This week’s TV: He might kill her … with the luck of the Irish

Jun 26, 2015

Pick of the week: Fifty ways to kill your mammy
SVT1, sun 13:10 or Mon 23:45

It’s not clear whether Irish TV presenter Baz Ashmawy really likes his mother.

Ashmawy rose to prominence with his reality show How long can you go, in which he travels the world doing all sorts of crazy stuff (a lot like Jack Osbourne in fact), jumping off stuff and annoying people, but there’s only so much your viewers will put up with when they both love and hate you.

Gradually the novelty wore off. His radio show was cancelled and the job offers stopped coming in. Which is pretty much when he turned to his manny.

Nancy, aged 71, is not your typical daredevil. According to Baz, each week “is designed to test her limits”, with the challenges increasing in difficulty.

Jump aboard and watch her swap scrabble sessions and tea with the vicar for swimming with sharks, skydiving and crocodile wrestling. (JK)

Also New

You better get used to the world remembering the Beatles. Over the next five years, hardly a day will go by without a 50th anniversary of a Lennon insult or a Harrison brush with the occult.

The Beatle profiled in Paul McCartney – Something New (DRK, Wed 22:15) pretty much let his music do the talking (he was a bit dull), and the same is true of the subjects of A Grammy Tribute to Stevie Wonder (DR3, Fri 22:55) and Sting: When the Last Ship Sails (SVTI, Fri 22:30), which examines his recent Broadway success.

Mr Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown (DR2, Tue 20:00) and Klub 27: Jim Morrison (DR3, Sat 17:40) tread darker paths. Fortunately they never met (what a cocktail that would have been), but then again, Brown was already 27 in 1960.

Staying with the Beatles, Yoko Ono will enjoy Kings of Hollywood: Inventing David Geffen as the Dreamworks co-founder played a big role in her career, as well as that of Guns N’ Roses.

Elsewhere, a 77-year-old saves the day in Mayday: The passenger who landed a plane (DR3, Mon 20:40); The Paradise (SVTI, Fri 18:35) is back for a second season; The Trouble with Bread (DR2, Sat 21:00) makes uncomfortable viewing, but not half as much as Sexters (K4, Sun 21:55), less so because of the content, but more so because you’re missing out. (LK)

Coming soon: Catastrophe

What if a one-week fling spins your life 5,500 km? Amazon’s new romcom sitcom is going to make you laugh so hard you will shed tears.

During a trip to London, an American (Rob Delaney) meets an Irish teacher in a bar. They get drunk and end up having sex. She soon discovers she is pregnant. What now?

Named by many as the sitcom of the year, this British story about modern love has scored an impressive 82 on Metacritic.

The first episodes are already online, so stay tuned to see how this frisky relationship will turn out.

"So this is the bit where I offer you coffee and ... — “So this is the bit where I offer you coffee and …

in nine months time wish you’d left like an espresso”

Sport of the week

Strawberries and cream, the chase of a dream – in Andy Murray’s case, a realised one in 2013 when he became the first Brit to win Wimbledon since the 1930s. Elsewhere, the European under-21s and Women’s World Cup reach the semi-finals, the European Games (TV2 Sport) continue, and there’s another dollop of live AFL (Eurosport, Sat 08:30). (BH)

TV3 Sport 1, all week from Mon 14:00 Wimbledon

TV2 & SVT4, Tue & Wed 00:55 Women’s World Cup semi-finals

3+ , Sat 17:30 European under-21 semi-finals (final Tue)

Film of the week

The Place beyond the Pines (SVT1, Fri 21:45), an ambitious, lengthy study of fatherhood and fate, divided the critics. Strange as it is engrossing, haunting and highly recommended. My Week with Marilyn now stars Eddie Redmayne – funny what an Oscar will retroactively do – but then again, nobody mentions Crash in connection with Paul Haggis’s The Next Three Days. (BH)