Friday’s TV tips
A word of warning dieters: this show will do you no favours, because at the end of it you may find yourself in the kitchen rustling up a calorific supper.
It’s the final leg of Gino D’Acampo’s Italian adventure, which this week comes from Italy’s gastronomic capital – the city of Bologna.
Our host is always on the lookout for mouthwatering dishes, so he can’t come to this city of Bologna without studying its world-famous sauce – Bolognese.
At an unassuming trattoria, he meets a formidable Italian chef, who has been honing her Bolognese sauce recipe for almost three decades.
After devouring her stunning sauce and hand-made tagliatelle, Gino heads up to the rooftops of Bologna to get cooking. There he makes his grandfather’s recipe of tagliatelle alla Bolognese – and reveals some of his family’s secret sauce tips.
Then he’s off to find another one of Bologna’s best-known foods – a speciality cured pork sausage called mortadella.
This week, The Works explore the art of drawing and goes to Galway to preview the 18th annual Baboró International Arts Festival for Children. Colm Tóibín tells John Kelly about his novel, Nora Webster, The Young Folk play a track from their debut album, and Maria Walsh, the current Rose of Tralee, tells us what she’s reading and looking at this weekend.
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: COLM TÓIBÍN
Colm Tóibín talks to John Kelly about Nora Webster, his new novel, in which a widow living in a Wexford town in the late 1960s finds her world changed utterly when her husband dies.
BABORÓ INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL FOR CHILDREN, GALWAY
The Works goes to Galway for the Baboró International Arts Festival for Children, nine days of theatre and art for all ages from 11th to 19th October. Highlights include a tragical cheeseboy and flying elves!
THE ART OF DRAWING
Behind all the best movies, video games, posters and ads that bombard us every day, there is a creative mind at work and it nearly always begins with a sheet of paper and pencil. The Workstakes a look at the art of drawing.
MUSIC: THE YOUNG FOLK
Currently on tour around Ireland, new Irish band, The Young Folk, perform Way Home from their debut album, The Little Battle (Pixie Pace records).
And in a new regular weekly slot, each week a different celebrity guest will choose four topical cultural highlights to recommend. This week, it’s Maria Walsh, the 2014 Rose of Tralee.
You know you’re getting on a bit when the man who was once a relatively fresh-faced assistant to Inspector Morse has to come out of retirement to crack a case.
Yes, we know time waits for no man, but for some, Lewis (Kevin Whately) always seemed to be the apprentice, never the seasoned crime buster that John Thaw was.
Back to the first of a new run, and our eponymous hero is not enjoying his retirement. When the call comes from Innocent to rejoin the force, he doesn’t have to think twice.
Meanwhile, Hathaway (Laurence Fox) is tackling his first murder mystery – a case involving the worlds of neurosurgery, blood sports and animal rights.
It began with an arson attack on a hunting lodge, but before long, Hathaway and DS Maddox (Angela Griffin) have a dead neurosurgeon on their hands.
The question is: who killed Alastair Stoke (Jonny Phillips)?
Miss Postern is not the sort of woman to tell tales out of school, so she winds up in a meeting with snooty Ms Baron, who still hasn’t learned her colleague’s name, and apparently has no plan to in the near future.
The flame-haired teacher is concerned about the homeless Mr Barber, who has been sleeping in her classroom. He denies it, though the fact he’s left a box of his belongings with his name on the side gives the game away.
Later, disaster strikes when he causes a fire in Miss Postern’s classroom, so a reluctant Mr Gunn gives the hapless caretaker a home.
At least the disaster is good news for Mr Church, as Miss Postern moves into his laboratory while her room is redecorated.
However, they soon discover sharing doesn’t come naturally.
Good fun, with David Walliams, Catherine Tate, Philip Glenister and Steve Speirs, while sitcom veteran Michele Dotrice guest stars.
As we all know, Stephen Fry has a lot on his plate this year. In the spring alone he hot-footed it from the set of 24 to the Empire Awards, where he just had time to schmooze with old friend Emma Thompson before going on stage, delivering one of the filthiest gags of the night, presenting the award, and then retiring to a safe distance.
Over the years, QI has veered from pre-watershed funny to more adult post-9pm comedy, but whatever time and channel the quiz is on, it’s always fascinating as Stephen debunks more urban myths and reveals the sort of factoids which provide excellent pub or dinner party conversation.
Joining Fry and comedy stooge Alan Davies to discuss L-related things this week are Irish actress, comedienne and writer Aisling Bea – who makes her debut appearance on the show.
She’ll be joined by fellow stand-ups Jason Manford and Johnny Vegas.
Let’s hope they avoid those traps.
You may not think it, but John Cleese and Neil Diamond have a lot in common. Both are in their early seventies; they’ve both been married several times, and they both rose to fame in the early 1960s, one as a comedy writer and performer on shows like The Frost Report; the other as a song writer (at New York’s Brill building) and later as a performer, with hits such as Sweet Caroline, Song Sung Blue and Crackling Rosie.
Their careers have ebbed and flowed over the past 50 years, but in 2014 they are more popular than ever, as this week’s show should prove when they drop into the studio to plug their respective projects.
Dublin’s most famous chat show host will also be welcoming Pennsylvania pop powerhouse Taylor Swift, who at 24 is already one of the most successful artists of her generation.
Plus, there’s a chat with cricketer Kevin Pietersen.
It’s the last days of 1999 and New York is promising to be the hottest venue on the planet for millennium celebrations – but nobody realises just how hot it could get.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is Jericho Cane, a suicidal cop drawn into a complex web of intrigue while trying to protect merchant banker Gabriel Byrne from an assassin. He is soon neck deep in a case involving Christine York – an impossibly gorgeous girl, who just happens to be the individual who was born two decades ago to prevent the apocalyptic End of Days.
Gabriel Byrne is on fine form as the Devil, and Arnie does what he does best in a surprisingly powerful and intelligent examination of the Armageddon story. It’s big, brash, explosive and frightening at times.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gabriel Byrne, Robin Tunney
Tough cop Jack Cates is determined to nail the villains who killed his buddies and knows criminal Reggie Hammond could lead him to them. Reggie is currently in jail, but Jack agrees to free him for 48 hours – on the condition that he helps him find the men he wants. Against the odds they make an effective duo.
Violent, fast-moving and with a string of four-letter words peppering even the shortest piece of dialogue, it’s an interesting throwback to the ’buddy’ genre of the Seventies. Look out for the scene when Murphy hilariously impersonates a police officer to drag some information from a roomful of people.
Nick Nolte, Eddie Murphy, Annette O’Toole, James Remar
The fine art of love has often been depicted as something that the English are rubbish at, whereas the French are experts. Journalist Jed doesn’t agree with that idea.
In fact, he thinks it’s a load of old rubbish, which could cause problems as he prepares to interview Thierry Grimandi, a French director and self-appointed expert on the art of love.
However, when his own relationship seems to be on the verge of collapse, Jed realises he may need to listen to any advice Thierry is willing to give him.
It’s a little silly, but the performances of the cast make it worth while. Besides, where else can you see Hugh Bonneville and Eric Cantona side by side?
Hugh Bonneville, Anne-Marie Duff, Eric Cantona, Victoria Hamilton, Douglas Henshall
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