• The Program

    ‘Contains the use of performing-enhancing drugs’ warns the title card of The Program, John Hodge and Stephen Frears’ unpacking of the Lance Armstrong myth, and it ain’t joking. Doping paraphernalia and vocab comes at the viewer thick and fast: drips, syringes, tubes, platelets, red and white cells and liquids in tiny bottles with too many syllables on the label. Blood is drawn, test results are cooked and dodgy equipment stuffed out of sight, with Team Armstrong and the anti-doping watchdogs locked in an arms race of detection and evasion. Cycling isn’t about lungs and legs, insists the opening voiceover of Ben Foster’s Armstrong,…