TV guide: Little Drummer Girl, Bake Off final and Inside No 9 top the bill
With Julia Davis at her best, and the delightfully grisly prospect of a live edition from Mssrs Pemberton and Shearsmith to anticipate, there’s a bumper week of quality TV in store, says Sean O’Grady
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Your support makes all the difference.There’s no avoiding it. The TV highlight of the week will be the final of The Great British Bake Off (Channel 4), a national must-see these days on a par with a royal wedding, or its World Cup equivalent. In case there was any need to remind you, Sandi Toksvig and Noel Fielding will be hosting this national celebration, and Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood will be judging and munching. After countless vegan pasties, Wagon Wheels, tarts, scones and loaves, they’ve reduced the mixture to just three finalists – Kim-Joy, Rahul and Ruby.
The surprise, if you can contain yourself, is that the bakers leave the tent for the first time, the better to undertake the technical challenge – about which all the producers will reveal is that it is “labour intensive”. Otherwise they’ll be making a “landscape dessert”, plus some doughnuts. Yes, but will they be as good as Krispy Kremes?
Sunday night is drama night, as we know, and the BBC will be looking to The Little Drummer Girl (BBC1) to further prove its strategic superiority over the competition, and justify the licence fee in an increasingly hostile financial environment. This adaption of the John le Carre story features Florence Pugh as the actress Charlie, who becomes close to an Israeli secret service agent. Those with fond memories of the original Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – one of Alec Guinness’s finest performances and first broadcast a sobering four decades ago – will be hoping this six-parter lives up to the excellence of that eerier, still-peerless work. Michael Shannon, Alexander Skarsgard and Charif Ghattas co-star.
ITV put up more than a bit of a fight with its excellent and moving Butterfly (ITV), which has probably done more for trans people than anything else in recent years. The final episode features Vicky trying to get Max/Maxine’s puberty delayed, a sensible medical procedure routinely demonised in the more primitive sections of the media. Anna Friel, Emmett J Scanlan and – outstanding in the lead – Callum Booth-Ford tell the story of the Duffy family vividly.
For sheer novelty and inventiveness, there’s the Inside No 9 Live Special (BBC2). This dark – and so much comedy seems to be dark, right now – comedy series, written and starring Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith has proved itself a consistently inventive, high quality and superbly crafted gift to the nation. Now, in what promises to be an especially chilling Halloween special, they’re going to everything they do so well, but with the added pressure of a live performance, just like telly was before they invented video.
When Arthur Flitwick (Pemberton) finds an old mobile phone in his local graveyard, he makes the mistake of trying to contact the owner. However, some mysteries are best left unsolved, and as Halloween draws closer, Arthur is plunged into a nightmare of his own making. It seems no good deed can go unpunished – in this world or the next. And, as if any further incentive to view was required, they’ve recruited Stephanie Cole to the cause. We’re spoiled.
I am more than happy to nominate two Sky productions, and congratulate the channel on challenging BBC3 for the title of laughfinder general. Sally4Ever (Sky Atlantic) is written and directed by Julia Davis, who appears as – true to type – an evil, manipulative, sexually ravenous monster. Her victim is the dowdy, mousey and previously undersexed Sally (Catherine Shepherd). This week It’s Sally’s birthday, and her parents come to dinner. It doesn’t end well.
The talent Davis has gathered for her latest dramatic foray makes for a formidable roster: Alex Macqueen, Julian Barratt, Felicity Montagu, Jane Stanness, Vicki Pepperdine and Mark Gatiss. Their talents are deployed well.
Sky is also launching the second series of the quite odd The Reluctant Landlord (Sky One), starring Romesh Ranganathan. Written by the comedian, with Veep’s Will Smith and Steve Stamp, of People Just Do Nothing fame, “laughs on tap” are promised, as Ranganathan runs the pub he’s inherited from his harder-working, more popular late dad. Like the best landlords, he’s miserable with it. Not a Romcom, then.
Last, The Fires That Foretold Grenfell (BBC2) is a documentary that tells the story of five previous fires that, at least arguably, could have helped prevent the Grenfell tragedy. Using archive and eyewitness accounts, the film details how building regulations and firefighting procedures were improved and tightened through the experience of each of the titular landmark events, but also that the resulting improvements were not always sustained or sufficient. The five earlier events were: the Summerland disaster, Douglas, Isle of Man (1973); the Knowsley Heights fire, Liverpool (1991); the Garnock Court fire, Irvine, N Ayrshire (1999); the Harrow Court fire, Stevenage, Herts (2005); and Lakanal House, London (2009). The programme focuses on three factors – the application of flammable material and cladding to buildings, the ‘stay put’ advice given by fire services; and the absence of sprinklers – and how they contributed to each of the previous five blazes, with fatal consequences. It leaves the viewer questioning whether even now we are learning the lessons of Grenfell.
The Great British Bake Off: the Final (Channel 4, Tuesday 8pm); The Little Drummer Girl (BBC1, Sunday 9pm); Butterfly (ITV, Sunday 9pm); Inside No 9 Live Special (BBC2, Sunday 10pm); Sally4Ever (Sky Atlantic, Thursday 10pm); The Reluctant Landlord (Sky One, Tuesday, 10pm); The Fires That Foretold Grenfell (BBC2, Tuesday 9pm)
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