Asking whether there could be an end to melody given only 12 notes to work with, Sergey Prokofiev compared the possibilities to a chess game: “for the fourth move of the White there will be about 60 million variants.”
So it is with the basic formula of The Traitors, subject to the infinite variety of human foibles, ambiguities and treachery, plus superficial twists introduced by the master planners, with the wry and stylishly, sometimes outrageously, clad Claudia Winkleman as their conduit.
“Are they all like that?” asks a shaken Major Bucky Egan (Callum Turner), after he’s completed his first bombing mission over Germany as a guest of the US Eighth Air Force’s 389th Bomb Group. They’ve been battered by flak and lacerated by German fighters, and the front half of their B-17 bomber looks like an abattoir. His pilot looks ahead with a thousand-yard stare, and says “don’t tell your guys anything, they’ll figure it out.”
This fourth series of the erratic detective drama opens with an epigraph, attributed to a certain Hildred Castaigne: “For we do not know what beasts the night dreams when its hours grow too long for even God to be awake.” It sounds dark and creepy, and is a fitting prelude to a story which mixes murder and eerie Arctic landscapes with disconcerting glimpses of the supernatural.
There isn’t a troupe officially called the Worshipful Company of British Character Actors, but there probably should be, given the sterling service it does for the nation, acting in prestige TV dramas based on real events. Toby Jones and Monica Dolan regularly top the bill in this genre, as they do in ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
It was barely a month ago that screenwriters Jack and Harry Williams astounded viewers with Boat Story. Now they’re back with a sequel (or maybe just a continuation) of The Tourist, which debuted a year ago with its mind-bending story of the amnesiac Elliot Stanley (Jamie Dornan), who found himself all at sea in the Australian outback.
TV viewers can hardly complain about a lack of choice these days, though they might baulk at funding an ever-lengthening list of subscriptions.
This is the follow-up to 2020’s The Kemps: All True, in which rock satirist Rhys Thomas assessed the Spandau Ballet boys as the band reached its 40th anniversary. This time, we rejoin Thomas as he spends a year as a fly on the wall in the chaotic lives of Martin and Gary, culminating in their plans to appear in the BBC’s New Year celebrations as 2024 dawns.
Well at least they haven’t changed the identity of the killer this time around, but the BBC’s new version of Agatha Christie’s 1939 novel has been modified in other ways. Screenwriter Siân Ejiwunmi-Le Berre and director Meenu Gaur have opted to move the story into the mid-1950s, introducing themes of racism, class prejudice and capitalist exploitation. And you thought it was just a tidy little whodunnit.
They called Noël Coward “The Master”, and Barnaby Thompson's 90-minute documentary marking 50 years since his death reminded us why. Though there was nothing here in the way of hitherto unknown revelations, the tale of how a boy who left school at nine and had no musical training yet became one of the world’s most prolific playwrights and composers undoubtedly has something fantastical about it.