The best television to watch in July 2020—The Salisbury Poisonings and El Presidente

Plus the return of BBC's Talking Heads
June 9, 2020
El Presidente, Amazon Prime Video, 5th June

Allegations of corruption in football’s governing body, Fifa, have been around since the early 2000s. But it wasn’t until the scandal engulfed not only the sport’s powerful president, Sepp Blatter, but also French footballing great Michel Platini, president of European football’s ruling body Uefa, that the case made headlines around the world in 2015. This drama examines the bribes and backroom deals through the story of Chilean official Sergio Jadue, played by Andrés Parra.

Talking Heads, BBC One, end of June

Alan Bennett’s monologues have made it on to school syllabuses since they were first aired in two series in 1988 and 1998 and have now been revisited and remade by the BBC. New actors take over the roles in 10 of the originals, alongside two new monologues written for the series by Bennett. The outstanding cast includes Martin Freeman taking over from Bennett himself in A Chip in the Sugar and Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer playing Julie Walters’ role in Her Big Chance. Kristin Scott Thomas, Imelda Staunton and Tamsin Greig add to the heavyweight line-up.

The Salisbury Poisonings, BBC One

A superb cast marks out this three-part drama about the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with a Russian nerve agent in Salisbury in 2018. Skripal had been a double agent for the British from 1995 until his arrest in 2004, and served time in a penal colony before settling in the UK. Anne-Marie Duff, Rafe Spall, MyAnna Buring and Mark Addy—excellent in ITV’s recent White House Farm—star in this dramatisation of a national emergency.