Friday

Joan Armatrading: Me, Myself, I

9pm, BBC Four

After a fallow period, it’s encouraging to see BBC Four’s Friday night music documentary slot rousing again, and doing what we cherish it for: a new film on a subject that deserves attention.

If she’d done nothing beyond write and record “Love And Affection” – one of the great songs, as concert footage recorded during a recent performance in Glasgow demonstrates here – Joan Armatrading would have earned her place in singer-songwriter Valhalla. Yet, beyond a ferocious fan base, she’s become a little overlooked in the UK. Even as someone who considered her undervalued going in, though, by the end of this profile I was left convinced Armatrading is even more drastically underrated.

For herself, she sums it up this way: “I’m a 67-year-old black woman who writes music, performs on stage, and loves what I do.” This, really, is about as close as she ever gets to saying anything about herself. The impression that builds is of a woman who guards her privacy, and has always been content to let her music do the talking – a combination of modesty, and utter confidence. But where did it come from?

We get only thumbnail sketches of her life. Born in St Kitts in 1950, she left the Caribbean for the grey UK aged seven, growing up in Birmingham, where her father drove a bus and sometimes pulled out a guitar he refused to let her touch. It was her fascination with that forbidden instrument that lit the musical spark, a flame her mother fanned when she bought the teenaged Joan a guitar of her own by pawning two prams in exchange.

Next we know, it’s 1968, the UK is in psychedelic swing, and the eighteen-year-old Armatrading somehow winds up in the touring production of the epochal hippy musical Hair – according to her, almost by accident. It was here she met fellow cast member Pam Nestor, who, as lyricist, helped shape the songs she’d been working on, until they formed a first album, 1972’s Whatever’s For Us. It would be several more years before the commercial breakthrough, but footage of the young Armatrading playing on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1973 shows her fully formed: shy between songs, mesmerising in performance.

As the film charts her rise, and increasingly restless musicality, across the 1970s and 80s, the issues raised, touching on the racism and sexism of the music industry are hugely timely. Armatrading stands out precisely because she never fitted in. In the UK, there was no other black woman doing what she did, staking territory somewhere between Joni Mitchell and John Martyn. Contributors note how incongruous it was when she played alongside Dylan and Clapton at the Blackbushe outdoor mega-concert in 1978; but ask anyone involved in today’s Keychange initiative, which seeks to encourage music festivals to achieve a 50-50 gender balance, and they’ll tell you not much has changed when it comes to female representation on big bills.

Even after she broke through here, Armatrading found it difficult in the US of the late-1970s, because she didn’t conform to the stereotypes of what black female artists should sound like according to the playlists of America’s still heavily segregated radio: as she put it in “How Cruel,” regarded by some as “too black,” and others as “not black enough.”

Musicians including Meshell Ndegeocello and Martha Wainwright testify to Armatrading’s influence, while contributing covers of her best-known tracks. There may well be a spike in back catalogue sales after this film. But whether anyone will come away feeling they know anything more about Armatrading is another question. Asked about her reputation for privacy, however, she just laughs. “You don’t need to know who I am. All you need to know is that I write great songs.”

Today

Tories At War

10pm, Channel 4

If you can stomach another hour of Tories falling out, being snide, and stabbing each other in the back (and, to be fair, in the front), this fly on the wall documentary is just the ticket. Director Patrick Forbes has been filming behind Conservative lines since 2016, and his new film completes a trilogy with that year’s Brexit Means Brexit and 2017’s Brexit: A Very British Coup. Filmed over the past nine months, he captures in close-up the period as the party’s internal rivalries finally fracture and bile starts shooting through the cracks, propelled by the GERD of the ERG led by Jacob Rees-Mogg (“and his millions,” mutters Alan Duncan). With great access to ministers, Brexiters and remainers alike, it’s up to date, covering the recent wave of expulsions. “A shitstorm,” as Anna Soubry summarises.

Monday

Arena: The $50 million Art Swindle

9pm, BBC Two

The brilliant filmmaker Vanessa Engle (Lefties) produces an exceptional trump card in this new documentary. Her subject is Michael Cohen, who, as a shining young art dealer on the New York scene of the 1990s, sold Picassos, Monets and Chagalls to the wealthiest elite, apparently making himself very rich in the process. By the early 2000s, however, things were going south: Cohen had racked up millions in debts, and so embarked on a scheme to recoup his losses – by swindling clients, colleagues and art houses for tens of millions. He finally went on the run, and, as several victims testify, completely vanished. Until now. Engle has not only managed to track him down, but persuaded him to recount his own slippery story of high stakes crimes amid the high life, a tale with all the elements of a glossy Hollywood caper movie.

Tuesday

The Troubles: A Secret History

9pm, BBC Four

It’s been slightly tucked away, but this new examination of the history of Northern Ireland is a very valuable series. In this third film (of seven) the story reaches 1979, the coming of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister, and the hardening of the British stance against an IRA prepared to conduct a long war of attrition. Reporter Jennifer O’Leary explores the increase in attacks in Britain, uncovering arms connections in the US and Libya, and talking with some of those who smuggled weapons for the IRA. Among the topics is the Brighton bombing that almost killed Thatcher, with startling new facts coming to light. O’Leary also charts the tensions that began to grow within the IRA as its political wing developed: with success at the ballot box, divisions emerged between those who wanted to purse a political path, and those committed to a war.

Wednesday

The Papers

9pm, BBC One

Glaswegians above a certain age may experience a melancholy pang watching the concluding episode of director Sarah Howitt’s illuminating documentary on the Herald & Times newspapers, as it considers the decline in sales of the Evening Times from the heyday when its street vendors’ cries were part of the city’s pulse. The heart of tonight’s film, though, is a consideration of the impact on the newsroom as another round of budget cuts bites deep, resulting in yet more redundancies – and an already overworked staff taking on yet more work to try and cover the loss. Elsewhere, as the Brexit story unravels, columnist Marianne Taylor travels to Berlin (on her own ticket) to sample the view from Germany, and visits the (palatial) offices of her old paper, Die Welt, to consider how it has rode the curve of integrating print and digital journalism.

Thursday

Spitfire

9pm, BBC Four

Wartime nostalgia aside, this feature-length documentary on the iconic fighter plane is genuinely stirring, poignant, and at times breathtaking. Director Anthony Palmer charts the Spitfire’s conception, creation and its rapid rise to icon status during the Second World War through a mix of stunning new footage capturing the vintage machines in flight through British clouds once again, and a wealth of archive material, including films shot by cameras strapped inside Spitfires’ wings during battle. The soul of the piece, however, lies in new interviews with veteran fliers, all in their 80s and 90s or above, recalling the Battle Of Britain with a mix of bravado, remorse, and anguish. It’s not just men: the film spotlights the female workers who helped build the planes, and the women of the Air Transport Auxiliary, who flew them from factory to RAF base, including the splendid 100-year-old Mary Ellis.

Saturday

Marianne & Leonard: Words Of Love

9pm, BBC Two

That’s Marianne Ihlen, the woman who would become known to the world as lover and (that deeply-contested idea) “muse” to Leonard Cohen, during the period the poet-turned-songwriter was writing the songs on which his legend would be built, including “So Long Marianne” itself. Their relationship is the main subject of this excellent, by turns tender and slightly uncomfortable documentary by Nick Broomfield, who adds to the discomfort by inserting himself into proceedings – he also had a brief relationship with Ihlen. Really, though, boasting a wealth of archive, it’s Marianne and Leonard that fascinate, and the picture of the sunbaked boho community on the Greek island of Hydra where they met in the lost 1960s. Most affecting of all are glimpses of Marianne and Leonard still in touch in old age.