Weekend's best TV: The Cry, Discovery of Witches and The Graham Norton Show

Sleepless flight: Joanna (Jenna Coleman) and her baby, alongside Alistair (Ewen Leslie) on the long trip to Australia
Synchronicity Films Ltd/Anne Binckebanck
Alastair McKay28 September 2018

There is a lot of crying in The Cry.

As a viewer you may want to join in, not from any deep-rooted attachment from the characters but because. Because this drama — adapted by Jacquelin Perske (who wrote the Cate Blanchett film, Little Fish) from Helen FitzGerald’s novel — takes an immersive approach to exposition.

Things happen but not in sequence. Things happen, but maybe they don’t. Things happen but for reasons that will become clear later. And the baby cries, and cries, and cries.

Starting at the start, which isn’t where the story begins, Joanna (Jenna Coleman) is a mother. She isn’t coping. Maybe she has post-natal depression. Her behaviour is a bit off, her maternal instincts not quite yummy.

Parents: Joanna and Alistair are thrown into the media spotlight
Synchronicity Films Ltd/Lachlan Moore

Jumping forward now, for the sake of coherence. She meets a woman from her mothers’ group in the street. The other mum is organised and nosy, pointing out that Joanna’s baby seems overwrapped for the weather, and asking how she is. Fine, she lies, because of the pressure to be perfect.

Another splice. Joanna is on a plane, flying from Britain to Australia. Her baby won’t stop crying. He cries and cries. We’ve all been on that plane, with that baby. Crying. The airline staff aren’t sympathetic. They tell her to shut the baby up because people are trying to sleep. The other passengers aren’t much better. They’re worse. The baby cries. It’s a long way to Australia.

Is that where it started, on that plane? Maybe. Maybe not. There’s another scene where Joanna’s partner Alistair (Ewen Leslie) takes over the parenting and lets Joanna sleep. Did she dream the bad stuff? Did she imagine it later, when she was trying to re-assemble events? Possibly she nodded off and dreamed the worst bits but the baby still cried. It’s hard to tell because Joanna is a mother under pressure.

Joanna is on trial. Did I mention that? Some sort of bad-mothering trial. You can speculate about what kind. It’s hard to recall the order in which the episode reveals the information but it’s not straightforward. In the first scene she comes out from behind a door to be met by an a rabble of press photographers held back by police, so there’s certainly some kind of infamy.

“It was like my face became a magazine,” Joanna says. “Anyone could thumb through.” Stressed mums make weird metaphors.

So that’s where we are. There’s a mother, a crying baby, and something. The something is out of reach, because of the jumbled logic and the sense of an unreliable narrator at work.

Devastated: Jenna Coleman as Joanna
Synchronicity Films Ltd/Lachlan Moore

Let’s look around. There are some other characters. Alistair, for instance, has a beard and an ex-wife and another child. When he first meets Joanna he takes her home for a quickie and is interrupted by his wife and daughter. The wife and daughter live in Australia now. Hence the flight. Alistair is going over to reclaim his lost child. He lost her when his spurned wife fled. The daughter, Chloe, has an attitude. “I’m not going to live in horrible Scotland,” she says. She is a problem. Her mum is a problem. Her dad has a beard. He has a problem.

Everyone is horrible. It’s a jigsaw of a tragedy in which only the storm clouds are visible.

Pick of the day

Discovery Of Witches - Sky One, 9pm

In part three of this magical adaptation of Deborah Harkness’s supernatural love story set among the dreaming spires of Oxford, the relationship between reluctant witch Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer) and 1,500-year-old (well-preserved) vampire Matthew Clairmont (Matthew Goode) deepens.

They are struggling to understand the secrets of an ancient manuscript, but matters take a turn for the worse when a package is slipped under Diana’s door. The contents prompt her to check the manuscript, but when she returns to the Bodleian Library she discovers she is not alone.

Duo: Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer
Sky

Matthew ignores warnings on the covenant, and events push him closer to Diana, while also placing her in greater danger. In Venice, Gerbert (Trevor Eve) finds what he has been looking for, and sends Juliette (Elarica Johnson) on a deadly mission, before Miriam Shepherd (Aiysha Hart) makes a disturbing prophecy.

Harkness was inspired to write the series when, on noting the number of fantasy novels in a Mexican airport bookshop, she started to ponder the practicalities of the vampire lifestyle.

Screen time

The Graham Norton Show - BBC One, 10.35pm

Sir Michael Parkinson recently suggested that Norton is “not so much a talk-show host as an illusionist”. It was a backhanded way of noting how he doesn’t really interview his guests, but relaxes them.

Series 24 of the talk and nonsense show opens with a suitably starry cast. Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga promote their A Star Is Born remake . Is Gaga a Whovian? There was talk of getting her to play a space vixen, so she may be interested to hear from the new Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, who can reflect on her journey from Broadchurch to Timelord.

Ryan Gosling drops in to talk about playing Neil Armstrong in First Man on the Moon, and Rod Stewart performs his new single Didn’t I.

The Graham Norton Show - Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper and Jodie Whittaker

1/12

Paradise Found - London Live, 11.15pm

As the nights draw in, who wouldn’t fancy clearing off to Tahiti? You might well sympathise with Paul Gauguin in this biopic, as he hands in Le P45 at his stockbroking job to become a full-time artist.

Kiefer Sutherland plays a carefree Gaugin, who leaves his family behind to pursue his brushstrokes.

What to Watch - Sunday, London Live, 5pm

The internet’s encroachment on life has eroded multiple aspects of 20th century life, from thriving high streets to mealtimes no longer illuminated by candles but by phone screens. And now it’s ducks which are obsolete. The Bafta-nominated satire Pls Like has returned for a second series, this comic dive into vlogging and YouTube culture exploring some darker online recesses. Emma Sidi plays vlogging superstar Millipede and she discusses these topics, the reaction to the first series and why a trip to the duck pond has been consigned to the past.

Also appearing this week is Jenna Coleman, who talks about her role in The Cry and how Peter Capaldi might have helped.

Serial box

Norsemen- Netflix

Series one of this Norwegian comedy flew under the radar, earning comparisons with Blackadder and Monty Python. The central joke is that the raping and pillaging invaders have the sensibilities of 21st-century Norwegians, discussing being “in the moment” after a slaughter, for instance. It’s filmed in English, so the Norwegian accents add to the heightened sense of absurdity.

Deep dish

Sorry For Your Loss - Facebook Watch

There’s a TV buried within the Facebook app showing clips. But this six-part drama, starring Elizabeth Olsen, pictured, as widow Leigh Shaw, is an original Facebook production, and has been well received. It marks a deepening of the platform’s involvement in the creation of original content. To find Watch, click on the three horizontal lines, bottom right on the Facebook page of your phone.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in