Pick of the Week
Emerald Nightingales – Irish Nurses in the NHS
Wednesday, RTÉ One, 10.35pm
This documentary brings us back to an age when Irish nurses migrated in droves to the UK and became an integral part of the medical workforce within the NHS. In the 1940s and 1950s, waves of young Irish women crossed the Irish Sea and sought work within Britain’s healthcare system, enduring hardship, long working hours and prejudice, but also bringing care, compassion and professionalism to British hospitals. The film, produced by Buckinghamshire New University (BNU) uses repurposed archive footage and stills to re-create that era, and features interviews with former NHS nurses including Mary Hazard, who emigrated to the UK in 1952 and started out as a student nurse in London. Hazard is a natural storyteller who brings vivid tales of life in London for Irish immigrants in the 1950s. In those days young Irish nurses socialised at Irish dancehalls such as the Galtymore in north London – the Copper Face Jacks of its day – often toning down their accents to fit in with their new environment, and many of them marrying English men. The documentary also reveals how the NHS actively recruited young Irish women to train as nurses in the British hospital system, visiting towns and villages in Ireland and setting up recruitment centres in local hotels. The documentary has emerged from London Metropolitan University’s oral history project on Irish nurses led by Prof Louise Ryan and former nurse and now radio producer Gráinne McPolin, and will give an insight into the vital and often unrecognised role Irish nurses played in the growth of the NHS.
Highlights
King & Conqueror
Sunday, BBC One, 9.10pm
Want to know the inside story of the Battle of Hastings? King & Conqueror is the Beeb’s latest historical epic drama, following events leading up to the famous battle in 1066 that reshaped the destiny of an entire continent over the next millennium. James Norton stars as Harold, Earl of Wessex, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau costars as William, Duke of Normandy. The story follows the fortunes of these two allies, both driven by ambition and obsession, and eventually forced into a deadly war against each other for England’s crown – which neither of them wanted. Eddie Marsan co-stars as King Edward, and other starry names in this sweeping eight-episode saga include Emily Beecham, Clemence Poesy, Juliet Stevenson, Clare Holman and Luther Ford. Episode one opens as Harold of Wessex and William of Normandy find themselves pawns in a deadly cross-channel power struggle.
Disaster at Sea: The Piper Alpha Story
Monday, BBC Two, 9pm
Many of us remember the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988, when the North Sea oil platform exploded in a conflagration that killed 167 oil workers. This three-part series takes a forensic look at the world’s worst offshore rig disaster, searching for answers as to how such a catastrophic series of explosions could have happened, and speaking to some of the survivors to get their first-person recollections. The series brings us back to the recession-hit 1970s, when Britian was struggling with mass unemployment as its industries went into decline. The discovery of rich oilfields in the North Sea brought new economic opportunities for the country, and the giant Piper Alpha oil platform, 120 miles off the coast of Aberdeen, was the industry’s flagship oil and gas rig. But on July 6th, 1988, a huge explosion ripped through the platform, and the series recounts the terror and confusion in minute-by-minute detail, as crew members tried to work out what was happening as the smoke and heat rose and more explosions undermined the structure. With rescue helicopters an hour away, and fire cutting off escape routes, the crew had to think fast to find a way to evacuate the disintegrating platform. Among those caught up in the unfolding catastrophe were drilling foreman Mark Reid, superintendent engineer Andy Mochan, electrician Bob Ballantyne, control room operator Geoff Bollands, and underwater inspection diver Ed Punchard, whose stories are told in visceral detail, along with testimony from the subsequent public inquiry.
The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo: 75th Anniversary
Monday, BBC One, 8pm
The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is an annual celebration of military bands and performers, set against the backdrop of Edinburgh Castle, and this year it celebrates its 75th anniversary, which coincides nicely with the 900th anniversary of Edinburgh itself. This special programme captures all the pomp and ceremony of this double celebration, with music from the Massed Pipes and Drums and Tattoo Fiddlers and Highland Dancers delivering a showcase of the best of Scottish culture and tradition. As usual the tattoo will showcase tradition with a modern twist, using high-tech sound lighting projections, and this year’s celebration features pipes, drums, fiddlers and Highland dancers, plus international performers, coming together to create a wondrous spectacle under the theme of The Heroes Who Made Us. Among the commentators for this year’s Tattoo is Anne, the Princess Royal, who is also the event’s patron.
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Jamie: Eat Yourself Healthy
Monday, Channel 4, 8pm
Jamie Oliver continues his tireless crusade to help viewers make delicious dinners that are healthy and nutritious, and in his latest series, he shows how to zing up your meals using colours and flavours, and stuffing them full of nutrients and other good stuff. You don’t have to sacrifice health and wellbeing to make tasty, tempting food, reckons Oliver, and during the series he’ll come up with amazing ideas to add to your diet, along with suggestions for dinners that entertain family and friends while also turbocharging their health. In episode one, Oliver cooks up a more palatable alternative to meatballs, creates a supercharged salad bursting with nutrients and makes a chicken and blueberry dish that will boost your brain function while tickling your taste buds.
The Jury: Murder Trial
Tuesday-Friday, Channel 4, 9pm
With a Bafta under its belt, The Jury returns with another tricky case where nothing is clear-cut, and reaching a verdict is fraught with doubt and uncertainty. In the series, actors restage a real-life murder trial in front of a jury of 12, and it’s up to the jurors to decide if the verdict of the original trial was the right one. The second series is held in Liverpool crown court in front of a jury chosen from local people. In the dock is a young mother who stabbed her boyfriend to death with a kitchen knife. She claims she was a victim of domestic violence, and that she stabbed him in self-defence, but as the case progresses, some of the jurors are not so sure if she’s telling the truth.
The Great Art Fraud
Wednesday, BBC One, 9pm
It takes some talent and ambition to become a world-famous art dealer, and Inigo Philbrick had all the material to be a sensation in the high-stakes world of high art. The world’s wealthiest art collectors swarmed around Philbrick’s galleries in London and Miami like moths to a flame, eager to buy expensive works by the world’s most renowned artists. You want a multimillion-dollar piece by Jean-Michel Basquiat? Philbrick was your man. What his ultra-rich clients didn’t realise, however, was that the former intern at London’s famous White Cube gallery was selling the same painting to several different clients at the same time, using his ill-gotten millions to fund a luxury lifestyle that included private jets, lavish parties and a celebrity girlfriend. Inevitably, Philbrick’s deception was exposed, but rather than come clean and face the music, he decided to skip town and escape justice. This documentary unravels the details behind the elaborate scam, and follows his global cat-and-mouse game with the FBI, which eventually led to the South Pacific.
Atomic
Thursday, Sky Atlantic & Now, 9pm
Max is a happy-go-lucky guy who makes his living doing some good old-fashioned drug smuggling, but when he befriends a fellow outlaw, JJ, he suddenly finds himself trafficking something altogether more high-tech – and far more deadly – in this fast-moving new thriller series. With two backpacks filled with highly volatile enriched uranium, Max and JJ are in completely uncharted territory, and they’ve got to embark on a wild road trip across North Africa and the Middle East, with everyone from the CIA, MI6 and an international smuggling cartel in hot pursuit. Alfie Allen and Shazad Latif star as Max and JJ, with Samira Wiley as CIA scientist Cassie Elliot, who is determined to decommission these two bad boys.
Streaming
The Terminal List: Dark Wolf
From Wednesday, August 27th, Prime Video
The action-drama series starring Chris Pratt and Taylor Kitsch as the US navy Seals James Reece and Ben Edwards was a big hit for Prime Video in 2022, and the streamer is hoping that lightning strikes again with this prequel series. The first season was a revenge tale, as Reece uncovered a huge conspiracy following the murder of his family; this season the focus shifts to Reece’s fellow Seal Edwards, telling his violent, explosive origin story. Pratt will still be in it, but this one mostly follows Edwards as he becomes immersed in ever more clandestine missions with the CIA’s special operations, and is pulled into the darker, deadlier side of espionage.
My Life with the Walter Boys
From Thursday, August 28th, Netflix
Jackie Howard is an uptown, uptempo teen from New York whose life changes forever when her family dies in a terrible accident. Her guardian brings her to Silver Falls in rural Colorado, where she must adjust her trendy Manhattan ways – and deal with a family of eight boisterous boys. She soon falls into a bit of a love triangle with two of the hunkier lads, Alex and Cole – so you could call it The Summer I Turned Purty. In series two, Jackie has gone back to New York after her love life got a bit too complicated, but she’s persuaded to return to Silver Falls and make up with Alex and try to keep Cole at arm’s length. But to her dismay, she finds Alex is too busy training for a big rodeo event and showing off his wrangling skills, while Cole starts to go back to his old mischievous ways. What’s a former city girl to do?
