Worth Watching: ‘A Thousand Blows’ and ‘David Frost Vs'

It's another Worth Watching.

Hello,

Welcome to Worth Watching. Hope you’re doing well.

Nope, I’m not over the change to The White Lotus theme tune either.

I’ve been able to watch the first few episodes of the much anticipated third season, this time set on a resort on Thailand. And whilst the whole thing looks fantastic, it so far lacks the spark that made the second season so compelling. Sorry to bear bad news.

---

Neighbours has been axed (for the second time), this time by Amazon Prime Video. I wrote for Yahoo about why, if Amazon couldn’t make the reboot work, I don’t think anywhere else can.

“Its most recent axing comes at a time when soaps are currently going through the motions, which makes me doubt whether any other broadcaster will pick it up.

“Despite an excellent set of episodes marking EastEnders’ 40th Anniversary this week, it comes at a time when ITV’s Coronation Street and Emmerdale are cutting the number of new hours every week, Hollyoaks has been reduced from five new episodes a week to three, and BBC daytime soap Doctors has ended altogether.”

Elsewhere, there’s no word yet on the return date of Interior Design Masters, but they have just launched applications for series seven if you fancy giving it a go yourself.

I love this show. You essentially criticise everyone’s design choices (even if, like me, you have no interior design knowledge) as you happily pour yourself a glass of wine.

---

ON TELEVISION NEXT WEEK

Toxic Town on Netflix, a four-part miniseries looking at Britain’s worst toxic waste scandal, launches next Thursday (the 27th). The series stars Jodie Whittaker and Aimee Lou Wood and is written by Jack Thorne.

---

If you enjoy this newsletter, please do encourage other people to read it too. It makes such a difference. And please do respond with what you’re watching as well.

---

SHOWS TO WATCH THIS WEEK

David Frost VS (Sky Documentaries, three episodes) –David Frost has always been a broadcaster and journalist that I have deeply admired. Over his career, he interviewed eight British Prime Ministers, seven US Presidents, as well as thousands of celebrities and thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic for decades…and made it look effortless.

I also think that no other British journalist reached the heights he was at Frost’s peak. At one point in his career, in his early thirties, he recorded three shows in London and five shows in New York, every single week.

Frost created television that was mainstream, yet intellectual. And as he interviewed key people within the civil rights movement and the women’s liberation movement, he was often at the front row of modern history. This new documentary series lifts the lid on his archive to showcase his work, but it also puts the spotlight on three notable guests that he interviewed many times: The Beatles, Muhammad Ali, and Jane Fonda.

The archive in this series is particularly rich. Bizarrely, you have the disgraced President Nixon to thank for some of it. Nixon was paranoid of the left-wing interviewees Frost interviewed on his television show, so the FBI recorded episodes of his show. As recordings were regularly wiped back then, more than 60 episodes of Frost’s show were later discovered in the archives of Nixon’s Presidential library.

The three-parter is out on the 23rd of February.

If you enjoyed it, I would highly recommend The Frost Tapes on BBC Sounds.

---

If you want to read more recommendations, sign up for the paid version of Worth Watching below, which is £4 a month (or £40 a year.) Just click the button below and put in your details.

A Thousand Blows (Disney+, all episodes) – A fantastic historical drama transporting you to bare-knuckle fighting in East London in the 1880s. Brought to you by Steven Knight, behind Peaky Blinders, the series follows Hezekiah (Malachi Kirby), who gets involved in the sport after arriving from Jamaica, hoping to become a lion tamer. There he meets Mary (Erin Doherty), who runs an all-female crime pickpocketing and crime syndicate, and faces his foe in the boxing ring, Sugar (an absolutely stacked Stephen Graham).

Whilst A Thousand Blows is set in the past, it never feels stuffy. There’s a real energy in the pacing and the plot, and what feels truly impressive is how the show consulted with historians, and brought on Professor David Olusoga as executive producer, to ensure that the London depicted is accurate. The main characters are based on real people, and that feels exciting to see on the screen.