The TV shows to watch this week: From The Cameron Years to Last Night of the Proms
Sometimes it feels like David Cameron is the most hated man in Britain, thanks to Brexit. Having mostly kept his shiny head well down since he called, fought and lost the 2016 EU referendum, he has now surfaced in what seems like a fairly doomed attempt at rehabilitation. His memoir, For the Record, is soon out, together with media publicity blitz and the usual BBC documentary tie-in, though not this time fronted by the sardonic Michael Cockerell, who usually deals with this sort of stuff.
Apparently Cameron is so reviled in some pro-EU parts of the country – which I see is being currently named “Remainia” – that bookshops there refuse to stock his new book, which seems a bit, well, un-British.
This first episode of two is shown this week, and they’ve wisely skipped the Bullingdon Club and the huskies and gone straight in to the Brexit story – the unexpected victory at the 2015 general election, the awks moment when he realises he actually will have to deliver on the In/Out referendum he solemnly placed in the Conservative manifesto, the betrayals, lies and failures of the Remain and Leave campaign, and the premature end of his political career and the sinking of his reputation.
Although he and the rest of us have been through the wars since, Cameron is still only 52, and now that he’s finished his memoir he will have many arduous years to come trying to restore his reputation. We might not have heard the last of him after all. In any case, his relations will wreck the Tory party conference, Boris Johnson’s first (maybe last) as leader, which might bring Cameron some mild consolation.
There can have been no more vital a question during the Second World War than that posed by BBC2’s Thursday night documentary 1944: Should We Bomb Auschwitz?. It tells the story of the escape form the death camp and subsequent testimony of Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, whose detailed account of the atrocities committed there presented the allies with an acute dilemma. With resources already focused on the Italy campaign and the D-Day landings in Normandy, the question of diverting efforts to destroy the death camps was one question, More important was the more moral dilemma about the numbers of innocent prisoners who would inevitably be killed in an era long before “precision” bombings and drone strikes, and the net effects on the Nazi campaign of genocide. As it is, Auschwitz still stands as a monument to human depravity. By the way, Rise of the Nazis, which ends its run this week, reminds us of how and where it all started.
Read more
You might love to hate him, but David Cameron did nothing wrong
Sara Pascoe is very funny, which makes the case of catching her presenting Comedians Giving Lectures, a bit of original programming from Dave. First up is Nish Kumar on Brexit, a perfect pairing of man and topic, and he’s followed by Tom Allen on Denise van Outen (so to speak) and Natasia Demetriou on “The Anatomy of the Vagina” , which, even now, is quite avant-garde.
More new comedy comes from Defending the Guilty, a sombre-sounding title for a sitcom about an idealistic but useless pupil barrister who is happy to take on the cases of clients who are plainly guilty as charged. You don’t have to be a lord justice of appeal, or something, to realise that this may not be the best way for lawyer Will (Will Sharpe) to make a living.
Equally entertaining is the continuing Stath Lets Flats, which is about incompetent estate agents and their helpless, desperate, skint clients. Jamie Demetriou, Al Roberts and the aforementioned Natasia Demetriou star.
Last, Last Night of the Proms. This mostly harmless outpouring of confused patriotism makes its eccentric annual appearance: flags (union and European Union), Elgar and “Rule Britannia!”. No Brexit glockenspiel, though, we hope.
The Cameron Years (BBC1, Thursday 9pm); 1944: Should We Bomb Auschwitz? (BBC2, Thursday 9pm); Rise of the Nazis (BBC2, Monday 9pm); Comedians Giving Lectures (Dave, Wednesday 10pm); Defending the Guilty (BBC2, Tuesday 10pm); Stath Lets Flats (Channel 4, Monday 10pm); Last Night of the Proms (BBC2, Saturday 7.15pm)
Read more
Read more You might love to hate him, but David Cameron did nothing wrong
