Catch-up TV guide: Can Democracy Work, Monkey Love and more

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/jan/24/catch-up-tv-guide

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TV: Can Democracy Work?

Set against the backdrop of the huge turnout for the Scottish referendum and Russell Brand’s anti-voting tract Revolution, the BBC’s Nick Robinson asks whether we have anything to gain from participating in the forthcoming general election in this radio series. Episode one sees Tony Blair and Nick Clegg face searching questions about their relationship with the electorate. Tellingly, after his damp squib of a showdown with Nigel Farage on Question Time, Brand refuses an interview.

BBC iPlayer

Video: Monkey Love

Miss Ren & Stimpy? You might want to catch Monkey Love, which shares something of that show’s pointed surrealism. Produced by web-comedy studio Above Average, the series follows the romantic ventures of Miss Pickles, a male chimpanzee who dresses as a female human and starts dating men. Guests spots by Jeff Goldblum and SNL’s Tim Meadows as a senator whipped into an unrequited sexual frenzy are highlights.

aboveaverage.com

TV: Amazon Pilots

As with previous instalments, this Amazon pilot season – which allows viewers to vote on which of the web giant’s new shows will receive a full series – is something of a mixed bag. You can probably skip Cocked, a comedy-drama about a family of gun magnates, and Point Of Honor, a laboured epic about the American civil war. Far better are The Man In The High Castle, an atmospheric adaptation of Philip K Dick’s speculative history novel, and The New Yorker Presents, a video version of the esteemed magazine, featuring documentaries, interviews and a short story. Vote for your favourites over at Amazon.co.uk.

Amazon Instant Video

TV: The Eichmann Show

The televised trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961 was a watershed in documentary film-making, and this account of the efforts made to bring it to the small screen is suitably gripping viewing. Generic subplots aside, it’s all grimly mesmerising – not least the original trial footage interspersed throughout, and the doomed efforts of director Leo Hurwitz (Anthony LaPaglia) to locate a flicker of humanity in the unflinching Eichmann.

BBC iPlayer

Audio: Longform Podcast

Longform is an online curator of quality long-form journalism. Each week, their podcast features an interview with a non-fiction writer about their career and ethos; notable guests have included Jon Ronson, Malcolm Gladwell and The Atlantic and Slate’s Hanna Rosin, who, in a recent instalment, discussed her book The End Of Men and how story development is analogous to speed-dating.

longform.org