Secrets of the Conclave; Tea With Judi Dench

“Does the Pope have a cinema room at the Vatican, I wonder? If so, does he ever have a few cardinals round on a Saturday night to watch Conclave with Ralph Fiennes and chuckle at the mistakes? His Eminence Timothy Radcliffe, an 80-year-old Englishman who was created a cardinal last year, has certainly watched the film — and gleefully pointed out an error, on Secrets Of The Conclave. One of 133 cardinals who gathered in the Sistine Chapel last April to choose the next pontiff, following the death of Pope Francis, the keen-eyed Dominican friar spotted that the ballot box, a silver and gilded bronze urn, was in the wrong place. ‘You place the ballot in the urn and shut the lid,’ he explained. ‘And the urn is on the altar. This is very important. That was a detail that the film Conclave got wrong. It had the urn on a table.’ Tantalising snippets like this were the only real secrets that this charming documentary revealed, because all those involved in electing the Pope take a solemn oath to preserve its mysteries. We heard nothing of the deliberations and, though the frontrunners were named, there were few hints of how anyone voted.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“You’ve read the Robert Harris book, you’ve seen the Ralph Fiennes film, and now you can watch the documentary. In Secrets of the Conclave (BBC Two), some of the 133 cardinals who elected Pope Leo XIV speak candidly about what went on behind the scenes. Their insights are a fascinating mix of the profound and the mundane. I don’t know quite what I expected from this programme, but it wasn’t Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, summing up the life-changing nature of becoming Pope in this way: “He’ll never be able to slip out for a pizza again.””
Anita Singh, Telegraph

“It’s one of the biggest jobs in the world, but the selection process is determined — at least it is meant to be — by the Holy Spirit. The unseen workings of divine essence, co-equal and co-eternal with God the Father and God the Son, are not typical features of BBC primetime programming in these secular times. But hey, the film Conclave won an Oscar this year and there were cameras all over the Vatican in May when the 267th Pope was elected in a centuries-old ritual held inside the Sistine Chapel, so here it was: a bit of quasi-religious programming at Christmas time that wasn’t Carols from King’s.”
Ben Dowell, The Times

“Dench’s guest for the episode is Sir Kenneth Branagh, and the two of them go way back: by her own calculations, Dench has played Branagh’s wife, mother and grandmother in her time, and the pair share a lovely, easy, breezy relationship. Branagh pulls up outside her house, Dench barks, “About bloody time!” and then presents Branagh with a huge portrait of his own head. It is to his eternal credit that Branagh doesn’t immediately freak out and run away. This sets the tone for the rest of the show, in which they natter away pleasantly with no real direction. They eat some potato farls. They pretend not to have read any of their reviews, even though Branagh is able to quote them extensively. At one point they potter over to Sweetheart, Dench’s parrot, in the hope that it will call Branagh a “slag”.”
Stuart Heritage, The Guardian