Sunday 7 January
Vera
ITV1, 8pm
Following on from an atmospheric Christmas special, DCI Vera Stanhope (Brenda Blethyn) begins the New Year with another run of Northumberland-based murder mysteries, with a popular former cast member returning to Tyneside and making his presence felt quite forcefully. In the opening episode, Fast Love, Stanhope and the team are called to a quiet country lane where a young man has been found dead following what looks like a hit-and-run.
With initial findings suggesting that the victim was a local market trader, the team head down to his pitch to start piecing together a profile. But as the investigation gathers more evidence, it quickly emerges that the victim was a far more complex character than they imagined, with plenty of suspects to pick out from a long list of people who wouldn’t have minded seeing him hurt, or indeed dead. Adding to her woes, Stanhope – already a couple of team members down – is more than taken aback when her old sidekick Joe Ashworth (David Leon, who starred in the first four series) turns up at her incident room after almost a decade away. Now a DI, with the pride to match, he doesn’t look like he’s there to help. GO
The Great Pottery Throw Down
Channel 4, 7.45pm
It might not have Bake Off’s drool factor, but Channel 4’s pottery challenge has a special warmth of its own. Under the eyes of judges Keith Brymer Jones, Rich Miller and host Siobhán McSweeney, this year’s competitors take their first steps towards glory by making a dinner set.
Call the Midwife
BBC One, 8pm
A new run starts with spring blossoming early in Poplar as the cast gets a refresh with four new regulars joining Nonnatus House’s training scheme. Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter) discovers she has a connection that she’d rather forget with one of her mothers-to-be, and comedian Rosie Jones makes a guest appearance.
The Tourist
BBC One, 9pm
The second series of the Williams brothers’ hit mystery drama is nearing the halfway point and the pace still isn’t showing any signs of slowing. Elliot (Jamie Dornan) gets back to the hotel to find girlfriend Helen (Danielle Macdonald) is no longer there. But he has to brush off his concerns and keep moving, knowing his relentless pursuers will soon be on his trail again.
Silverback
BBC Two, 9pm
Cameraman Vianet Djenguet is in the Democratic Republic of Congo to film a project aiming to protect lowland gorillas, whose numbers have been decimated by deforestation and war. Over three months, he forms a strong bond with a dominant silverback, Mpungwe, yielding some spectacular footage and moving thoughts on Djenguet’s relationships within his own family.
I Am Andrew Tate
Channel 4, 9pm
A new profile of the kickboxer turned misogynistic influencer, who has emerged as a dangerous influence on young boys around the world. Film-maker Marguerite Gaudin dives deep into Tate’s background, speaks to fans and opponents, and explores the claims behind his arrest for rape and human trafficking in Romania last year.
Significant Other
ITV1, 10.15pm & 10.45pm
This blissfully bleak comedy, which aired on ITVX last year, begins with a suicide attempt and a heart attack and goes on to subvert just about every trope in the romcom playbook. Katherine Parkinson and Youssef Kerkour star as un-romantics, who find as much pain as pleasure in getting to know each other in hardly propitious circumstances.
Nanny McPhee (2005) ★★★
ITV1, 12.45pm
Emma Thompson wrote and stars (warts and all) in this sweet fantasy film, based on Christianna Brand’s Nurse Matilda books. She plays a battle-hardened nanny who finds that the children of a widower (Colin Firth) are a challenge, even for her. Poised somewhere between Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events and Mary Poppins, the film has moral messages to impart, but not at the expense of a magical tale filled with laughs and adventure.
Little Women (1994) ★★★★
Channel 4, 1.55pm
This moving adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s timeless tale, about sisters growing up in 19th-century Massachusetts, has a satisfyingly hard edge that means it still trumps Greta Gerwig’s 2019 version. It’s bursting with talent: a glowing Winona Ryder plays bookish Jo, while Susan Sarandon is the girls’ doting mother. Look out, too, for Kirsten Dunst as young, bratty Amy and a baby-faced Christian Bale as Laurie.
Maid in Manhattan (2002) ★★★
Channel 4, 4.20pm
It was never going to be Oscars fodder, but this Jennifer Lopez romcom still has its charms. Lopez plays a single mother who works as a cleaner in a fancy New York hotel; Ralph Fiennes is the slick politician and heir to a dynasty who meets her and mistakes her for an equally wealthy hotel guest. Love works its usual magic and the pair enjoy a night of romance – but soon enough, the realities of their differences become apparent.
Sound of Metal (2021) ★★★★★
BBC Two, 10.30pm
It’s testament to its quiet beauty that Sound of Metal, a film about deafness, won two Oscars for sound and editing. A fantastic Riz Ahmed is a punk-rock drummer with a chip on his shoulder and lingering addiction issues. When his passion results in him slowly losing his hearing, he’s forced to find a stillness in the world that he’d previously blocked out with noise: not least in his relationship with his girlfriend (Olivia Cooke).
Monday 8 January
Josette Simon and Emilia Fox
Credit: Kevin Baker/BBC
Silent Witness
BBC One, 9pm
The advent of a new year once again brings with it a new series of Silent Witness – the 27th! – which, while not likely to lift the January gloom, at least provides another ruthlessly efficient example of tight narrative and human depravity, garnished with an impressive roster of guest stars. We open with the reliably unsettling sight of a police interview from 2004, as Calvin Dunn (Leo Staar) runs rings around his interrogators, who suspect him of being a serial killer with a penchant for placing his victims in churches, kneeling and strangled. When one intended quarry escaped, Dunn vanished and the murders came to an end.
Another body turns up almost two decades later, bearing all the hallmarks of the same modus operandi, and DCI Jo Hoskins (Josette Simon) fears the worst, while Dr Nikki Alexander (Emilia Fox) counsels against lazy assumptions. Complicating matters is the forensic botanist Charles Beck (John Hannah), still furious at the police for not finding his wife’s body after, he believes, she became the killer’s fifth victim. Occasionally portentous it may be, but this crime thriller is perennially underestimated – there’s a good reason it has so many fans. GT
SOS: Extreme Rescues
BBC Two, 7pm; BBC One Wales
This lively new series follows rescue teams around Snowdonia, its first episode illustrating the wildly varying weather conditions faced by hikers and those who keep them safe: a solo hiker is trapped by snow and ice, a father and son get lost in dense fog and another man collapses with heat exhaustion on the hottest day of the year.
Undercover Doctor: the Secrets of Your Big Shop
Channel 4, 8pm
Michael Mosley returns with yet more dietary advice, this time moving behind a supermarket checkout to consider why one couple are afflicted with high blood pressure and cholesterol (him) and constant fatigue (her) when they eat fresh food.
Streets of Gold: Mumbai
BBC Two, 9pm
While not exactly ignoring the poverty and prejudice that continues to blight Narendra Modi’s Mumbai, like 2022’s Inside Dubai this three-parter could probably be a little more discerning in its approach. Tonight’s opener focuses on A-list designers and the author of Indian bonkbusters as she prepares to be interviewed by a Bollywood star.
24 Hours in Police Custody
Channel 4, 9pm
Another heart-pounding two-parter, concluding tomorrow, follows one Bedfordshire detective as he embarks upon his first double-murder investigation. DC Jacob Hobday is met with a wall of silence from locals too terrified to speak out following a horrifyingly violent crime near a pub. Can he bring them on side, then crack the case?
Playboy: The Centrefolds that Changed the World
Channel 5, 9pm
Back in Channel 5’s early days, this would have been an excuse for salacious baring of flesh, but with its more respectable modern guise comes this balanced take on Hugh Hefner’s Playboy empire, acknowledging through well-chosen interviews its pioneering role at the forefront of sexual liberation, while also noting the sleaze and rumours of abuse which emerged after Hefner’s death in 2017.
Brits Down Under
Channel 4, 10pm
This six-part reality show sends a group of young backpackers to a remote farm in the Australian Outback where they are set to work in exchange for accommodation and the layabouts are separated from the labourers. The point of it all remains obscure.
Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) ★★★★
Film4, 2.35pm
John Schlesinger’s adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s novel is a delight. While Julie Christie’s Bathsheba vacillates like the weather over her three suitors – shepherd Alan Bates, landowner Peter Finch and soldier Terence Stamp – it’s brilliant cinematographer Nicolas Roeg’s rendering of Hardy’s Wessex as an evanescent movie landscape that sets the film apart from other period pieces.
Land (2021) ★★★
Film4, 9pm
In Robin Wright’s directorial debut, she plays a grieving mother who takes to the backwoods of Wyoming to process her trauma. Her signature careworn intelligence and emotional fatigue are as convincing as ever, but the plot has all the pace of a flattened whoopie cushion. Still, the vistas of the American West are gorgeously shot and there is interest in Wright’s affecting journey from grief to grace.
The Terminator (1984) ★★★★★
ITV4, 9.55pm
Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as the robotic antihero of James Cameron’s huge, landmark sci-fi thriller. The muscle-bound android assassin is sent back in time from the year 2029 to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), an LA waitress, in a bid to stop her unborn son waging war against the robots. It’s rollicking good fun, packed with gore and tension, and it spawned a sprawling franchise as well as making Arnie a mega-star.
Tuesday 9 January
What happened to the American buffalo?
Credit: Craig Mellish/BBC
The Great American Buffalo
BBC Four, 10pm
Acclaimed documentary film-maker Ken Burns (The Vietnam War, The US and the Holocaust) turns his camera to America’s largest mammal, bison. This isn’t a nature film, even if we do learn some interesting facts about the big beasts, described by narrator Peter Coyote as “a souped-up hot rod of an animal hiding in a minivan shell” – not least that they can run at speeds of up to 35 mph. Rather, it’s another of Burns’s deeply humane studies, about how the species was nearly wiped out through a mixture of human greed and stupidity, plus the effects of the 19th century’s great move westwards in the US and of the spiritual connection that many Native Americans feel for the animals (some tribes’ existence was closely aligned to buffalo, which provided food, shelter and clothing).
However, there is hope (as covered in next week’s second episode, taking the complete film to four hours). Although buffalo will never be able to roam as freely as they once did, herds have been reintroduced to the wild in an attempt to increase population numbers. Like all Burns’s work, The Great American Buffalo is riveting to watch, blending shocking facts with expert narration, extensive archive and various talking heads. VL
Digging for Britain
BBC Two, 8pm
Professor Alice Roberts visits a community dig in Lincoln, where archeologists are looking for evidence of Roman occupation, before heading over to Norfolk to explore an Iron Age hillfort.
Food Unwrapped’s Deep South Adventure
Channel 4, 8pm
Jimmy Doherty and Matt Tebbutt embark on a whistlestop culinary tour of America’s Deep South, beginning with a drive from Louisiana to Kentucky. Expect grits, sour-mash whisky and sweet iced tea – rather different from a British cuppa.
Inside the Factory
BBC Two, 9pm
Gregg Wallace gets the lowdown on jeans, one of the world’s most popular clothing items – the average Briton owns seven pairs, apparently – as he visits factories in Italy and Wales to find out how denim cloth is made into pants, while historian Ruth Goodman learns about indigo dye.
Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild
Channel 5, 9pm
Ben Fogle travels to Great Blasket Island, County Kerry, to meet Dan and Emily, the sole occupants of the 4.5 sq km outcrop which has no running hot water or electricity. As ever, the genial guest makes himself useful by helping to fix their water pump, catching sheep and foraging seaweed.
Andes Plane Crash: Terror At 30,000 Feet
Channel 5, 10pm
Back in the limelight thanks to director JA Bayona’s fantastic film Society of the Snow (on Netflix), Oliver Price’s three-part documentary (continuing tomorrow and Wednesday) about the 16 survivors of the 1972 Andes plane crash is equally riveting. The group of young rugby players had to decide whether to die of starvation in the frozen mountains, or survive by eating the flesh of their dead friends. It’s a remarkable story, told through reconstructions and searingly honest interviews.
Tell Me Lies
BBC One, 10.40pm & 11.30pm; Scotland, 11.40pm & 12.30am
A chance to catch Disney’s adaptation of Carola Lovering’s 2018 novel. The story begins in 2007 at a university in New York and follows the on-off relationship between two students, Lucy and Stephen (Grace Van Patten and Jackson White), as it unfolds over eight years. It paints a vivid picture of sexually active and party-fuelled student life – but also the pitfalls of first love.
Hue and Cry (1947, b/w) ★★★★
Film4, 5.05pm
Directed by Charles Crichton, who went on to earn huge acclaim with The Lavender Hill Mob, this is a near-perfect synthesis of comedy, action thriller and social drama. It’s set in bombed-out London, where the rubble-strewn landscapes and pocked wharves serve as both a playground and a crime scene for a gang of schoolchildren who twig that their favourite comic strip is used by criminals to pass secret messages.
Silent Night (2023) ★★★
Sky Cinema Premiere, 10.30pm
If you’ve had your full of festive films until next year, this revenge horror might be just up your street. It’s Christmas Eve in Texas, and Joel Kinnaman watches his young son get killed in the crossfire of warring gangs. Chasing after them, he’s shot too and left for dead – but when he awakes, he’s intent on vengeance. Silent Night marks director John Woo’s first return to Hollywood since the excellent Paycheck (2003).
Millie Lies Low (2021) ★★★
Film4, 11.40pm
Michelle Savill’s comedy does a great job of sending up insufferable social-media influencer types. Kiwi student Millie (Ana Scotney) is looking forward to bragging all over Instagram after she lands an internship in NYC. When fate intervenes and she never makes it, she chooses to trick the internet (and IRL friends) into believing she’s in the Big Apple after all. Expect fake guises and plenty of hilarious near-misses.
Wednesday 10 January
Sophie Rundle in After the Flood
Credit: Vishal Sharma/ITV
After the Flood
ITV1, 9pm
The recent floods across large parts of the UK lend added realism to this six-part Happy Valley-style series about a tenacious northern police woman with a busy home life who’s drawn into a murky local murder investigation. Sophie Rundle plays Jo Marshall, a dedicated, ambitious and pregnant constable caught up in chaos when the fictional town of Waterside is hit by the biggest flood in its history.
She is the first officer on the scene when the body of a man is found, presumed drowned, in the basement of a flooded block of flats. And when evidence emerges that his death might not have been so simple (or accidental), Marshall is keen to get involved, especially as she is itching to embark on a training course to be a detective. And nothing – least of all impending maternity leave and the dinosaur-like attitudes of her detective husband and other senior colleagues – will get in her way. Despite a leisurely, naturalistic style that sometimes feels like it’s not quite firing on all cylinders, writer Mick Ford’s thematic focus on climate change, irresponsible property development and corrupt local politicians adds more than enough grit to the mix to make it work. GO
Criminal Record
Apple TV+
Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi make superb adversaries in this excellent six-part thriller about two London detectives who butt heads over an old murder case. She’s the novice, suspicious that a miscarriage of justice has been committed. He’s old guard, keen to ensure his record remains untarnished.
Echo
Disney+
Billed as “Marvel Studio’s most intense series yet” this ultra-violent five-parter (boxsetted) tells the story of a deaf Native American, Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), pushed to extremes when her gangland past catches up with her. Vincent D’Onofrio co-stars as ruthless crime boss, Kingpin.
Break Point
Netflix
Tennis heads will be sure to be cheering on the second series of Netflix’s slick docu-series, featuring some of the sport’s top players, coaches and organisers. No previews were available when we went to press, but the official teaser trailer promises the inside story of Alexander Zverev’s horrific ankle injury at the French Open and contributions from US players Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe.
The Trust
Netflix
If The Traitors isn’t pushing your tolerance for treachery too far, you could try this other twisty reality game show from Netflix. Eleven contestants begin with an equal share of $250,000 but with a bigger portion on offer for every person they manage to vote off, it quickly becomes a deliciously nasty game of persuasion and naked greed.
Landscape Artist of the Year 2024
Sky Arts, 8pm
The medieval ruins of Dunnottar Castle in north-east Scotland make an atmospheric setting as Sky’s enduringly popular annual painting competition returns. At stake, a £10,000 commission for the Science Museum celebrating the Orkney Islands’ role in the sustainable energy revolution.
The Cambridgeshire Crucifixion
BBC Four, 9pm
Religion and history are full of crucifixions but archaeological traces are rare. This absorbing film tells the story of only the second example ever discovered (a grisly find, five years ago, on a dig in Cambridgeshire) and manages to create a detailed picture of how the victim, a 3rd-century Roman Briton, lived and, violently, died.
About My Father (2023) ★★★
Amazon Prime Video
Having appeared alongside Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, US comedian Sebastian Maniscalco ropes De Niro in to play his father in what is yet another mediocre comedy for the acting heavyweight. In Laura Terruso’s film, Maniscalco stars as a fictionalised version of himself who takes his Italian immigrant father to meet his fiancée’s (Leslie Bibb) very wealthy family. The usual fish-out-water japes ensue.
It Always Rains on Sunday (1947, b/w) ★★★★
Talking Pictures TV, 6pm
In Robert Hamer’s manhunt drama from 1947, set on the seamy streets of Bethnal Green in east London, Googie Withers plays an ex-barmaid whose former fiancé (John McCallum), a handsome hoodlum, breaks out of Dartmoor and arrives demanding refuge – she must conceal him from her family. A terrific atmosphere is built through Douglas Slocombe’s cinematography and Georges Auric’s score.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) ★★★★★
BBC One, 10.40pm
This superb adaptation of John le Carré’s brilliant Cold War spy novel is a triumph. It follows the hunt for a Soviet double agent at the top of the British secret service, with Gary Oldman spearheading the excellent cast which includes Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt and Benedict Cumberbatch. Funny, seductive and suspenseful, director Tomas Alfredson captures scenes with silky fluidity.
Thursday 11 January
Robson Green and Tom Brittney in Grantchester
Credit: ITV
Grantchester
ITV1, 9pm
Tom Brittney begins his penultimate stint as Will Davenport, local vicar of East Anglia’s most murderous town, with tragedy striking among a familiar community. Bikers may be a bit rough and ready, but our two-wheeling reverend is proof that they are in fact salt-of-the-earth types – until one of them turns up dead following a charity race, that is. A neat dual narrative sees parenting issues mirrored in the case and Will’s personal life, while Geordie (Robson Green) is settling back into domestic bliss. Despite the latter’s age – as ever, his cultural points of reference are a few years out – and pressure from his superior (Michael D Xavier), retirement remains far from his thoughts.
While it may no longer be essential viewing, Grantchester remains a superior policier: a little too flinty and hard-edged to count as cosy crime, but never gruesome or gratuitous in its themes or visuals. In that sense, Leonard’s (Al Weaver) trajectory, as he opens a halfway house, continues to offer a fine example of how to address troubling issues with clarity and without compromise. And although the manner of Will’s departure remains a mystery, there are plenty of hints that it may not come of his own volition. GT
Your Dream Kitchen For Less
Channel 5, 7pm
Mark Millar begins this new series in Sidcup, assisting a couple who have £13,000 to spend on a new kitchen and bathroom, and another couple in Barnsley hoping to make £6,000 stretch to two new bathrooms.
Secret Life of the Safari Park
Channel 4, 8pm
Animals and their keepers offer a winning formula which shows no sign of losing its appeal, and these entertaining dispatches from Knowsley continue with two endangered Amur tigers under pressure to mate.
Darby and Joan
Drama, 8pm
Bryan Brown (Cocktail) is laconic retired cop Jack Darby and Greta Scacchi the restless widow Joan Kirkhope whose paths collide in the Outback: Darby is on the run from his past, Joan is in search of the truth behind her husband’s mysterious demise. Setting up a series of odd-couple murder mysteries, their first case involves a property dispute between four fellow retirees, including Peter “Shane from Neighbours” O’Brien and Kerry Armstrong. A lightly enjoyable showcase for its two stars offering thoughtful reflections on life in retirement.
Pharmacies: The New NHS Frontline? Tonight
ITV1, 8.30pm; STV, 10.45pm
An estimated eight pharmacies are closing a week, even as demand rises both from patients and a government expecting them to take on more of the NHS workload. Yet with many acting as a community hub, their importance extends beyond their medical role – Paul Brand assesses the prognosis.
The Madame Blanc Mysteries
Channel 5, 9pm
Midsomer Murders by way of the south of France, this latest instalment confronts Jean (Sally Lindsay) with a corpse, a fencing foil and a diamond cufflink. The solution is as knowingly arcane as ever.
Zuckerberg: King of the Metaverse
Sky Documentaries, 9pm
Nick Green’s excellent profile goes some way towards getting under the surface of the Facebook inventor – an opaque, unfathomably influential figure whose landmark creation is for some a panacea and for others a curse. With telling archive and interviews with Mark Zuckerberg’s peers, it picks apart his early years and rapid rise, through to the Senate hearings that shook his empire.
Fury (2014) ★★★★★
ITV4, 10pm
David Ayer’s study of the habits and habitats of the American killer male makes for an astonishing, stirring drama. We’re in Germany in 1945, and Sgt “Wardaddy” Collier (Brad Pitt, never better) and his team are grinding towards Berlin in a battered M4 Sherman tank. There’s no rescue mission and no dolled-up heroism on show here – just an agonising rumble from one close brush with death to the next. Shia LaBeouf and Logan Lerman co-star.
The Eyes of Orson Welles (2018) ★★★★★
BBC Four, 11.40pm
Citizen Kane, The Lady from Shanghai, Touch of Evil, Macbeth… never since has a director had such a colossal impact on Hollywood, nor a more perfect run of movies. Mark Cousins’s heartfelt love letter to Welles, the great director and equally acclaimed actor, avoids veering into standard biography territory and instead maps out Welles’s life through his drawings and paintings. It’s a personal tribute to a genius.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) ★★★★★
Film4, 11.40pm
Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos is a venomously funny, bourgeois-baiting absurdist – think Chris Morris by way of Luis Buñuel. Here, Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman play a happy husband and wife haunted by odd boy Martin (Barry Keoghan). For more Lanthimos, catch The Favourite on Wednesday (10.55pm) and The Lobster on Friday (1.25am); his new film Poor Things, with Emma Stone, is in cinemas from Friday.
Friday 12 January
Tinie explores more mega-houses
Credit: Chris Winter/Channel 4
Extraordinary Extensions
Channel 4, 8pm
Rapper turned property developer Tinie Tempah returns to present a second series of big houses becoming even bigger. Tonight he travels to Warwickshire to catch up with old friends John and Heather, who have retired after spending 46 years running a company that provided sound equipment for festivals. Now, they take on the biggest gig of their lives: the million-pound project of adding an underground swimming pool and spa extension to their mega-house.
It is an architecturally daunting prospect. The curved shape of their home resembles an open bracket, which means that all of their fittings and materials need to be meticulously designed. Take the enormous curved beam that must be lowered by crane and slotted into openings above the pool complex. It is a process fraught with risk: not least the high winds delaying the procedure at a cost of £1,000 a day. “It is like Ikea self-assembly on steroids,” says John, who concedes “that there is obviously a reason they build houses square.” The results are ultimately worth the effort. Yet with the couple going wildly over budget, the same perhaps cannot be said for the state of their bank accounts. SK
Would I Lie To You?
BBC One, 8pm
Is Charlie Brooker lying about being cryogenically frozen after his death? It certainly sounds true. The Black Mirror creator features tonight alongside comedian Shaparak Khorsandi, professor Hannah Fry and McFly’s Danny Jones. Yet it is team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack (can he solve a Rubik’s cube in under a minute?) who keeps the show singing.
Cruising with Susan Calman
Channel 5, 8pm
The comedian travels further than ever before to the tropical islands of French Polynesia in the South Pacific. She snorkels in the crystal clear (but shark infested) waters of Fakarava, learns about black pearls on Rangiroa and gets caught in a tropical storm off the coast of Tahiti.
Amanda & Alan’s Italian Job
BBC One, 8.30pm
Sassy best friends Alan Carr and Amanda Holden continue their ambitious quest to renovate a dilapidated Tuscan house. Tonight they turn their attention to the dining room. For a colour scheme, Carr is thinking the soothing tones of duck egg; Holden thinks he means the edible type.
Beat the Chasers: Celebrity Special
ITV1, 9pm
Alexander Armstrong takes a short walk to The Chase studio tonight for a celebrity edition of Beat the Chasers. “It’s like if Pointless won the lottery,” he says, awed by the grandiose decor. Joining him against the “monsters of Mensa” are England goalkeeper Mary Earps and comedians Chris McCausland and Nish Kumar. Bradley Walsh hosts.
8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
Channel 4, 9pm
The long-running panel show, hosted by the honking Jimmy Carr, returns with Lee Mack and Jon Richardson in the captain chairs. The latter comes prepared with a fun, if laboured riff on the musical Cats. Joining them are Munya Chawawa and Harriet Kemsley.
The Canary Islands with Jane McDonald
Channel 5, 9pm
Susan Calman is not the only one island hopping tonight. Jane McDonald continues her Canary Islands odyssey with a trip to Gran Canaria, which offers a wealth of beautiful sea views and travelogue-friendly activities. She jet skis, she enjoys tapas, she plays golf, she visits some local beach artists and finds herself sculpted out of sand. All good, envy-inducing fun.
Lift (2023)
Netflix
Probably not one for the nervous flyers among us, director F Gary Gray brings his usual fast pace (shown in previous films Law Abiding Citizen and Straight Outta Compton) to this high-altitude, if not exactly intellectual, thriller. Kevin Hart leads a rag-tag gang of international criminals who are tasked with preventing a terrorist attack. How? They must take to the skies and complete a heist aboard a flight. As expected, it’s hardly a straightforward mission.
Gilda (1946, b/w) ★★★★★
Talking Pictures TV, 6.30pm
Examples of film noir don’t come much headier than Charles Vidor’s sultry little number, about a two-bit gambler (Glenn Ford) in wartime Buenos Aires who gets snarled up in a deadly, bisexual love triangle. Rita Hayworth, cavorting in her most iconic role, is the vixen from Ford’s past, who pops up right on cue to marry his new employer, a casino owner played with velvet-fist suavity by George Macready.
Late Night (2019) ★★★
BBC Three, 10pm
Emma Thompson’s jaded talk-show host Katherine Newbury should be reminiscent of Meryl Streep’s fire-breathing magazine editor in The Devil Wears Prada, but she winds up overshadowed by plucky American comedian Mindy Kaling (The Office). The former decides to hire the latter as her first full-time female writer; not realising they have very, very different ideas about work and womanhood. Nisha Ganatra directs.
Thelma & Louise (1991) ★★★★★
BBC One, 11.30pm
Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon star as the school friends who decide to go on a long trip in this Oscar-winning buddy film, the doyenne of the road movie genre, whose final scene is now iconic – and for good reason. Thelma is the dowdy housewife, Louise the naive free spirit, but the real star is director Ridley Scott, who gives his characters freedom while at the same time winding them into a taut plot. It doesn’t get better than this.
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