Picnic at Hanging Rock: The Australian outback tale returns, with a dark dash of David Lynch

BBC2, 9pm

An hour of Gothic noir may not be an obvious choice of entertainment for a sun-soaked summer evening when football is, depending on what happens after this goes to press, either coming home or has got historically close to coming home.

But Picnic at Hanging Rock is intriguing enough to contend with another evening drinking in the park at a real-life picnic.

It’s an adaptation of Australian Joan Lindsay’s 1967 novel, which was first turned into a film in 1975 by Peter Weir. He went on to direct The Truman Show. Some believe there is truth in the story — about a group of girls who disappear at a picnic to celebrate Valentine’s Day in 1900.

There’s only one survivor, who appears a few days later with no memory — and the Stranger Things-esque possibility that the students have been sucked into another dimension.

BBC2: Marion Quade (MADELEINE MADDEN), Irma Leopold (SAMARA WEAVING), Miranda Reid (LILY SULLIVAN)
BBC/Fremantle Media/Narelle Portanier

Although the story is more than 50 years old it still feels relevant. The scriptwriters here have highlighted themes of female empowerment and solidarity; purity and repressed sexuality — these girls have no independence, they’ve been sent to an institution against their will and don’t even have a say in what they wear.

Restraint is prized and they know so little about their own bodies that their first periods come as a painful shock. When a girl gets hers on the day of the picnic, her remorseless teacher deadpans: “Bad timing will define your life.” They are chronically bored and therefore prize gossip, using secrets to wield power.

The girls are a mixed bag: a Rothschild heiress, the smart one, the daughter of a judge and a tomboy. They try to rebel, saying things such as “I don’t want to be elegant, I’m not a horse being groomed for auction”, but it is futile. There are some young boys around but they’re rather unsavoury characters.

Picnic at Hanging Rock: Irma Leopold (SAMARA WEAVING), Miranda Reid (LILY SULLIVAN), Marion Quade (MADELEINE MADDEN)
BBC/Fremantle Media/Sarah Enticknap

Despite being miserable, the girls look like they’ve come straight out of a perfume advert — strolling through softly sun-dappled fields with artfully tousled hair and immaculate white dresses.

Production values are high — it was made by Australian cable network Foxtel — and there are plenty of panoramas of the countryside. The girls try to rebel with sheer bodiced outfits but are put back in their place by their formidable headmistress, Hester Appleyard, with barbed remarks such as “You need a shawl — you’re not in London any more.”

Natalie Dormer, who plays Appleyard, overacts and looks too close in age to the girls, but the whole show is meant to have a surreal edge, so it’s forgivable. More jarring are her miniature sunglasses, which make her look like John Lennon with a bustle.

Picnic at Hanging Rock: Natalie Dormer as Mrs Appleyard
BBC/Fremantle Media/Ben King

There’s more focus on Appleyard than in the original film. The programme starts with her driving a hard bargain to buy the school and murmuring to herself, “He will never find us here in the a**e end of the world.” A**e sounds better in her Australian accent but, that aside, it’s all about the mystery of what she is running from.

Later it all goes a bit David Lynch with a dream sequence involving her wearing a T-shirt that reads Purity but no pants. There’s even a gratuitous woman called Diane in a Twin Peaks reference. She wonders if she is still Hester, or if Hester is dead.

So if you like your summer with a side of Gothic horror sci-fi, tune in and prepare to come up with your own conspiracy theories about what happened to the girls.

London Live

Stephen Fry’s Key to the City - London Live, 8pm

A beadle’s about in this tour of the richest square mile in the nation, Stephen Fry meets numerous beadles as he learns what his rights are as a Freeman of the City of London. In short, they’re limited; having a film crew behind you, however, opens many doors, including one corridor of the Old Bailey which for many was a one-way journey.

This Dead Man’s Walk funnelled the condemned towards their public execution, which drew crowds of 20,000, an entertainment that ended in 1868.

Stephen Fry - in pictures

1/25

Bonded By Blood 2: the Next Generation - London Live, 11.15pm

Sudden vacancies in top jobs due to swollen egos and loudmouths that can’t deliver aren’t restricted to... oh, there must be a profession that’s seen some high-profile individuals flounce off this week.

Those reductions in status are not as permanent as the ones in this pummelled knuckle thriller, in which the Rettendon murders in Essex opened up opportunities for shady entrepreneurs.

Ricky (Josh Myers), Damon (George Russo) and Dean (Sam Strike) are the ambitious trio who plunge into organised crime with all the care of a former mayor attaching himself to a zip-wire.

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