George Michael at the BBC, The Change on Channel 4 and Glastonbury 2023: TV highlights this week

George Michael at the BBC (Saturday 17/06/23, BBC2, 8.25pm)

Words by Rachael Popow

It’s set to be a bittersweet few weeks for fans of George Michael. On June 25, they will be marking what would have been the singer-songwriter’s 60th birthday, while July 9 is the 40th anniversary of Wham!’s debut album, Fantastic.

The BBC is making sure these dates are remembered with The Radio 2 Celebrates George Michael and Wham! Collection, a series of specials which is currently available on BBC Sounds and will also be airing on Radio 2.

And tonight, BBC2 turns over much of its schedule to the much-loved pop legend, who was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou. He was still in his teens when he changed his name after forming the duo Wham! with his school friend Andrew Ridgeley.

Their debut single, Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do), scraped into the charts at a lowly 105 in 1982, but the follow up, Young Guns (Go For It), made it to number three, and the pair were soon fully fledged pop idols.

Despite their string of hits, which included Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go and festive favourite Last Christmas, and army of fans, they weren’t taken particularly seriously by critics.

However, when George subsequently went solo, the cynics were finally forced to admit that he was a songwriter to be reckoned with – his debut album, Faith, was a UK and US number one, selling more than 25 million copies worldwide.

He continued to rack up hits into the 1990s, but some observers wondered if his career might be over in 1998 when he was arrested for ‘public lewdness’. They were wrong – his fans stood by him, and George took control of the narrative by satirising the incident in the video for his single Outside.

If you want to know just why he was so beloved, and why his death on December 25, 2016, caused such an outpouring of grief, then tonight’s George Michael at the BBC is a good place to start.

It brings together a collection of performances from BBC programmes ranging from Top of the Pops to Wogan and Parkinson, and lets viewers trace his musical evolution from the Wham! days, and catchy classics such as Club Tropicana and Freedom, to the more mature sound of his incredible solo career.

Then, following a break for Later… with Jools Holland, there’s a chance to see George Michael: Live in London (10.40pm), which features footage from his 2008 Earl’s Court gigs, and songs from across his career as well as a few cover versions.

For night owls, the George Michael celebration then continues on Radio 2 with Wham! The Fan’s Story at 12am, in which a host of celebrity admirers discuss why the duo, who called it a day just three years after releasing their debut album, continue to have such an enduring following.

There are also contributions from George’s bandmate Andrew Ridgeley, and backing singers Shirlie Kemp and Pepsi DeMacque, who reflect on their heyday.

Van Der Valk (Sunday 18/06/23, ITV1, 8pm)

Words by Rob Lavender

One or two eyebrows were raised when Marc Warren (Hustle, The Good Wife) landed the role of cynical Dutch Detective Commissaris Piet Van der Valk back in 2020 – previously played from 1972-1977, then again in the early 1990s, by Barry Foster.

At that point, Warren was known for playing almost exclusively slick, slippery individuals, usually crooks, rogues and villains. That he would turn lawman for this series felt like a poacher-turned-gamekeeper kind of situation.

Happily, the dynamic worked, helped by the fact that the show was more of a loose reimagining of the original series – it took more reference from the source novels, by Nicolas Freeling, than it did the 1970s iteration, which Freeling adapted himself to better suit a television audience of the time.

Obviously, it has been updated, and the plot devices are new – series two’s opening episode featured a killer live-streaming a suicide bombing attempt, for example – but the characterisation owes much to the nuanced protagonist portrayed through the inner monologue of Freeling’s books.

The third series begins as Van Der Valk and Lucienne (Maimie McCoy) welcome two new junior members to the team.

They arrive in the form of hot-headed marksman Eddie Suleman (newcomer Azan Ahmed) and no-nonsense tech genius Citra Li (Django Chan-Reeves, The End of the F***ing World).

Both rookies are given something of a baptism of fire when a charismatic and idealistic free-runner is murdered, and the investigation uncovers corruption and simmering resentments bubbling under the surface of this outwardly liberating sport.

But was the killer a rival, or someone who wanted to silence the athlete?

Pressing further, the team uncover evidence of drug dealing and with it a pretty huge potential motive.

Along the way, Van Der Valk is also thrown unexpectedly back into contact with his ex-girlfriend, Lena, giving the Commissaris even more reason to scowl.

Warren may have initially thought that portraying a member of the Dutch police was a step into the unknown, but all that changed when filming the last series – and he was pulled over by the real Dutch police.

He explains: “In the last episode, Maimie and I had to drive through Dam Square at its most packed in the Cherokee, both wearing bulletproof vests – I don’t think we had our guns on us, but we had the flashing lights on.

“Somebody had not told the local police that we were doing that, and we got pulled over! I suddenly thought ‘If we’ve got guns on us as well, we are going to be in a lot of trouble’. You just leave it to the assistant directors to deal with that…”

At least he and McCoy will have had that extra bit of authenticity brought from experience from which to draw for this series.

As well as Warren and McCoy, Emma Fielding also returns as Chief Commissaris Julia Dahlman, alongside Darrell D’Silva, who plays team pathologist Hendrik Davie.

Litvinenko (Monday 19/06/23, ITV1, 9pm)

Words by Sarah Morgan

David Tennant is a man in demand.

The actor can currently be seen in the third season of Staged on BBC One; he’s also the narrator of the channel’s natural history series Spy in the Ocean. He also pops up on BBC Two on Wednesday in the return of There She Goes. Plus, over the coming weeks and months, he’ll reprise his role in Good Omens (alongside Staged’s Michael Sheen) and, of course, will star in the 60th anniversary Doctor Who specials.

From that list you can tell he has the pick of the top scripts around, which is why, when he turns up in a new programme, you know it must be very special indeed.

So, unless you caught the five-part drama Litvinenko on the ITVX streaming service late last year, you should tune into it on ITV1 when it airs across the week. The real-life story has been told brilliantly by scriptwriter George Kay. It’s also one of those times when fact seems stranger than fiction.

For the uninitiated, it focuses on Alexander ‘Sasha’ Litvinenko, a former KGB operative fatally poisoned in plain sight in central London in 2006. The opening episode details his efforts to provide the police with enough information to find his killers before his inevitable death; the rest of the run focuses on the investigation and the revelations that surface during it.

“Like everyone, I remember seeing that image of Litvinenko in the hospital bed,” says Tennant. “It all felt so implausible at first, like something from a James Bond film.

“He should have, as was intended, just slipped away as an unexplained death and we would not be any the wiser. But that in itself then creates bigger questions. You think, ‘How many times has this happened and it’s remained undiscovered?’

“There is so much about this story that is fantastical, implausible and remarkable. And, of course, it’s all anchored to what becomes a very personal story about Sasha, his wife Marina and son Anatoly, which is what makes it so tragic.”

The supporting cast includes Mark Bonnar and Neil Maskell as the investigating officers, with Margarita Levieva as Litvinenko’s wife, who fought for the British government to reveal the names of her husband’s killers, while Jim Field Smith, whose CV includes the second season of Episodes, is the director – he and McKay are old schoolfriends who run the company Idiotlamp Productions.

“There was an enthusiasm from everyone involved in the production at every level that they were telling an important story and that we were doing good work,” says Tennant while explaining his involvement in the project. “That was throughout the production at every level, in every department. It really felt like people were proud to be there. There was a determination to get it right.

“One can’t second guess how this will be received or what kind of impact it will have. But on a purely personal level it’s something I’m very proud to have done. I feel like we gave it our best shot and we are, hopefully, honouring the memory of Sasha and the life’s work of Marina. That’s what we set out to do.”

Your Home Made Perfect (Tuesday 20/06/23, BBC2, 8pm)

Words by Rachael Popow

The makeover show is back for a fourth series, but what makes Your Home Made Perfect stand out from the interior decoration crowd?

Well, if you’re new to the series, it’s probably that it uses the latest virtual reality to give homeowners a chance to see how the designs will look before they commit to them. If you’re a fan of 1990s favourite Changing Rooms, where half the appeal was seeing how people would react to whatever Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and their next-door neighbours had done to their bedrooms or lounges, that may sound like it would take some of the fun out of it.

However, presenter Angela Scanlon believes that if anything, the technology means the people featured can get a little more daring.

Speaking ahead of an earlier run, she said: “I suppose on a practical level what the [VR] does is allows the couples to really experience it and, as a result, they can be so much braver and bolder with the choices that they make.

“To wrap your head around how something will look on paper is very difficult and probably prohibits us from taking risks. The opposite is true for this; everybody has ended up with something that is definitely not ordinary and that they can be really proud of.”

That will certainly be the case in the latest series, where the concepts range from a tropical fish-tank wall to a room-dividing bunk bed and a terrace in the rooftops.

In fact, Angela believes the show doesn’t just encourage people to get creative with their living spaces – it may also make us feel less threatened by technology.

She says: “We’re down on social media for ruining our lives and [the fact] AI and robots are taking our jobs, so I think the idea that you can use technology in a really positive way is a good thing.”

The people embracing virtual reality in the first episode are Yesim and Hasan (Yes and Has for short), who bought their 1920s semi in Enfield, north London, four years ago. In that time, they’ve carried out some major renovations, but still don’t feel like they’ve managed to put their own stamp on the place. They are are also struggling with the disconnected layout.

Architects Will Foster and Julian McIntosh hope to come to the rescue with their competing designs. For Julian, the key is tackling the kitchen, which currently feels isolated from the dining room and doesn’t suit the couple’s dream of an entertaining space where they can bring their extended families together.

Meanwhile, Will is concentrating on the personal touch as he finds out more about Yes and Has’s style – and discovers that their dream interior would be influenced by Ancient Egypt and the Titanic.

That sounds like a tall order, but which design with Yes and Has prefer – Julian’s calm, minimalist approach which uses wooden screens to separate the spaces, or Will’s vision, where the pyramids meet an ocean liner?

The Change (Wednesday 21/06/23, Channel 4, 10pm & 10.30pm)

Words by Sarah Morgan

They used to say that life begins at 40. Maybe, as we’re all supposedly living a wee bit longer, that should be 50.

Bridget Christie might agree. Not that she was exactly slumbering beforehand. Since starting her stand-up career in 2004, she’s been a finalist in the Funny Women Awards (and was described by the its founder, Lynne Parker, as “one of the most influential funny women who has ever entered our competition”), won the coveted Edinburgh Comedy Award, bagged a number of trophies for her radio work, written books and penned columns for numerous national newspapers.

But, as we all know, it’s appearances on TV that really push folk into the spotlight, and although she’d popped up on various shows in the past, her participation in the 13th series of Taskmaster – which occurred shortly before she turned 51 – introduced her to a whole new audience.

“It was such fun, honestly,” she wrote on her website. “There’s a really tall big man and a smaller one who is also tall but doesn’t look it compared to the other massive one.

“We had fun things to do (tasks?) and then we looked back at what we did in the past in a studio with the people who did the same things but differently and the two tall men asked us about what we did.”

She must have been on Channel 4’s radar before then, but perhaps Christie’s efforts confirmed to its head honchos that they really should work with her more, because shortly after posting that, she wrote another blog, stating: “I can’t believe I’m saying this but yes, I’ve got my own series off the ground. I’m writing it now and we’re filming in the summer.”

That was in April 2022, and now, just over a year later, the fruits of her labours are upon us.

Christie wrote the scripts for The Change, a six-part comedy-drama in which she also takes the lead role of Linda, a 50-year-old working-class mother of two who, after forgetting what a shoe is called, becomes convinced she has early onset dementia. However, she’s actually going through the menopause, and having that confirmed by a doctor sparks something within – prompting her to head off on her trusty Triumph motorbike on a journey of self-discovery.

It takes her to the Forest of Dean, where Linda comes face-to-face with some very unusual characters…

“Bridget pitched the show with the tag line ‘Shirley Valentine meets Deliverance. With Pigs’. She had us at pigs,” laughs Fiona McDermott, Channel 4’s head of comedy. “We’re so thrilled to be working with her and be able to have a woman like Linda at the centre of a show that so brilliantly tackles big themes – feminism, health, identity, class and the natural world – but wraps them up with Bridget’s signature charm, curiosity and comic expertise. It’s a timely show from a comic at the height of her powers.”

Liza Tarbuck, Jim Howick, Jerome Flynn, Omid Djalili and Susan Lynch co-star, but this is certainly Christie’s baby.

And if this is the kind of thing she produces as her life ‘begins’, we can’t wait to see what follows as she matures even further.

Windrush: Portraits of a Generation (Thursday 22/06/23, BBC2, 7.45pm)

Words by Rob Lavender

To mark the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the HMT Empire Windrush to British shores in 1948, and with it over 1,000 passengers – 802 of them workers and families from the West Indies who had agreed to settle in the UK to help with the British post-war recovery – His Majesty The King has commissioned ten leading artists to create portraits of pioneering members of this Windrush Generation.

This new one-off documentary film follows their efforts, as they create works to be permanently displayed at the Royal Collection to serve as a lasting memorial to all the men, women and children who came to Britain from the Caribbean to rebuild a nation devastated by war.

Due to losses during the Second World War, the United Kingdom was struggling with labour shortages. The British Nationality Act 1948 afforded citizenship of, the right to entry to and the right to settle in the UK to all people living in the United Kingdom and its colonies. This meant that people from colonies in the West Indies were invited to settle in the UK, where they could live and work and contribute to the nation’s recovery as well as enriching its culture.

Introducing the documentary, His Majesty The King, says: “It is, I believe, crucially important that we should truly see and hear these pioneers who stepped off the Empire Windrush at Tilbury in June 1948 – only a few months before I was born – and those who followed over the decades, to recognise and celebrate the immeasurable difference that they, their children and their grandchildren have made to this country.”

We hear first-person testimony from the Windrush sitters, many of whom are now in their 90s, as they speak openly and honestly about their experiences of arriving in Britain, making lives for themselves and the contributions that they have made to their communities – and indeed to the nation as a whole.

The film also follows the making of the portraits, as both artist and sitter come together – with the artists reflecting on their own experience of undertaking this special commission, as well as offering insights into their own unique creative approach and the methods or techniques they employ.

One for the artists and art lovers amongst us, then, as well as the social historians and those who are rightly stirred by such tales of self-sacrifice and adventure.

The sitters and their artists are: Delisser Bernard, who is painted by Honor Titus; Linda Haye, painted by Shannon Bono; Alford Gardner, painted by Chloe Cox; Carmen Munroe, painted by Sonia Boyce; Edna Henry, painted by Amy Sherald; Jessie Stephens, painted by Sahara Longe; ‘Big’ John Richards, painted by Deanio X; Laceta Reid, painted by Serge Attukwei Clottey; Sir Geoff Palmer, painted by Derek Fordjour; Gilda Oliver, painted by Clifton Powell; and Carmen Munroe, who is painted by Sonia Boyce.

Glastonbury 2023 (Friday 23/06/23, BBC Two & BBC Four, from 7.30pm; BBC One, 10.30pm)

Words by Richard Jones

It’s that time of year again, when thousands of music fans slip on their wellies and slap on the suncream as they descend on a field in Somerset for the world’s greatest music festival.

As well as praying for good weather, those who have been lucky enough to get a ticket for Glastonbury have been keeping a close eye on which musical superstars will be taking to the stage at Worthy Farm.

As usual, there’s something for everyone, so no matter what type of music you’re into – from motown to metal – Glastonbury has you covered.

This year’s headliners include Guns N’ Roses on Saturday night.

The iconic American rockers, fronted by Axl Rose, were originally slated to perform at Glasto before the pandemic, so fans will be thrilled that they have kept their word and are heading to south west England.

Meanwhile, the Rocketman himself, Sir Elton John, is making Glastonbury the final stop on his triumphant Yellow Brick Road farewell tour, so Sunday night is sure to be emotional.

However, before all that, the festival gets under way in earnest today with indie superstars Arctic Monkeys headlining the opening night.

The Sheffield foursome – frontman Alex Turner, lead guitarist Jamie Cook, bassist Nick O’Malley and drummer Matt Helders – previously topped the bill at Worthy Farm in 2007 and 2013, and they will be playing old classics as well as material from their seventh studio album The Car.

Also today, a mysterious act known as The Churnups has been given the much-coveted Friday evening sunset slot on the Pyramid Stage, sandwiched between Brighton duo Royal Blood and Scottish rockers Texas.

Also performing on the premier stage today are Stefflon Don, Maisie Peters and The Master Musicians Of Joujouka.

If you speak to anyone who has been to Glastonbury, they will often tell you that the most memorable acts can be found on the smaller stages.

And today sees the likes of Wizkid, Fred Again, Chvrches, Krept & Konan, Carly Rae Jepsen, Lightning Seeds, The Hives and Ben Howard on the Other Stage, Kelis and Young Fathers strutting their stuff on the West Holts Stage, and rock and pop duo Sparks closing the night on the Park Stage.

Tickets for Glastonbury are getting harder and harder to get hold of, with the 2023 festival selling out in record time.

But if you were unlucky this year, or just fancy watching the festival from the comfort of your own home, the BBC is presenting more Glastonbury coverage than ever before.

Cerys Matthews, Clara Amfo, Craig Charles, Danny Howard, Deb Grant, Dermot O’Leary, DJ Target, Huw Stephens, Jack Saunders, Jamz Supernova, Jo Whiley, Jordan North, Lauren Laverne, Pete Tong, Sarah Story, Steve Lamacq, Tom Ravenscroft, Vick Hope, and Zoe Ball will be presenting over 40 hours of programming across the weekend on BBC Two, BBC Three and BBC Four.

There are also some new ways to watch the action, with performances on the Pyramid Stage being streamed live in British Sign Language on iPlayer for the first time, and

Glasto-Cam Live running from Monday 19 June until Sunday’s closing night.

Plus, Glastonbury’s Greatest Hits, also on the iPlayer, features iconic performances from years gone by, including a few of the surprises that continue to make this festival the best on Earth.