24 FEB – 1 MARCH 2024

This week, it is a warm welcome back to Scandinavian drama and a new 6-part drama on BBC 4: Prisoner starring Sofie Grabol as a prison warden. I am expecting it to be gripping, compulsive viewing with a fair measure of violence – I think we can guarantee it absolutely will not pull its punches. The BBC’s archive also comes up trumps again with a Tolstoy adaptation that I don’t think has been transmitted in over 60 years, although BFI Southbank does programme TV drama from this period, from time to time.
QUO VADIS, AIDA? (2020) Saturday 24 February 11.00pm-12.40am BBC 4    P             
No, not the 1951 epic with Robert Taylor and Deborah Kerr; rather, we have a Bafta-nominated drama new to Freeview. The year is 1995, the Bosnian War is ongoing, and UN translator Aida is torn between duty and family. The TV premiere of the 1951 Quo Vadis was my first entry when I started to keep viewing lists (Tuesday 2 September 1975). A lot of films have flowed under the bridge since that memorable evening . . .
THE RESCUE (2021) Sunday 25 February 9.00-10.45pm BBC 2    P             
The Rescue is a tense, absorbing, quite brilliant documentary, even though everyone knows the outcome. Broadcasters all over the world followed the desperate attempt to save, in 2018, the Thai youth football team trapped in caves as heavy rain fell. You might also remember the unsavoury comments on Twitter that followed it.
TIME LOCK (1957) Wednesday 28 February 11.00am-12.35pm Film Four             
To start the day, we have a good little B-movie that generates a fair amount of tension. A small boy is locked accidentally in a bank vault, and then it is a race against time before his air runs out. Director Gerald Thomas and screenwriter/producer Peter Rogers were soon making the Carry On films; lead actor Robert Beatty the TV series Dial 999 (which still holds up due, in large measure, to its location filming in London); Sean Connery – here billed as welder number 1 – went on to James Bond and superstardom.
ANNA KARENINA (1961) Wednesday 28 February 10.15pm-12.05am BBC 4             
Wow! Not a film, really – but equivalent to a TV movie and as rare to view as gold teeth, so I have to include it. It was a BBC production that was based on an adaptation for the stage. Claire Bloom plays the title role (and does an introduction at 10pm), and Sean Connery and Frank Williams (Captain Pocket in The Army Game and, later, the vicar in Dad’s Army) are also in the cast.