwhile Black has made
White’s prime much more effective
by making his 22-pt. Now his fives
could cause him problems; just look
at how double fives plays after his
move, especially if White has made
Black’s 3-pt.
Black should have recognised the
strengths of White’s position and
played accordingly. The right move
was bar/23, 21/18. This move does
not help White’s timing and, cru- Lay tracks to enable the train to travel from village A to village
cially, it starts to escape one of B. The numbers indicate how many sections of rail go in each
Black’s rear checkers, which White row and column. There are only straight rails and curved rails.
is very unlikely to hit because she The track cannot cross itself.
would have to break her prime to do
so. Even after the correct bar/23,
21/18, White remains a slight favour- Win a Dictionary & Thesaurus
ite to win the game.
Fill the grid so
that every
column, every
row and every
3x2 box contains
Every letter in this crossword-style grid has been substituted for a number from 1
the digits 1 to 6
to 26. Each letter of the alphabet appears in the grid at least once. Use the letters
already provided to work out the identity of further letters. Enter letters in the main
grid and the smaller reference grid until all 26 letters of the alphabet have been
accounted for. Proper nouns are excluded. Yesterday’s solution, right
Cluelines Stuck on Codeword? To receive 4 random clues call 0901 293 6262 or
text TIMECODE to 64343. Calls cost £1 plus your telephone company’s network
access charge. Texts cost £1 plus your standard network charge. For the full solution
call 0905 757 0142. Calls cost £1 per minute plus your telephone company’s network
access charge. SP: Spoke, 0333 202 3390 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5.30pm).
Lexica No 6329 No 6330
Winners will receive a Collins English Dictionary & Thesaurus
E I S D F P T H E O Solve the puzzle and text in the numbers in the three
shaded boxes. Text TIMES followed by a space, then
W E C A your three numbers, eg, TIMES 123, plus your name,
address and postcode to 84901 (UK only), by midnight.
Or enter by phone. Call 09012 925274 (ROI 1516 303 501)
U T O
by midnight. Leave your three answer numbers (in any
order) and your contact details.
T K M A
Calls cost £1 (ROI €1.50) plus your telephone company’s
I H B F network access charge. Texts cost £1 plus your standard
network charge. Winners will be picked at random from
all correct answers received. One draw per week. Lines
E N U I
close at midnight tonight. If you call or text after this
time you will not be entered but will still be charged.
N R I L SP: Spoke, 0333 202 3390 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5.30pm).
I A B E T T L E A I B
What are your favourite puzzles in MindGames?
Slide the letters either horizontally or vertically back into the grid to produce a
completed crossword. Letters are allowed to slide over other letters Email: puzzles@thetimes.co.uk
Futoshiki No 4205 Kakuro No 3164
Fill the grid
using the
6 7 32 8 6 7 4 numbers 1 to 9
15 11 only. The
numbers in each
17 17 horizontal or
7 23 vertical run of
23 white squares
add up to the
20 4 12 total in the
© 2010 KENKEN PUZZLE & TM NEXTOY. DIST. BY UFS, INC. WWW.KENKEN.COM
15 42 triangle to its left
19 4 or above it. The
same number
14 18 10 9 may occur more
21 8 than once in a
row or column,
17 but not within
23 33 the same run of
white squares.
4 23
3 6 7 7 23
4 6 13
16 17
27 20
© PUZZLER MEDIA
Fill the blank squares so that every row and column contains
each of the numbers 1 to 5 once only. The symbols between 19 15
the squares indicate whether a number is larger (>) or smaller
(<) than the number next to it.
the times | Friday April 29 2022 19

MindGames
times2
T2 Crossword No 8891
CROSSWORD No 8891 Brain Trainer Cell Blocks No 4458
Just follow the instructions from left to right, starting with the number given to reach an answer at the end.
Divide the grid

© PUZZLER MEDIA
ANSWER ANSWER ANSWER
1 2 3 4 5 6
into square or
7 8
EASY 21 x 2 3/
7
OF IT
+7 x 3 – 18 x 2 ÷6 x2 +8 rectangular
blocks, each
containing one
digit only. Every
block must
9 10 MEDIUM 93 + 85 + 1/2
OF IT
– 96 + 1/3
OF IT
+ 76 75%
OF IT
x 4 – 88 + 1/4
OF IT
contain the
number of cells
indicated by the
digit inside it.
11 12 13 14 7/
HARDER 110 x 6 70%
OF IT
x 3 + 679 x 3 – 895 80%
OF IT
+ 376 8
OF IT

15 16 17 18
Polygon Set Square No 3167

19 20 21 22 From these letters, make words of Enter each of

four or more letters, always including the numbers
the central letter. Answers must be in from 1 to 9 in
the Concise Oxford Dictionary, excluding the grid, so that
capitalised words, plurals, conjugated the six sums
23 24 verbs (past tense etc), adverbs ending work. We’ve
in LY, comparatives and superlatives. placed two
How you rate 10 words, average; numbers to get
14, good; 16, very good; 19, excellent you started.

© PUZZLER MEDIA
Each sum
Across 19 Pal, mate (4) Yesterday’s answers should be
7 Lake or pond (4) 21 Eg, rouge (8) calculated left
ahem, ambo, amen, amine, anime,
to right or top
8 Costs of plane journeys (8) 23 Wheat for puddings (8) anomie, beam, bema, bemoan, biome,
to bottom.
bohemian, boma, haem, hambone, homa,
9 Constantly; sensibly (8) 24 Snake-like fish (4) home, homie, iamb, main, mane, mean,
10 Location (4) meno, mien, mine, moan, mobe, name,
11 Coventry's naked rider (6) nome, omen Please note, BODMAS does not apply
Down
13 Go back (on a promise) (6)
15 Iran formerly (6)
1 Form of glucose (8) Killer Moderate No 8278 Solutions
2 Language spoken in
17 Not written in any key (6)
Kathmandu (6)
Solution to Crossword 8890 Quick Cryptic 2123 Codeword 4574 Kakuro 3163
3 Indian garment (4) P A T CH MA N T R A P
COM P AC T D I S C 1 3 9 7 9 7
B A A M E E 4 Ill-defined situation (4,4) I A E E A E I 8 9 7 5 6 8 9 1 3
C E R T A I N B R AW L 6 8 9 8 7 6 1
P L A Y ER AR C AN E 5 Die; transmit (4,2) K T D D C F
9 7 7 9 5 6 1 4 2
O G S A T 6 Undergarment (4) B L U E BO T T L E
8 6 5 8 7 9 5
ENO RMO US T UR F J M I D U I R
OR A NG E A T HOME 3 6 9 8 7 9 5
G E I H Y 12 Lawless (8) 1 2 7 9 3 4 5 8 6
Y C H G A N D
T HRE E FO L D 14 Plants of the iris family (8) SMA T T E R I NG 5 8 1 2 8 7 9
F E N O D T R O D M A 2 9 3 1 3 7 6 9 8
V I S A L I CEN S E E 16 A son of Jacob (6) I CON S U T OP I A N 1 2 1 2 5 7
C O I N U N O
E R I O T 18 First batsman (6) K I NDR E D T I T A N Train Tracks 1618
CR I S I S BU T TO N 20 Garden tools (4)
C A T R O U Sudoku 13,170 Quintagram Suko 3476
CE L L B A T T ER Y 22 Pierce with a dagger (4)
1 Col
2 Bluff
Need help with today’s puzzle? Call 0905 757 0143 to check the 3 Heroism
answers. Calls cost £1 per minute plus your telephone company’s 4 Vesuvius
network access charge. SP: Spoke, 0333 202 3390 (Mon-Fri 9am-5.30pm). 5 Overexert

Brain Trainer
Bridge Andrew Robson Easy 46; Medium 1,030; Harder 4,039

Cell Blocks 4457 Set Square 3166 Lexica 6327

Similar ... but different (32) Note, played by North (had
North mistakenly rebid 2♥ ), East Sudoku 13,171
B
When you open the bidding One- would have led ♦Q, rendering C R U M B
of-a-Suit, you normally have a pre- even 4♥ unmakeable.
ordained rebid over partner’s
Deal Two
♠6 Killer Deadly No 8279 U N A

change-of-suit response. With a 6-4 ♥ KQ 3 2 F E W K

shape, however, you have a choice. Dealer S ♦A J 4 3 2 H E

You can either repeat your six- ♣9 5 3
♠ K3 ♠ QJ94 H O V E R
card suit, or introduce your second ♥9 8 6 N ♥ J 10
suit. The best plan is to do what ♦8 7 6 W E
♦KQ 10 9
S Futoshiki 4204 KenKen 5566 Lexica 6328
comes easiest, cheapest. ♣Q J 8 7 2 ♣K 10 4
♠K ♠ A 10 8 7 5 2
Deal One ♥ K J 4 3 ♥A 7 5 4 Sudoku 13,172
Z I N C
Dealer N ♦8 3 ♦5 A L
♣AQ 8 6 4 3 ♣A 6
P E R I O D
♠ J 10 8 7 3 N ♠ Q4
♥9 7 W E ♥ 10 8 6 S W N E A C I
♦A 9 7 2 S ♦Q J 10 4 R K E G
♣7 5 1♠ Pass 2♦ Pass
♠ A 9 6 5 2 ♣K J 10 9 2♥ (1) Pass 4♥ (2) End A L P
♥ AQ 5 2 (1) Rebidding 2♥ is cheaper (thus better)
♦K 6 5
♣2 than repeating the spades. If South had Tetonor 252 Word watch
erroneously rebid 2♠ , North, fearing a mis- Ballotini (b) Small glass spheres
S W N E fit, would (should) have passed. 24 17 40 12 used in reflective paints (Collins)
1♣ Pass (2) Loving partner’s heart bid. Tom-and-Jerry (b) To make
Killer 8276 4 x 6 4 + 13 10 x 4 6 + 6 merry (OED)
1♠ Pass 2♣(1) Pass West leads ♣Q v 4♥ , East
2♥ Pass 4♥ End encouraging with ♣10. Winning 14 52 11 36 Boddle (a) An old Scottish coin
of low value (Brewer’s)
(1) Cheaper than 2♥ . However, if South ♣A, declarer cashes ♠ A and ruffs 4 + 10 13 x 4 7 + 4 6 x 6
had responded 1♦, North would rebid 1♥ ♠ 2. She then cashes ♦A and ruffs Chess — Winning Move
(cheaper than 2♣). ♦2. At trick six, she leads ♠ 5, hop- 75 10 42 20 1 ... Qc3! is a fabulous move
ing for a 3-3 split. Not so, and West 15 x 5 4 + 6 6 x 7 15 + 5 that threatens 2 ... Rxa3 mate.
Unable profitably to lead the After 2 bxc3 (2 Nf8+ Ke8 gets
unbid diamonds (from ♦A, pro- defends best, discarding her remain- 13 30 13 28 nowhere) 2 ... Rxa3+ 3 Kb2
moting declarer’s ♦K), West found ing ♦8. Ruffing low in dummy, 10 + 3 3 x 10 7 + 6 7 x 4
Nc4+ 4 Kc1 both 4 ... b2 and
the good lead of a trump, cutting declarer concedes a club, East win- 4 ... Ra1 are mate
down ruffs. Winning ♥ Q, declarer ning ♣K and trying ♦K (knowing 3 4 4 4 4 5 6 6 6 6 7 7 10 10 13 15
worked on clubs, crossing to ♣A West has no more diamonds and Quiz
and ruffing ♣3. She crossed to ♠ K can potentially overruff). As with standard Sudoku, fill the grid so that every column, Killer 8277
and ruffed ♣4 with ♥ A, revealing Declarer ruffs with ♥ A (no one every row and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9. Each set 1 Mother Teresa 2 Lassie — in Lassie Come-Home
the uneven split as West discarded. is overruffing that). Needing three of cells joined by dotted lines must add up to the target number 3 Apple 4 Australia 5 Godzilla 6 Dacia 7 Hampton
Undaunted, declarer cashed ♠ A more tricks, she leads ♥ 5 to ♥ Q in its top-left corner. Within each set of cells joined by dotted Court Palace 8 Lizzie Borden 9 Seoul 10 Dawn
discarding ♦3, and crossed to ♥ KJ, and ruffs ♣9 with her last trump, lines, a digit cannot be repeated. 11 The Passions 12 Cordite 13 Larry Niven
drawing trumps. She conceded ♣6 ♥ 7, as the defence follow suit. 14 Low blow 15 Kenneth Tynan
to East’s ♣K, lost a diamond (♦Q, Dummy’s ♥ K will later score her Cluelines Stuck on Sudoku, Killer or KenKen? Call 0901 293
♦K, ♦A, ♦8) but could ruff any tenth trick and that’s game made 6263 before midnight to receive four clues for any of today’s
return and cash dummy’s two long on a cross-ruff/scrambling line). puzzles. Calls cost £1 plus your telephone company’s network
clubs. Game made plus one. andrew.robson@thetimes.co.uk access charge. SP: Spoke, 0333 202 3390 (Mon-Fri 9am-5.30pm).

Word watch
David Parfitt
Ballotini
a Voting booths
b Small glass spheres
c Little cubes of dense
bread
Tom-and-Jerry
a A ferry
b To make merry
c A Tom Collins cocktail
with added sherry
Boddle
a An old Scottish coin
of low value
b A corset
c A long darning needle
Answers on page 19
The Times Daily Quiz
1 Canonised in 2016,
which nun is the
subject of Christopher
Hitchens’s book The
Missionary Position?
2 In a 1940 novel, Eric
Knight wrote about
which rough collie
trekking home to
Joe Carraclough in
Yorkshire?
3 Which orchard fruit
is used to make Eve’s
pudding?
4 Which
Commonwealth country
is by far the biggest
recipient of émigrés
from New Zealand?
5 In 1954, the Japanese
composer Akira
Ifukube created the
distinctive roar of
which monster?
The Times Quick Cryptic
1 2
6 7
8 lamentations (5)
9 and was sacked (3,4,5)
10
12
16 17
19 20
22
Sudoku Mild No 13,173
Fill the grid so that every column, every row and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9.
Olav Bjortomt
15
6 The Jogger is a compact
MPV produced jointly
by Renault and which
Romanian subsidiary?
7 In 1768, the Great
Vine was planted at
which London palace
under Capability
Brown’s direction?
8 Which director of the
1986 film Working Girls
No 2124 by Izetti
3 4
13 14
15
18
21
29.04.22
Difficult No 13,174 Fiendish No 13,175
© PUZZLER MEDIA
Suko No 3476
ALAMY
11 I’m in Love with
a German Film Star
(1981) was which
British band’s only
charting single?
12 Which explosive
was invented by James
Dewar and Frederick
Augustus Abel in 1889?
13 Which US sci-fi
writer’s laws include
“Ethics change with
technology” and
shares her name with “Never fire a laser at
an alleged axe murderer a mirror”?
(1860-1927)?
14 In boxing, which
9 In which capital city rhyming term describes
did the Sampoong an illegal punch that
Department Store lands below the waist? Place the numbers 1 to 9 in the spaces so
collapse in 1995? that the number in each circle is equal to
15 Which English the sum of the four surrounding spaces,
10 Which Nasa space theatre critic is and each colour total is correct
probe (2007-2018) was the pictured?
first spacecraft to orbit For interactive puzzles visit
either Vesta or Ceres? Answers on page 19 thetimes.co.uk
5 Across 2 Wise man in comfy position
1 Criticise one Conservative getting nothing right (6)
leader acting out of fear? (9) 3 Artist shows bird crossing river
6 Country knocked back in great (5)
4 Female lacking in passion and
8 After short break, pressing to anger (3)
be on the up again (9) 5 Accepted things from dealer
9 Type of music when Georgia
goes to student event? (5) 6 Fit for the match (12)
11 10 Spirited community? (5,4) 7 Member joining top celebrities:
12 Strangers in a story by Poles one sticking to the law (8)
(6) 11 In charge of you and me.
13 Jumps around plants (6) editor may be worn out (8)
16 Former abstainer, party-goer 14 Bill with long hair is a
at heart who is outward- performer (7)
looking? (9) 15 Northbound David in an
18 One getting up only a bit of American state (6)
the stairs (5) 17 A second group offering
19 Football player, male with little something worth having (5)
energy and out of view (9) 20 Odd characters in Corby yell
21 Teams start to struggle before (3)
day in Rome (5)
22 More than one African agent I
spy being ‘’shifty’’ (9)
Down
1 Model soldier beginning to get
on (7) Yesterday’s solution on page 19