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Live At The Apollo ABC2, 9.15pm
I personally believe there is nowhere near enough stand-up comedy on Australian television. So this ABC offering, via the BBC (aka, Brilliant British Content), is welcome. Held together by the always wonderful Eddie Izzard, there are also spots by Josh Widdicombe and Trevor Noah, who don’t measure up to Izzard’s material or charms, but still do a banging job. In London, the Apollo Theatre is hallowed ground, a sort of MCG but for laughs. Every episode features a new line-up of funny women and men including Danny Bhoy, Doc Brown, Nina Conti, Rich Hall and ‘‘Australia’s own’’ Adam Hills. Like most live and televised television comedy, there seems to be just a token effort to feature female comedians. It would be fantastic to see such shows take a proactive effort in promoting women in such a male-dominated industry. The great thing about stand-up isn’t just whether it has made you laugh. It’s also about appreciating the craft and performance each person puts in.
David Attenborough’s Natural Curiosities, Ten, 6.30pm
David Attenborough, he of the reassuring yet crisp British voice, never seems to stop working. If only he was Australian, Joe Hockey could use him as the perfect example of why we should just cancel the aged pension totally – if Attenborough can keep churning out the goods at the age of 88, so can granny May. Attenborough has thoroughly examined just about every creature and square metre of land on earth and this new series is a ‘‘best of’’, featuring a further look at some of his favourite creatures, including the most fascinating of them all – Kim Kardashian (not really).
Don’t Tell My Mother I’m In ... USA, SBS2, 8.40pm
It’s easy to get caught up in this interesting and truly original show, which follows the adventures of former reporter Diego Bunuel across the United States. Bunuel is correct when he says America represents both the best and the worst that the world has to offer. The extremes in wealth, geography, language and culture are startling. To reduce the United States to just New York, or just Los Angeles is a failure to give credit to this expansive and eccentric land.Unlike most travel or discovery shows, Bunuel gives his subjects the utmost respect, while offering insight and asking questions about their dark side.
Alana Schetzer
PAY TV
Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown, TLC, 6.30pm
It’s a relatively sombre trip that Anthony Bourdain makes to Mexico tonight. The shadow of the country’s drug war – which has killed 100,000 people in recent years – hangs heavily over everything. The photographs of bloodied corpses in the early part of the program are confronting but serve to convey the horrific reality of the situation. Bourdain interviews the likes of Anabel Hernandez, an award-winning journalist who was forced into hiding after she exposed links between politicians, bankers and drug cartels. Elsewhere, Bourdain finds more indomitable Mexican spirit and plenty of local colour. Among the more memorable sights is the veneration of Santa Muerte (‘‘Saint Death’’), a folk saint who is condemned as a blasphemy by the Vatican but who people nonetheless petition for protection and for the annihilation of their enemies.
How It’s Made, Discovery Science, 7pm
The opening titles are pretty slick now, but this factory-doco series still feels like something you’d find yourself watching when the teacher wheeled the big TV and clunky old VCR into the classroom. Tonight’s episodes look at the making of such things as flexible circuit boards, front-loading washing machines, membrane filters and bourbon whiskey.
Brad Newsome
MOVIES
The Cable Guy (1996), Ten, 9.25pm
In the mid-1990s, a time when no one was feeling particularly threatened, Jim Carrey’s rubbery face and refusal to see comic reason made him a madcap mascot. He had a slew of box-office hits, including The Mask, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Dumb and Dumber, which delighted children and bemused adults, but director Ben Stiller tapped into Carrey’s taste for oddball confrontation and made it obnoxious and explicit. In The Cable Guy a just-separated Everyman, Steven Kovacs (Matthew Broderick), has cable television installed, leading to the technician, Ernie ‘‘Chip’’ Douglas (Carrey) deciding they’re best friends. Chip, a small screen obsessive who can’t separate reality from television plots, pursues Steven, insinuating himself into his life with bizarre acts of friendship. The more Steven shrinks away, the more intrusive and threatening Chip becomes. It’s a metaphor for how desperate a comedian can be for approval and Carrey’s audience were shocked to find that it reached an unpleasant and threatening point.
Sister (2012), World Movies (pay TV), 5.45pm
In Ursula Meier’s profoundly intimate drama, 12-year-old Simon (Kacey Mottet Klein) spends his days ‘‘up there’’, thieving gear from the wealthy clientele of a Swiss ski resort. Selling his stash on a black market, the boy uses the money to try to bond his sister, Louise (Lea Seydoux), to him, which is not easy given her dissolute nature and general air of regret around an adolescent with a mind for profit but a yearning heart. The two are fringe dwellers, living on the very edge of wealth and luxury, and Meier, with cinematographer Agnes Godard, contrasts the glowing white spaces occupied by the privileged with the grimy, busy infrastructure that keeps it working, and where Simon attempts to wheel and deal. The relationship between the pair is fraught, and it’s illustrated by a powerful physicality – when Louise tries to walk away from Simon he literally holds on to her.
Craig Mathieson