28 OCTOBER – 3 NOVEMBER 2023

As we engage with everyone’s favourite month – November – the BBC begins its 60th anniversary celebrations of Doctor Who. There were two cinema films, both starring Peter Cushing: Doctor Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966). They made an entertaining double bill (and, yes, I did see them!) and, a year or so ago, they were spruced up and given a re-release. However, our fondness for the character – and the series’ success worldwide – comes from the TV incarnations: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and their successors. Anyway, Wednesday 1 November is the launch date for the celebrations, beginning with Talking Doctor Who and Doctor Who @ 60: a Musical Celebration on BBC 4. Plus (sharp intake of breath) over 800 episodes will be on iPlayer from the same day. What a splendid tick list they will make!  
THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS (1955) Sunday 29 October 12.30-2.10pm BBC 2              
If you enjoyed Operation Mincemeat (what a great Silver Screen that would have made, in Lyme), then you might like to give the original a try. It concerns the famously outrageous Allied deception during World War Two: plant false papers on a corpse to convince the Germans that the next theatre of operations will be Greece, not Sicily. 
THE TRAIN (1964) Sunday 29 October 2.10-4.20pm BBC 2       
I referenced The Train a couple of weeks ago when highlighting the French Resistance drama Bataille du Rail (there is a TP repeat at 12.20pm on Wednesday). Paul Scofield is trying to steal French art treasures; Burt Lancaster is determined to stop him. Mr Lancaster really was one of the great star-actors and filmed particularly well in black and white.  
ANGEL AND THE BADMAN (1947) Wednesday 1 November 2.30-4.25pm Legend (Ch 41)           
By 1946, John Wayne enjoyed enough clout at home-studio Republic to become a producer as well; this was his first project – and a very creditable one it turned out to be. Gail Russell’s fragile beauty makes a splendid counterpoint to the Duke’s bullishness and the story’s post-war Quakerism was most timely. Wayne asked his regular scriptwriter, James Edward Grant, to direct; he does well, but was overly fond of the bottle and returned – mostly – to writer and indispensible buddy duties.  
MACBETH (1948) Thursday 22 November 11.20pm-1.05am BBC 4            
The Bard taking up residence at Republic studios forsooth! The production is studio bound and the sound quality variable, but Orson Welles was a genius and made the most of what he had to work with. He directs and plays the title role, and Jeanette Nolan makes her film debut as Lady Macbeth.
THE NEST (2019) Friday 3 November 11.05pm-12.45am BBC 2    P       
Where would a psychological drama be without a large isolated house in the country? Jude Law and his family relocate to this one from the States, and it isn’t long before their apparently cosy lifestyle starts to unravel . . .