Where: TV One
When: Sunday, 8.30pm
An arty end to the weekend Sexual obsession. A workplace affair. And a bouquet of barbed wire.
With plot elements like that, it could only mean one thing: the return of Sunday Theatre to TV One. As well as this week's psychological thriller, Bouquet of Barbed Wire, starring Cold Feet and Spooks actress Hermione Norris, the rest of the season's upcoming dramas include a mix of one-off TV titles, feature films and new local productions.
In Bouquet of Barbed Wire, which only recently screened in Britain, the lives of Peter (Trevor Eve, Waking The Dead) and Cassie Manson (Norris) are turned upside down when their daughter, Prue (Imogen Poots), gets pregnant to her teacher, Gavin Sorenson (Tom Riley, Lost In Austen).
Of course, she plans to drop out of school, keep the baby and marry him. From then on, things start spiralling out of control, with Peter paranoid that Gavin is out to get him and his marriage on the rocks since he's having an affair at work. Somehow this all has something to do with the mysterious Paula, whose name Gavin just happens to have tattooed on his wrist.
Then, next week, Timothy Spall stars as Georgie in The Fattest Man In Britain.
From the creator of The Royle Family, Fattest Man looks at the house- and chair-bound life of Georgie, who happily wiles away his days in front of the TV, enjoying visits from his friends and the many tourists his manager, Morris, brings to the house to have a gawk. But when teenager Amy is sent on community service to tidy up his garden, Georgie starts to question his lifestyle.
On the local front, Nights In The Gardens Of Spain is a drama about a successful business and family man who is forced to reveal he is gay.
Adapted from the 1996 autobiographical novel by Witi Ihimaera, it stars Calvin Tuteao (Legend of the Seeker) as corporate high-flyer Kawa Williams and South African actress Nathalie Boltt (District 9, Bloodlines) as his wife, Annabelle. They've seemingly been happily married for years and have two children. But Kawa's secret is out and the film opens with him having moved out of the family home.
Later in the season, there's The Prestige, the 2006 film about 19th-century magicians from Christopher Nolan - the man behind Memento, the latest Batman films, the excellent sci-fi thriller Inception and Australian film The Black Balloon (winner of best feature at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival) - in which young Thomas (Rhys Wakefield, Home and Away) and his family move to a new home and a new school. All Thomas wants to do is fit in, but while he finds new love with Jackie (Gemma Ward), he's also looking after his autistic older brother, who has some unusual quirks.
- TimeOut
