DO NOT DISTURB, GOLD, 10pm
Catherine Tate stars in this one-off comedy about an estranged married couple trying to rekindle their love after the trauma of an affair.
Anna (Catherine Tate) checks into a lovely old hotel in Stratford upon Avon for what she hopes will be a peaceful weekend but it seems the old town has been invaded by stag parties. There are medical students in Shakespearean garb vomiting into plant pots and clutching their hungover heads and groaning at the mini-bar bill which is full of drinks and Chunky Kit Kats. The town has clearly slipped into decay. In the old days the worst thing you’d see would be “method actors rehearsing for Coriolanus.” Now it looks like Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night.
And the hotel room doesn’t offer much hope of romance. You could sleep in the same bed once occupied by Shakespeare, Anna is told, even though it was recently ordered from DFS.
Miles Jupp plays her estranged husband and they try to claw back some passion even though Anna suspects her husband might prefer Newsnight to sex.
CHILDREN SAVED FROM THE NAZIS: THE STORY OF SIR NICHOLAS WINTON, BBC1, 10.45pm
Nick Winton was looking forward to a ski-ing holiday in Czechoslovakia but when it was cancelled he decided to go to Prague anyway. It had been recently annexed by the Nazis but Chamberlain kept telling everyone there would be “peace in our time” so Nick thought he’d pop across and have a look for himself.
In his hotel room word got out that a British person was in town and so people began knocking his door and begging for help.
Would he please take their children to safety in Britain? Nick was just a young man, not a politician or humanitarian. How could he save hundreds of children?
“I have a motto that if something isn’t blatantly impossible there must be a way of doing it,” he says in an interview. So he began writing letters, listing names, finding British families willing to accept refugees, and he managed to save the lives of 669 children.
“See you soon,” said one father as he put his child on the train.
It’s an utterly heart-breaking story yet uplifting and joyful at the same time.
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