MY LIFE LIKE A ROLLING STONE
SATURDAY, BBC2
Rating: 
Full disclosure: I am a rolling stones obsessive. I was born in 1967 (thankfully not in a crossfire hurricane, although the weather in South Wales can be quite challenging), the year they released Ruby Tuesday and Let’s Spend The Night Together.
I grew up listening to their records; one of my earliest memories is of my father taking home a copy of Let It Bleed (1969) and being obsessed with the pie on the cover – pie has also been a lifelong obsession. Their music was the soundtrack to my crazy childhood, from the venomous masculinity of Sticky Fingers to the full-on brilliance of Some Girls.
So this four-part BBC, available on iPlayer, was always a must watch. Released to coincide with their recent concerts in Hyde Park – one of which took place at the same time as Sir Paul McCartney’s performance at Glastonbury, the great yin and yang of British pop music there in a single night – it explores the four core members of the band through surprisingly candid interviews with the other three (Charlie Watts sadly passed away last year).
Despite all the madness, all the drug busts and girlfriends, Mick Jagger ran the Rolling Stones like a business, writes Sarah Vine
Of course, Mick is the most fascinating, for the simple reason that he is Mick, the eternal manipulator. How a middle-class man like this high schoolboy from Kent managed to build a successful career as His Satanic Majesty remains one of the great paradoxes of rock’n’roll.
Sarah Vine (pictured) says the new documentary is a fun few hours in the company of the ‘greatest rock’n’roll band ever’
But as he says himself, the Jagger you see on stage is a performance, a persona based on careful observation of what works and what doesn’t. He talks about studying camera angles for TV appearances in the early days, figuring out what worked and what didn’t.
Despite all the madness, all the drug busts and girlfriends, he ran the Rolling Stones like a company, realizing that if the band was going to succeed, someone had to be in charge, and that was him.
The same is emphatically not true for Keith Richards, the personification of chaos. The opposite of ruthless Jagger, Keef is a shy, hearty dude who just wants to “turn people on” and have a laugh, man.
As vulnerable – emotionally – as Mick is resilient, the pair (the Glimmer Twins, as they call themselves) are like two halves of a whole, which probably explains the chemistry between them. You can feel in Keith the true soul of a tortured artist, which probably explains his long battle with drugs, not to mention his extraordinary talent as a guitarist.
The Charlie chapter is inevitably quite wistful and tinged with sadness; as for Ronnie Wood, he seems to enjoy his role as court jester to Keith. He nearly killed himself while trying to keep up with Keith’s drug use, but he seems to be cheerful enough about it.
All in all a pleasant few hours in the company of the greatest rock’n’roll band ever, along with beautiful visuals and of course one or two banging tunes.
UNDEFINED LOVE
JUDI DENCH: OUR NATIONAL TREASURE
FRIDAY, CHANNEL 5
Rating: 
Sarah Vine enjoys the new tribute to Dame Judi Dench (pictured), from the eight minutes as Queen Elizabeth I who won her an Oscar to her beloved TV appearances in As Time Goes By and A Fine Romance
If you want an antidote to all the doom and gloom, look no further than this tribute to one of our greatest living artists: Dame Judi Dench.
A great lineup of great old luvvies throng to sing her praises, from her friend and fellow actor Dame Penelope Wilton to Simon Callow (talking), Richard Eyre, Gyles Brandreth and, er, rapper Lethal Bizzle.
It’s all there: the eight minutes as Queen Elizabeth I that earned her an Oscar, the star turning as M in James Bond, her extraordinary performance alongside Billy Connolly in Mrs Brown, as well as her beloved TV appearances in As Time Goes By and A Fine Romance (along with her late husband, Michael Williams).
Pure, unadulterated beauty from start to finish. If you missed it, make sure to catch up with My5.
BRIGHTON’S BOYS WITH BABY FACE IN BLUE
NIGHT BUYER
TUESDAY, CHANNEL 4
Rating:
It’s a cliché, of course, that police officers are getting younger every year, but in the case of the stars of Channel 4’s new fly-on-the-wall documentary Night Coppers, it’s true that it’s actually a bit scary.
It’s not easy to write about your husband. I bit through several pencils
The Duchess of Cornwall on Camilla’s Country Life, Wednesday, ITV
The show follows the fate of Will, 22, his partner Matt, 19, and their various colleagues in blue as they tackle the waifs and strays of Brighton, the party capital of the south coast. Will and Matt are genuinely cute, two fresh-faced cherubs running loose in a Hogarthian hell.
Will is the adult (ha!), Matt the baby. Bless him, he did all his workouts in lockdown on Zoom, not exactly an ideal preparation for Kemptown’s meat pots.
With acting performances (he kinda reminds me of Matt Smith), he wears a permanent expression of surprise, mixed with slight horror. Will is more confident: at one point, he confidently stops a middle-aged lady in her electric G-Wiz for irregular driving, on suspicion of drink-driving.
While they wait for a breathalyzer, it turns out that she is a recently retired inspector of the Sensitive Intelligence Unit. Needless to say, she passes the test. Poor boy.
The police have had such a rough time lately, it’s easy to forget that the vast majority of men and women in the force are good people. This show, with its lively montage and light touch, is a wonderful reminder of that, as well as a real insight into what they have to endure.
Abuse, foul language, violence – all answered with patience, generosity of spirit and humor.