TV Times tops picks for tonight
What’s on telly tonight? Here the TV Times team of expert reviewers highlight three of the best shows on telly tonight for Friday 10th November
Extreme Wives, 9.00pm, BBC2 (ex Wales)
This three-part series sees Kate Humble travel to Kenya, Israel and India to spend time with communities that have very strict rules about the role of women. Kate begins in Kenya with the Kuria people, who mainly live in small rural villages. They believe in polygamy, so the men have multiple wives, but there is also a tradition called nyumba mboke, which is woman-to-woman marriage. This opening episode takes a much darker turn, however, when Kate starts to question another Kuria tradition – female genital mutilation, or FGM. The practice was made illegal in 2011, but Kate discovers that it is still everywhere in Kuria society. This is a tough watch, but brilliantly made and presented by Kate, who is clearly deeply moved by what she witnesses. Rating: *****
Beatles Night, 9.30pm, BBC4
An evening of Beatles programmes for lovers of all things Fab Four. And in the 100th anniversary year of the Russian Revolution and the 50th of the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a good place to start is the 2009 Storyville documentary How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin. This makes the (perhaps slightly overblown) claim that as well as changing the face of music, the Beatles also helped destroy the Soviet Union, thanks to the undeniable influence they had behind the Iron Curtain. That’s followed by Sgt. Pepper’s Musical Revolution, Howard Goodall’s brilliantly researched documentary, and Arena: Magical Mystery Tour Revisited, about the Fabs’ TV movie (also from 1967 – a busy year). Rating: ****
Travel Man, 8.30pm, C4
It’s 48 hours in Stockholm for Richard Ayoade and Sally Phillips, so they’re off to the ABBA museum, visiting an ice bar, and sampling the local meatballs, as you do. But they also wrestle with the concept of fika – coffee and cake with a Nordic twist – and take part in the Swedish capital’s only rooftop tour, even though neither has a head for heights. A fun, informative half hour mixing the familiar with the offbeat. Rating: ***
More previews tomorrow.
