Tabla de contenidos para 9-15th August 2025 en Radio Times

THIS WEEK WE commemorate the 80th anniversary of VJ Day. For a long time, 15 August 1945 was overlooked – the almost forgotten victory of a forgotten army in a forgotten war. In this issue you can read the first-hand memories of the cruelty and deprivation suffered by those who were captured by the Japanese and those who fought against them. As I wrote when we marked the 80th anniversary of VE Day, these personal accounts are so important and, sadly, we are losing the people who can recall those dark times. Their stories start on page 12. Whether you’re a regular viewer of EastEnders or not, it has thrown up some of the most memorable lines in popular TV history. Do you remember Zoe Slater yelling “You ain’t my…

AUSTEN-TATIOUS Netflix has unveiled an all-star cast for its new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Joining the previously announced Emma Corrin, Jack Lowden and Olivia Colman are the likes of Rufus Sewell as Mr Bennet, Jamie Demetriou as Mr Collins and Fiona Shaw as Lady Catherine de Bourgh. INFLUENCERS, READY! He kept the nation fit in lockdown, but now Joe Wicks faces his greatest challenge — battling the Gladiators. In the BBC’s upcoming celebrity special the fitness coach faces stiff competition from boxer Nicola Adams, reality show star Sam Thompson and broadcaster Vogue Williams. A DIFFERENT LEAGUE Cult comedy The League of Gentlemen began on radio, and now the gang have returned to their roots. Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and Mark Gatiss star in fellow League founder Jeremy Dyson’s radio…

He’s played Hannibal Lecktor in Manhunter and Logan Roy in Succession, but actor Brian Cox is about to take on his most nerveracking role — as himself! His one-man show It’s All about Me! starts an 18-date nationwide tour in October, but as he prepares to chat about his life and career, the Scottish star is limbering up with a live appearance on stage at RT’s exclusive screening of his latest TV hit. This is your chance to apply for tickets to watch an exclusive preview in London of the second series of Prime Video’s 007: Road to a Million, which sees couples compete in James Bondthemed challenges all over the world to win a million pounds. Cox plays the Controller, the mysterious villain who sets the challenges, and he’ll…

We were all at home from our boarding schools for my father’s embarkation leave in September 1941. We fished at a local lake — “Daddy got six very nice trout on dry fly. Everyone rather remarkably cheerful,” my diary recorded. No doubt we were reflecting the exhilaration of our father, Lt Col Cary Owtram, at the prospect of action after two years of training. Our grandfather opened a bottle of ’96 port; and the next morning our father left. He sailed from Liverpool on the Dominion Monarch to Singapore to fight the Japanese invading forces in Malaya. After valiant attempts, they were pushed back until the ammunition ran out and, following an intense barrage of air raids, Singapore fell to the Japanese. Then came the unconditional surrender on 15 February…

BOMBSHELLS ARE LIKE buses: you don’t see one for a while, then along come three goddesses of the big screen to remind us of a glamorous, bygone age – and with lessons still to teach us. Throughout August, the British Film Institute is hosting a season of films marking 75 years since a teenage Sofia Scicolone entered the Italian film industry. She may have agreed to change her name to Sophia Loren at her manager/future husband Carlo Ponti’s behest, but she refused directors’ requests to alter her facial features, specifically her “nose and mouth – too big and didn’t go together” as she recalled. She told them, “I like my face,” and promptly became Italy’s first female global box offce star and the first non-English performer to win an Oscar…

SCI-FI Alien: Earth Disney+ Episodes 1 and 2 available Wednesday NEW SERIES It’s 2120, and just two years before the events of 1979 film Alien, in creator Noah Lawley’s (Fargo, Legion) prequel series. It disregards the events of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, and takes place mainly on Earth, which is ruled by five large corporations. It is a place where cyborgs (humans with biological and artificial parts) and synthetics (humanoid robots with artificial intelligence) live among humans. When the genius and CEO of Prodigy Corporation, Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), launches hybrids (humanoid robots in adult bodies with human consciousness taken from terminally ill children), the intelligence race is well and truly on for ultimate dominance. Deep space research vessel USCSS Maginot, operated by the Weyland-Yutani corporation, crashes on Earth, bringing with it five…

FREE TO VIEW BBC iPLAYER bbc.co.uk/iplayer As long as you have a TV licence, you can register for free and enjoy a slew of BBC shows on demand and BBC channels to stream live. ITVX itv.com This free service is the place to stream ITV content. An ad-free version called Premium costs £5.99 a month or £59.99 a year, and also includes shows formerly on BritBox. CHANNEL 4 channel4.com No longer called All 4, Channel 4’s streaming service has more than 1,500 shows and films from C4, E4, More4, Film4 and Walter Presents. Watching without ads costs £3.99 per month. 5 channel5.com Content from 5 and channels 5 USA, 5 Star and 5 Select can be streamed live with a free online account. U u.co.uk Catch up with shows on…

BBC Proms 6.20pm BBC2 The BBC Concert Orchestra, soprano Erin Morley and conductor Anna-Maria Helsing (above) mark 200 years since the birth of Johann Strauss II. Countryfile 6.15pm BBC1 John Craven heads to Yorkshire to explore its heritage through old crafts and traditional grains. Alfred Brendel Night from 8.00pm BBC4 An evening to commemorate the Czech-born classical pianist who died in June, including a concert from Snape Maltings in Suffolk.…

COMMEMORATION VJ Day 80: the Nation’s Tribute 11.30am BBC1 Catch up via iPlayer With the Allied Victory over Japan 80 years ago, a relieved, exhausted Britain greeted the end of the Second World War. Although thousands of service personnel and POWs would have to wait months or years to be demobilised and reunited with their loved ones, the fighting was finally over. The British Legion marks the anniversary with a service of remembrance this lunchtime at the National Memorial Arboretum near Lichfield in Staffordshire. BBC cameras and presenting stalwart Paddy O’Connell will be there to bring us the ceremony — and to set events in historical context. With several of the last remaining VJ Day veterans in attendance, it should be a stirring tribute and a poignant chance to remember those who…

Polling is open for the 2025 Classic FM Movie Music Hall of Fame, and if you’re yet to vote, the Radio Times films team has picked five recent standout soundtracks for your consideration. OPPENHEIMER 2023 Christopher Nolan’s time-hopping biopic of the “father of the atomic bomb” relies on a complex score from Ludwig Goransson, whose aim was to make the music both “timeless” and “modern”, using digital tools to manipulate his recordings of an orchestra — evoking not just the film’s various eras, but also the story’s clash between scientific revolution and human conscience. TOM FOLLEY THE BOY AND THE HERON 2023 The films of master animator Hayao Miyazaki swing between the tender and the horrifying; so too do the scores of Joe Hisaishi, who has composed for all but one…

WHEN YOU’RE YOUNG, on-screen violence is a bit of a laugh; 17-year-old boys use it to tease each other. It’s not the stuf of real life. It’s only when you get older that you begin to find it disturbing. I’ve never seen Game of Thrones, Gangs of London, Shogun or any of the other popular shows of the present that appear to be heavy on the gore. I’ve developed such an acute sensitivity to the prospect of being horrified by some baroque demonstration of violent cruelty that I turn of long before it starts. Since streaming has brought us more baddies than ever before, the law of private enterprise dictates that each one will call for some fresh hell to be visited on some poor innocent in order that the…

MY 1999 NOVEL Kensuke’s Kingdom was inspired by a story I heard on the radio. A Japanese soldier had hidden himself on an island in the Pacific after the end of the Second World War and was found there nearly 30 years later. He became my Japanese Robinson Crusoe of the 20th century. But I wanted, also, to weave into my island adventure story the times into which I had been born, to set the story in the shadow of that war and of the atom bombs dropped on Japan that ended the conflict but has overshadowed the life of the world ever since. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, of course, the advent of the nuclear age, the age mankind has created, the consequences of which we and our children still…

Ken Knowles served in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, which is responsible for supplying weapons, ammunition and equipment to the Army. He’s now 100 years old and a recipient of the Burma Star. What was your early life like? I was born in Salford in May 1925, and left school at 14 to work in a timber yard. In 1941, at 16, I became an ARP warden, with a bicycle. I’d identify where a bomb had fallen, pedal like the clappers to HQ to tell them, and they’d send a squad to defuse it. You were called up in 1942? Yes, billetted in Leicestershire, I slept on a stable floor on a straw mattress, with a bucket for a toilet, which I emptied each morning. I failed my medical to…

JESSIE WALLACE KAT SLATER FOR SOAP FANS, it’s the equivalent of the Moon landings or Kennedy’s assassination – they all remember where they were when Kat revealed Zoe’s true parentage. But it was the following day that Jessie Wallace realised what a defining moment it was going to be. “It changed my life overnight – nothing can prepare you for that.” It was a turning point for Wallace, and her character, as both braced themselves for the wave of overwhelming attention that followed. But soaps’ fast pace meant there was no time to dwell on the scene, or wonder how totemic it would become. “On a show like EastEnders you do a scene then go straight on to the next one. You have to let it go. Yes, it was…

Sausage Party: Foodtopia Amazon Prime Video Series 2 available Wednesday A second outing for the adult animated television series about the residents of Foodtopia, including Frank Frankfurter (voiced by Seth Rogen) and Trish (Jillian Bell). Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Paramount+ Episode 6 available Thursday Captain Pike and the crew of the USS Enterprise continue to go boldly — in an episode entiled The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail. Freaky Friday ★★★ PG Disney+ Available now Body-swap comedy with Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis. A sequel, Freakier Friday, is in cinemas from Friday 8 August.…

Destination X 9.00pm BBC1 As the group reaches the halfway stage, confessions reveal who is seen as the biggest threat. Rob Brydon (above) hosts. MasterChef 8.00pm BBC1 The home chefs battle it out as they attempt to create a dish based around one ingredient in hopes of wowing the judges. Match of the Day: Premier League Preview Show 11.15pm BBC1 Have a look at the new season ahead as reigning champions Liverpool face Bournemouth.…

Football: Premier League Liverpool v Bournemouth  6.30pm (k/o 8pm) Sky Sports Main Event/Premier League The Premier League season gets under way, with Liverpool defending their title at Anfield. Cricket: the Hundred Northern Superchargers v Birmingham Phoenix 2.45pm (start 3pm) Sky Main Event/Cricket 6pm (start 6.30pm) Sky Cricket Women’s and men’s matches from Headlingley. Tennis: Cincinnati Open 4pm Sky Tennis 11pm Sky ME ATP and WTA hard-court action. SPORT HIGHLIGHTS page 29 FILM REVIEWS page 103…

MUSIC BBC Proms Saturday 7pm Radio 3 Proms intervals create opportunities for mini-features not otherwise available on the R3 schedule, and tonight’s is put to intriguing use with a talk given by Caroline Smith from the Natural History Museum, in which she asks: could life exist beyond Earth? This ultimate question chimes with a programme of music performed by the National Youth Orchestra that includes John Williams’s suite for Star Wars (left) and that old astronomical favourite, Holst’s The Planets. Prepare for take-off. SIMON O’HAGAN DRAMA Hersey’s Hiroshima Sunday 3.00pm Radio 4 John Hersey’s 30,000-word piece for the New Yorker magazine about the bombing of Hiroshima remains an unsurpassed account of what living through the attack was like. With six residents telling precisely how that fateful day unfolded, the report caused a…

‘Stand-up gives you constant feedback. Writing a book, you have to really believe what you’re saying’ DID YOU HEAR the one about the stand-up comedian who’s actually a complete introvert? Well go ahead and laugh, says Rhys James, Live at the Apollo luminary and perennial panellist on BBC2’s Mock the Week. He describes his first book, out this week, as “a dread memoir” – then adds, hurriedly, “but funny”. “Sorry, it’s hard to explain your own book, because it’s like describing yourself on a dating app: ‘Aren’t I amazing?!’” he says. “But it’s not about the dark, horrible, scary kind of dread: it’s about the dread of small, social things, like having to go for a couples dinner, or go down the pub, or make a speech – and this…

ONLY CONNECT with Victoria Coren Mitchell The connecting wall from Only Connect combines general knowledge, wordplay and lateral thinking to give your brain cells a workout! How to play Your task is to sort the 16 seemingly random words/phrases below into four groups of four connected words. You may find some clues fall into more than one category, but there is only one complete solution. If you get stuck, have a look at the clues on the side of the page… SCRIBBLE PAD Please note that in the Only Connect puzzle in the last issue the word Ready should have been Reading, to give the answer ‘reading glassses’. Our apologies. TRACKWORD How many words of three letters or more can you find by tracking from one square to the next,…

What’s the view from your sofa? A blank wall! A video projector sits on the floor by a big grey sofa, and it’s the most expensive, but best, purchase I’ve ever made. During Covid, I spent every evening in front of it. What have you been watching on it? Series three of Big Boys is excellent. British comedy is good at toeing the line between having strongly drawn, quite silly characters, then also being really moving. It’s the same with Alma’s Not Normal. The recent series of Black Mirror was one of my favourites. I love/resent that I was part of the same series as the San Junipero episode, which they shot in Cape Town, and we shot ours, Shut Up and Dance, in Watford. Who controls the remote? My…

For Fiona Bruce, who is presenting an Antiques Roadshow VJ Day special on BBC1 (Sunday), the personal artefacts on display are “like a lightning bolt through to the past”. They include a baby shoe carried as a good luck charm by a soldier through the jungle, and a chess set made by a prisoner of war. It follows several AR war specials, including a VE Day edition in May. Why are these objects — belonging to the families of those who served in the Second World War — so poignant? As well as reminders of individual bravery, the items are often “humble and personal”, says Bruce. “When we think of conflict, it’s about hardware, death and destruction; you don’t think of a soldier carrying around one of his baby’s shoes…

In Flight Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 9.00pm Channel 4 IN THE 13 YEARS since Katherine Kelly left Coronation Street, in which she played the self-sabotaging, cider-swilling barmaid Becky, she has played a lady of the realm, a newspaper editor, a call centre manager, an academic, a senior Post Offce executive, at least three police offcers – two of them DCIs – a housewife turned part-time sex-worker, a psychologist, two high-ranking civil servants – one of whom was definitely a spy – a mental health counsellor, and a physics teacher (although technically speaking, she was an alien masquerading as a physics teacher). In any given year, the only similarity shared by the characters that Kelly plays is that they are completely different from each other. In every role, blue-collar or upper-crust, she’s thoroughly convincing;…

A Man Called Otto ★★★15 C4 streaming Available until Monday Tom Hanks explores his grouchy side as a widower gradually brought out of his depression by his friendly new neighbours. Passport to Pimlico ★★★★ U BBC iPlayer Available until Tuesday A small London community discovers it’s technically part of Burgundy in Ealing’s classic. The Theory of Everything ★★★★ 12 Netflix Available until Friday Moving drama starring an Oscar-winning Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking, tracing 27 years in the scientist’s life.…

PRIVATE PARKING FIRMS handed out more than 14 million payment demands in 2024/25, costing drivers an estimated £1 billion for the first time. The number of these demands has doubled since 2018/19, when Parliament passed a law to control private parking firms. But the legally binding Code of Practice that was supposed to follow has never been introduced. Last month, the Government launched a consultation on that Code. This would license all private parking firms in England, Scotland and Wales and control how they treat drivers using their car parks. ‘ The RAC urges drivers to share their views’ The industry already has a Code of Practice, but it only applies to firms that are members of two trade bodies and has been widely criticised by motoring organisations. The new…