TV Preview: The Coronation (Sunday, BBC1 8pm)
The Queen is not-exactly-grilled in a rare interview with the BBC
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Your support makes all the difference.I once worked for an overdemanding editor who used to entertain, born of sadism or befuddlement I could not tell, the most ludicrous delusions of grandeur about his own importance and the power of his organ. We all used to joke that one day he’d tell us, in all seriousness, to put a “bid” in to interview Queen Elizabeth II. How we laughed and mocked such an improbable prospect.
Well, now look. Not content with gamely jumping out of a helicopter with James Bond (or pretending to), the Queen has graciously agreed to an interview! Tomorrow evening, in The Coronation, she’ll be not-exactly-grilled by Alastair Bruce, who knows his royal stuff alright but is a lot tamer than one of the corgis, let alone those vicious bull terriers Princess Anne is responsible for (and no, I don’t mean Zara and that rugger player she’s shacked up with). Perhaps the only star who can outshine Claire Foy in The Crown is the real Elizabeth II talking about the real crown, or rather St Edward’s crown, the big very arched one that you see represented on the side of the Royal Mail vans, on your maroon passport and across British officialdom. It features the ruby supposedly worn by Henry V at Agincourt and Edward the Confessor’s very own sapphire and it weighs 5lbs in mostly solid gold. (I hope you’ll agree that imperial rather than metric measurements are appropriate just this once). Quite the coup, if you’ll pardon the expression.
As if that wasn’t enough flummery for one week – and we’re still nowhere near the marriage of Meghan and Harry yet – Andrew Graham-Dixon goes for a good old nose round the Royal Collection for the next four Tuesday nights in Art, Passion and Power, and, while you might have some notion of the scale and, yes, value of the art and crafts mostly locked up away from public view in Windsor, Buckingham Palace and other residences you’ll not fail to be awestruck by the beauty, mostly, of the collection. You might also wonder what effect being brought up surrounded by all this priceless gear has inflicted on the mentality of the members of the House of Windsor who were born (as opposed to married) into it. Such aspects are for another documentary series perhaps.
The drama of the week is probably Kiri, which stars the ever more impressive Sarah Lancashire, moving gracefully into middle age as an increasingly, I hope, well-rated and cherished actor. She’s impressive in the role of harassed social worker blamed for the death of a toddler on a family visit. Politics, racism and media intrusion are all, rightly, there to make this a fitting subject with all too obvious references to events in the real world. Next of Kin, ITVs latest intervention in the standard Monday 9pm slot is pretty promising, with its themes of radicalisation and terrorism, though Silent Witness over on BBC1, relies on a more established set of conventions to capture your weary attentions. Hard Sun, the Saturday night offer from the BBC, features an official conspiracy of silence surrounding a secret plan by a close-knit band of insane ideologues to inflict a kind of apocalypse on the British nation in the near future. Too far fetched, that, surely?
I am, though, also taken by the latest Nordic noir drama to arrive, Before We Die, which turns up on Channel 4 on Tuesday night, and, for the first time, includes explicit scenes of age discrimination in employment in a crime drama. Gory stuff.
For comedy, I urge you to turn to Inside No. 9, the latest series of which is making its dark presence felt on BBC2. Each instalment is loosely based – often perfunctorily so – on some object or idea with the number nine, which is a light peg from which the team of Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith hang elaborate and superbly crafted plays. As you might expect from these two leading graduates of The League of Gentlemen there’s never an easy laugh, either for them or the viewer and the price of comedy is paid in embarrassment and gut-churning awkwardness. This week: a house move at No. 9 turns nasty.
Unintended humour, you might call it schadenfreude, is the main attraction of BBC2’s Millionaires’ Ex-Wives Club. As the old saying goes, there’s no fool like an old fool, and none so plentiful than in the “divorce capital of the world”, London. Enjoy.
Last I’m not sure that even the most dedicated dog lover might be prepared to sit through a whole two and a half hours of Britain’s Favourite Dogs on ITV, even if it focuses on exotic breeds.
Art, Passion and Power: The Story of the Royal Collection (Tuesday, BBC4 9pm); Kiri (Channel 4, Wednesday 9pm); Next of Kin (Monday, ITV 9pm); Silent Witness (Monday, BBC1 9pm); Hard Sun (Saturday, BBC1 9.35pm); Before We Die (Tuesday, Channel 4 11pm); Inside No. 9 (Tuesday, BBC2 10pm); Millionaires’ Ex-Wives Club (Wednesday, BBC2 9pm); Britain’s Favourite Dogs (Tuesday, ITV 7.30pm)
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