(played by Dina Korzun). and her young son Artyom. She's due to meet her boyfriend but he never shows. and so mother and child are packed off to an immigration camp on the south coast. In this grey. rundown concrete jungle. immigrants are treated no better than convicted criminals but Tanya then meets Alfie. a local lad with a heart of gold played by Paddy Considine.
Pawlikowski sticks to a gritty social realist style. which would make for thoroughly depressing Viewing were it not for the top-rate performances from the leads. It's something of a pleasure to see that Considine has graduated from his funny/frightening showcase in best pal Shane Meadows' film A Room For Romeo Brass with consummate ease. (Miles Fielder)
DOCUMENTARY SERIES TO KILL AND KILL AGAIN Scottish, Wed 23 Jan, 10.20pm 0000
This four-part series on British serial killers. with its atmospheric. titillating reconstructions of notorious murders. will be hugely popular for the same reason that Crimewafch gets massive viewing figures every month.
First out of the Gladstone bag. the Jack the Ripper legend is still morbidly fascinating, not least because the brutal slayer of Whitechapel prostitutes was never caught. while lurid contemporary reporting of the killings set the grammar of the tabloid press.
Worryingly, the contributors here. including cultural historian Christopher Frayling and crime writer Stewart Evans (pictured). get very animated when reliving
the Ripper's tendency to take his victims‘ uteruses as trophies and the veritable dicing of fifth victim Mary Jane Kelly. One forensics expert excitedly describes Kelly‘s murder as ‘an awesome killing'.
Indeed. the programme is full of the kind of grisly details that will make your arse itch and force you to check under the bed before turning out the light. Don't have nightmares . . . (Allan Radcliffe)
DOCUMENTARY OMNIBUS: IRIS MURDOCH - STRANGE LOVE BBC1, Wed 23 Jan, 10.35pm 000.
This documentary offers more than a few unashamed plugs for
DOCUMENTARY SERIES
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the imminent (and BBC produced) film Iris. Then again, if the film's anything like as fascinating as Strange Love, it deserves all the publicity it can get.
Murdoch wrote a total of 26 novels. including the Booker-winning The Sea, The Sea. and her influence on post-war British mores cannot be underestimated.
Biographer Peter Conradi, author Margaret Drabble and Iris director Richard Eyre all give their side of the stOry. but the most affecting contributions come from her husband Peter Bayley. who cuts a dignified figure as he remembers her wild youth. formidable prime and sad descent into Alzheimer's.
Murdoch‘s twitching. incisive interviews make fascinating viewing and it's difficult not to feel admiration for a woman who advised a friend to write a novel instead of undergOIng psychoanalysis because ‘it will get you there much quicker and be much more interesting'.
(James Smart)
ANDY WARHOL: THE COMPLETE PICTURE Channel 4, Sun 27 Jan, 7.30pm .000
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Branagh’s a Nazi piece of work
DRAMA CONSPIRACY: THE MEETING AT WANNSEE 8802, Fri 25 Jan, 9pm .00.
Loring Mandel's reconstruction of the meeting at which plans for the 'Final Solution" to Hitler's Jewish evamiation programme were settled. begins like a Nazi ver3ion of V/(I/I‘I/lg
The supernatural, singular Warhol
Born in 1928 Pittsburgh to Slovak immigrants, the painfully shy Andrew Warhola was made to be an artist. At aged thirteen, his amazing self-portrait of anguish at his father’s death must have earned him a few beatings courtesy of the big boys at school. This dark tendency merged with a love of stardom (he owned signed photographs of Shirley Temple and Mae West), an early indication of why The Velvet Underground’s John Cale believed him to have a personality and aesthetic which crossed
Cinderella with Dracula.
This great three-part documentary on the man who proclaimed that everyone would have ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ shows he was more than just a weird-looking asexual with a supernatural presence. Through interviews with his closest colleagues (John Giorno whom he filmed sleeping for a notorious non-action movie), creative peers (a stogie-chomping Dennis Hopper) and those heavily influenced by him (Jeff Koons, whose worker-bee collective method mirrors The Factory), his artistic philosophy is described as rooted in heavy commercialism while reflecting a ‘cool assessment of his limitations’.
But what limitations they were. The soup cans, multi-Marilyns, foggy Empire State Building, coke bottles and electric chairs are solidly ingrained in our cultural psyches. Even the attempted assassination by Valerie Solanas feels like a statement. It’s unlikely that Warhol obsessives will learn anything new, but as a thorough biopic of a singular talent, it's great stuff. (Brian Donaldson)
For Godot. with asserted British and American non-stars milling about the boardroom awaiting the top billing arrival.
Disappointingly. this turns out to be Kenneth Branagh — never worth waiting for. in my opinion — playing Reinhard Heydrich. the powerful SS general behind many of the Holocaust's atrocmes. Branagh manages suffICIently to tone down his usual pantomime mannerisms for the role of the complex Heydrich. allowing the understated performances of the strong ensemble cast to filter through.
These include Colin Firth as lawyer Wilhelm Stuckart who offers a chillingly passionate justification for the destruction of arrogant. Christ-hating Jews. But the real star is Mandel's script. which gradually exposes the tensions between the men at Wannsee. never allowrng the action to become static. despite the single setting. IAllan Radcliffe)
ALSO ON
The Great Hospital Food Makeover (Channe/ 4. Sat 79 Jan. 7pm) Loyd Grossman dishes up a controversral new range of hospital grub.
I Love The Two Ronnies (BBC2. Sat 79 Jan, 9pm) A heartfelt tribute to the speCCy comedy heroes. Monarch Of The Glen IBBCI, Sun 20 Jan.
8. 70pm) The final episode as Glenbogle comes to terms wrth Hector's death. Designer Vaginas (Channe/ 4, Tue 22 Jan, 70pm) Extreme plastic Surgery in practice. Artworks Scotland (BBC 7, Fri 2:3 Jan.
I 7.05pm; A special Burns Night music and poetry extravagan/a.
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