TV Week: Ballroom Blitz Adam Clayton explores showband era
TV WEEK (Wednesday 27th to Tuesday 3rd)
TOP SPECIALS
Ernie O’Malley – Another Man’s Wound (TG4, Wednesday 27th, 9.30pm)
The turbulent life of a man who became a legend for his exploits as an IRA leader in the War of Independence and the Civil War, but is better known in later life for the literary and intellectual quality of his writing.
Cheap Flights: What They Really Mean for You (BBC 1, Thursday 28th, 9pm)
Millions of people fly across Europe and the globe every year, but those flights produce greenhouse gases, which are warming the planet. The industry has a plan it claims will cut emissions and help reach its net zero targets, but is it realistic and what does it all mean for holidaymakers and the price of our flights? Will our annual jaunt to the Costas become a climatic no-no?
Memorial: The Story of HIV/AIDS in Ireland (RTÉ 1, Thursday 28th, 10.15pm)
The story of the virus and how it shattered the lives of some of the most vulnerable in Irish society – homosexual men, haemophiliacs, drug users, sex workers, prisoners and women when it was at its deplorable peak in the 1980s and 1990s.
The Making of Do They Know It’s Christmas? (BBC 4, Friday 29th, 9pm)
Forty years ago, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure gathered together some of the biggest pop stars in the UK and Ireland to form the charity supergroup, Band Aid, who would record and release the now legendary song, Do They Know It’s Christmas? to raise funds for people caught in the 1983-1985 famine in Ethiopia.
Scannal Savita (RTÉ 1, Tuesday 3rd, 7pm)
In October 2012, Savita Halappanavar, who was 17 weeks pregnant with her first baby, was admitted to hospital with an impending miscarriage. She asked for a termination, but a week later had died from septic shock. Twelve years after her death, this special two-part documentary examines why Savita died, and how the news of her death provoked a national debate and helped usher in legal abortion in Ireland for the first time.
WATCH OF THE WEEK
Ballroom Blitz (RTÉ 1, Wednesday 27th, 9.35pm)
Adam Clayton explores how a dark, oppressed period of our cultural history was ripe for a social and sexual revolution as more than 600 showbands packed out 1000 ballrooms, licensed hotels halls and cabaret venues nationwide – only for this huge industry to disintegrate by the late 1970s, after the Miami massacre and the rise of the disco era.
BEST FILMS
Tropic Thunder (Sky Cinema Comedy, Wednesday 27th, 9.55pm)
Ben Stiller plays a pampered action superstar, filming in southeast Asia the biggest, most-expensive war movie produced – where everything goes wrong. Co-starring Robert Downey Jnr, Jack Black and an unrecognisable Tom Cruise, this is a hilarious jungle comedy.
Let Him Go (CH4, Thursday 28th, 2.30am)
Kevin Costner and Diane Lane star in this dramatic tale of a retired sheriff and his wife who leave their Montana ranch to rescue their young grandson from the clutches of a dangerous family living off the grid in the Dakotas.
Lakeview Terrace (RTÉ 2, Friday 29th, 9.45pm)
Samuel L Jackson is an LA cop who, as the self-appointed watchdog of his neighbourhood, strongly disapproves of the interracial newlyweds – Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington – who just moved in next door. Increasingly hostile toward the innocent pair, he goes to extreme lengths to force them out of their home.
Monkey Man (Sky Cinema Premiere, Friday 29th, 10.05pm)
Dev Patel is Kid, a young man who ekes out a meagre living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. One day, after years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite.
CLASSIC MOVIE
1917 (RTÉ 1, Friday 29th, 11.15pm)
Two British soldiers during WWI are given a huge task to cross no man’s land deep into enemy territory to deliver a message that could potentially save 1,600 of their comrades, including one soldier’s brother. Stunning recreation of the horrors of war where lighting, atmosphere and drama combine in a film that lingers long in the mind after the final scenes.
KIDS STUFF
Belonging (RTÉ Player)
A Bedouin Dream presents nine-year-old Isra, a girl who is proud of her Bedouin heritage and dreams of camping in the desert. But she and her parents are evicted from their home and have anywhere else to stay.
Space Camp Challenge (RTÉ Player)
At NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Centre in Huntsville Alabama, eight Irish teens have an ‘out of this world’ experience as they find out if they have what it takes to be Ireland’s first astronaut in an environment that simulates the real thing.
ON DEMAND
Vinnie Jones In The Country (Amazon Prime)
Actor and former footballer Vinnie Jones takes on 2,000 acres of West Sussex countryside and a host of over-ambitious farmyard build projects during a hectic summer where he is determined to create his own oasis as he battles bereavement following the death of his wife Tanya.
Blitz (Apple TV)
In World War II London, nine-year-old George is evacuated to the countryside by his mother, Rita, to escape the bombings. Defiant and determined to return to his family, George embarks on a journey back home as Rita searches for him. Directed by Steve McQueen, it stars Saoirse Ronan and newcomer Elliot Heffernan, who steals the show.
The Piano Lesson (Netflix)
Set in 1936 Pittsburgh during the aftermath of the Great Depression, The Piano Lesson follows the lives of the Charles family in the Doaker Charles household and an heirloom, the family piano, which documents the family history through carvings made by their enslaved ancestors. Starring Samuel L Jackson and John David Washington.
SPORTS CENTRE
Champions League Live (RTÉ 2, Wednesday 27yh, 7.30pm)
Joanne Cantwell presents live coverage of Liverpool v Real Madrid alongside Kevin Doyle and Richie Sadlier. Two of Europe’s top footballing teams battle it out for supremacy in the only league that really matters.