Satire, movies, and music are our recommendations for today.
Callan Kicks The Year 2023
9:30pm, RTÉ One
'Tis Himself - and no one is safe! Oliver Callan puts the world and its aunt on blast as he looks back over the last 12 months. The Dublin riots, the RTÉ scandals, the Rugby World Cup, and the "great Taylor Swift tickets famine" all feature alongside his no-mercy send-ups of household names. Now, how much ammunition will he have this time 12 months?!
The Long Good Friday
4OD
Locked in a perpetual battle with Get Carter for the title of Best British Crime Film of All Time, The Long Good Friday gave Bob Hoskins his most celebrated role - in his first movie as a leading man. He plays Harold Shand, the London mobster whose empire comes crashing down over an Easter weekend. Helen Mirren is superb as Shand's other half, Victoria, and a young Pierce Brosnan makes his big-screen debut. What a way to start! Forty-three years on, The Long Good Friday's ending ranks with cinema's best. Breathtaking - no matter how many times you've seen it.
Séamus Begley: The Bold Kerryman
6.30pm, RTÉ One
A celebration of the life and work of one of the titans of trad, who died last January. Family, friends, and collaborators pay tribute to a great spirit with a love of life whose music went from West Kerry to all corners of the world. The contributors include Séamus Begley's wife Máire and children Breanndán, Eoin, Niall, and Méabh, his brother Breanndán, and lifelong friends John Tammie Ó Laoithe and Diarmuid Begley. Music memories from Steve Cooney, Mary Black, Mike Scott, Sharon Shannon, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Jim Murray, and Donogh Hennessy also feature.
Men Up
9:00pm, BBC One
The BBC is hoping for a rousing/arousing reception for its latest true-life drama - the story of five Welshmen who took part in the clinic trials for the drug that would become Viagra. It's billed as a "funny, heartbreaking, helpful" movie, set in Swansea's Morriston Hospital in 1994. "It's a very heartfelt emotional story that's been a labour of love for a lot of us," says director Ashley Way (White Lines, Stella, Merlin). "It comes from the heart and hopefully that translates to the screen and people really embrace what it is." The cast includes Iwan Rheon (Game of Thrones), Aneurin Barnard (Dunkirk), Alexandra Roach (Killing Eve), Phaldut Sharma (Sherwood), Paul Rhys (A Discovery of Witches), Steffan Rhodri (House of the Dragon), Mark Lewis Jones (Gangs of London), and Joanna Page (Gavin & Stacey).
Belfast
RTÉ Player
A beautiful coming-of-age story, a pitch-perfect celebration of family, and a fitting tribute to the goodness in a city and its people, Belfast crams a lot into an hour and a half. Writer-director Kenneth Branagh's Oscar-winning return to his birthplace to explore his early years inspired him to deliver his best work - poignant, funny, and timeless. Told through the eyes of nine-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill), Belfast plays out across the closing months of 1969. With his head spinning, Buddy tries to make sense of how the safety of his world with Ma (Caitríona Balfe), Pa (Jamie Dornan), brother Will (Lewis McAskie), and Nanny (Judi Dench) and Pop (Ciarán Hinds) is threatened by the toxicity that has been unleashed in the streets around him and the weight of the adult world. The fear is there from the opening scene, but so too are the love, fun, and mischief that anyone would be blessed to have among the scrapbooks in their head. This film is a triumph for the director, his cast and crew, and the place at its centre. It's also proof, if needed, that you can go home again.
