Andrew Davies sexes up Yorkshire with an adaptation of South Riding, and Dancing with the Stars US is even more bonkers than its UK parent.
TV
South Riding
NB: The TV1 listings in the November 5 and 12 issues of the Listener say “To Be Advised” at 4.55pm every weekday, and at 7.30pm on Tuesday and Thursday because, at the time we went to press, TVNZ had not made a decision about the programmes that would screen in those timeslots. However, TVNZ has since announced it will screen Coronation Street at 7.30pm on Thursday and Fridays starting November 10. Ellen will screen at 5.00pm every weekday.
Our World: Extreme Fishing (TV1, 5.00pm). Robson Green and his enormous fish return, and in the first episode he’s travelling to his most remote location yet – tiny Ascension Island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Thrilling if you like fishing and Green going “woo-hoo!”
South Riding (UKTV, Sky 006, 6.00pm). There’s always change a-coming in British costume dramas, although this one is more modern than most. It’s the 1930s, and in Andrew Davies’s adaptation of Winifred Holtby’s novel, change comes in the form of Sarah (Anna Maxwell Martin), who arrives back in South Riding, Yorkshire, with a few uppity ideas about equality. Sarah has returned from London to run the girls high school, but comes up against narrow-mindedness and sexism – and the brooding local farmer (ladies, it’s David Morrissey). Sort of Jane Eyre in bias-cut skirts.
Dancing with the Stars US (TV1, 8.30pm). If you thought the British Strictly Come Dancing was glitzy, try the American version, which features B-, C- and D-listers dancing like their lives depend on it. Possibly their careers do. This is the latest season, No 13, featuring Sonny and Cher’s son, Chaz Bono; Courtney Cox’s ex, David Arquette; actress Ricki Lake; a member of the Kardashian species; and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s Carson Kressley, who replaced Ryan O’Neal at the last minute. There is a wild, anything-could-happen vibe about this iteration: Kressley’s “cheerleader jive” later in the season is described as a “crowning achievement in madness” by judge Bruno Tolioli. Wow, this is looking like the kitsch guilty pleasure we’ve been waiting for.
Boardwalk Empire (SoHo, Sky 010, 8.30pm). Season two of the Prohibition-era drama finds Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) apparently in control of Atlanta after rigging the vote for mayor. However, trouble in the form of Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt) and his father (Dabney Coleman) is coming, not to mention mobsters Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Al Capone.
FILM
Year One (TV2, 8.30pm). Before humour was invented. Jack Black, Michael Cera and producer Judd Apatow all deserved to get stoned for this shocker. And we don’t mean like that. Puzzlingly bad and historically dodgy: since when were biblical times prehistoric? (2009) 4 – Diana Balham
You, Me and Dupree (TV3, 8.30pm). About the worst thing Owen Wilson has been in. A terribly laboured three’s-a-crowd comedy where Wilson rehashes his increasingly boring slacker persona as the best friend who just won’t leave. You can make him disappear, however. One press of a button and poof! He’s gone. (2006) 4 – Diana Balham
aimRenderAd(300, 250, '300X250','ContentRect','/POS=POS2'); if(!$.browser.msie){ ContentRect_frame = $("#ContentRect")[0]; ContentRect_frame.src = ContentRect_frame.src; }My Cousin Vinny (Four, 8.30pm). Marisa Tomei was a surprise best actress Oscar winner for her role as the brassy Noo Yoik girlfriend of the title’s Vinny (Joe Pesci), a newly qualified motormouth lawyer who finds himself defending his cousin and a friend on trumped-up charges in Alabama. Who knew a murder rap could be so entertaining? (1992) 7 – Diana Balham
Wonder Boys (Maori, 8.30pm). This one’s got John-Boy Walton in it! But don’t let that put you off – it’s a gentle little gem: slow-moving, funny and thoughtful. It contains, as Roger Ebert put it, “dead dogs, Monroe memorabilia, a stolen car, sex, adultery, pregnancy, guns, dope and cops, but it is not about any of those things. It is about people and especially about trying to be a good teacher.” Michael Douglas puts in one of his best performances, as stoned university professor Grady Tripp, and the excellent cast also includes Robert Downey jnr, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Katie Holmes and Rip Torn. Based on the novel by Michael Chabon and directed by Curtis Hanson (Adaptation, LA Confidential). (2000) 8 – Diana Balham
Burlesque (Sky Movies, Sky 020, 8.30pm). Just as well they don’t make dear old Cher dance – all her staples would fall out. Previously wooden, she’s now hilariously immobile – every wrinkle terrified into submission by Botox. And Christina Aguilera? Well, she’s young … A very long and somewhat old-fashioned music video that comes across as a slightly nervous challenge to Lady Gaga. We’re waiting. (2010) 5 – Diana Balham
The Exorcist (TV2, 10.25pm). Yes, we all thought young Regan couldn’t hold a candle to our kids by the end of the school holidays. But the weeks have passed and we now realise our offspring couldn’t possibly scuttle downstairs like inverted insects the way this little devil does. Other than that, well, maybe. A very fine effort sometimes billed as “the scariest film of all time”, from director William Friedkin, who has the honour of creating two films with 100% fresh ratings on Rotten Tomatoes (The Boys in the Band and 12Angry Men) and one with 0% (Good Times). (1973) 8 – Diana Balham
My Summer of Love (TV3, 10.40pm). Wonder why this coming-of-age love story is on so late? Maybe TV3 thinks we’re not grown-up enough to handle girls kissing. Pity. This rather good UK drama starring Emily Blunt and Natalie Press is worth staying up for. (2004) 7 – Diana Balham
RADIO
Insight (Radio New Zealand National, 8.12am). As the election draws nearer and the rugby hysteria dies down, politicians must at last stop kissing babies and start talking about policies. In Poverty in New Zealand, RNZ’s political editor Brent Edwards finds out what our political parties intend to do about it. – Diana Balham
Mediawatch (Radio New Zealand National, 9.06am). Today: the election and the internet, and we’ve let Toby Manhire out of a locked room at the Listener to talk to Colin Peacock about his ListenerLive Election 2011 live blog.
Composer of the Week (Radio New Zealand Concert, 9.00am today and weekdays and 7.00pm Monday). RNZ Concert concentrates on Jenny McLeod (b1941), who was born in Wellington but grew up in Timaru and Levin. She showed remarkable musical ability from an early age and could read music when she was five. She was immersed in music during her childhood and adolescence – she played the piano at school, was a church organist and an accompanist and played at dances in a band with her brothers – but was essentially self-taught until she enrolled at Victoria University in 1961. She studied with Frederick Page, David Farquhar and Douglas Lilburn and graduated in 1964, travelling to Europe that year to study with four enormously influential composers: Messiaen, Boulez, Stockhausen and Berio. She returned home in 1967 and took up lecturing at Victoria University, becoming a professor of music in 1971 and retiring from academia five years later. McLeod is best known for Earth and Sky andUnder the Sun, both music-theatre works for performance by school children, but she is equally comfortable composing “serious” music, popular music and music for the church and for Maori communities. In 1997 McLeod was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to music. – Diana Balham
Spectrum (Radio New Zealand National, 12.15pm). Turns out you do need to be a rocket scientist for this job. Well, it helps, anyway. Pyrotechnics profiles Anthony Lealand, who had an unhealthy obsession with blowing things up as a kid. He and his buddy Steve Krenek (whose Nasa engineering skills are now applied to our wool industry – exploding sheep?) loved to hold wild student parties in the 1970s. The fireworks were amaaaaazzzzing, or perhaps that was just the drugs. Nowadays, Lealand is a fine upstanding Cantabrian whose fireworks company is now a world leader in its field (you should always operate explosives in open spaces). But he’s also providing a vital service in Christchurch and its environs, rock blasting in the Port Hills to minimise danger in areas made unstable by earthquakes. – Diana Balham
Opera on Sunday (Radio New Zealand Concert, 3.00pm). Today it’s a return to the mainstream, one of the most performed works in the opera repertoire – Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. This production is a 2003 CD recording, which was named one of the 250 best classical recordings by Gramophone magazine last year. It stars Simon Keenlyside (Count Almaviva), Véronique Gens (Countess Almaviva), Patrizia Ciofi (Susanna), Lorenzo Regazzo (Figaro) and Angelika Kirchschlager (Cherubino), with Concerto Köln, conducted by René Jacobs. – Diana Balham
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