What’s on TV tonight: Dame Judi and Jay, Team GB Homecoming, Britten’s War Requiem and more

Sunday 18 August

Dame Judi and Jay: The Odd Couple
Channel 4, 9pm
“Now I know what you’re thinking,” says Jay Blades, stepping over an “I’ve been expecting you, Mr Bond” doormat, “‘Why is Jay Blades, who fixes furniture on the telly, around the home of Britain’s best loved actor, Dame Judi Dench?’” He’s not wrong. The answer is that the two have become the best of unlikely friends since Dench’s appearance on The Repair Shop in 2022. Hence this charmingly sweet special in which the odd couple take to the road to learn more about each other’s very different backgrounds.

Blades begins by inviting Dench to his beloved east London, where the veteran thespian takes on her most challenging role yet: selling fruit at the local market. Dench takes Blades to the Old Vic theatre, where she made her professional debut as Ophelia in Hamlet. There is a poignant moment where an emotional Dench recites Sonnet 29 and Blades – who is severely dyslexic – returns the favour by conquering “To be, or not to be”. Their friendship is certainly unusual, but warm and genuine too. “You’re 89,” says Blades at one point. Dench, in mock outrage, splutters: “Don’t say that, cut!” It turns out she doesn’t want to be called “mature”, she wants to be a “bird”. SK

The Secret World of Children
Channel 5, 7pm 
This delightful two-part experiment follows a diverse group of children, aged between 9 and 10, as they navigate the world without adult supervision. Tonight, for instance, they are tasked with helping out at a sweet shop and ordering from a fancy restaurant. 

Faye
Sky Documentaries, 7pm
Network and Chinatown actress Faye Dunaway is a bona fide Hollywood star. Yet this entertaining portrait doesn’t shy away from her reputation for being “difficult”. Dunaway talks candidly about how her struggles with bipolar disorder have led to erratic behaviour on set; she also insists that it may be the reason why she is such a ferociously raw actor. 

Britten’s War Requiem 
BBC Four, 8pm
Benjamin Britten’s haunting magnum opus, the War Requiem, is performed by Antonio Pappano’s London Symphony Orchestra, as well as the London Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Chorus and the Tiffin Boys’ Choir. It’s followed by repeats of documentaries Britten’s War Requiem: Staging a Masterpiece (9.30pm) and Benjamin Britten on Camera (10.30pm). 

Team GB Homecoming
BBC One, 8.30pm
Emma Willis and Vernon Kay host this night welcoming back Team GB athletes from the Paris Olympics. Filmed last night at the AO Arena in Manchester, there are performances from Rag’n’Bone Man, Clean Bandit and Pete Tong. Rappers Krept and Konan are also set to perform a song championing female Olympic trailblazers from the past 100 years. 

The Body Next Door 
Sky Documentaries, 9pm
The second part of this extraordinary true-crime documentary focuses on the five secret children abandoned in New Zealand by Leigh Sabine, the deceased elderly “eccentric” suspected of murder. It is a staggering portrait of selfishness and cruelty. The story of son Steven, who has never spoken publicly about his wretched childhood, is particularly affecting. 

The Other Mrs Jordan
ITV1, 10.15pm
Last week this jaw-dropping documentary detailed how wife Mary was deceived by husband, bigamist and conman William Allen Jordan. As she recalls tonight, though, she was only the tip of the iceberg. Jordan had in fact been juggling multiple partners and families. No wonder, observes Mary, he was always exhausted. 

Strangers on a Train (1951, b/w) ★★★★
BBC Two, 12.20pm  
Two men (Farley Granger and Robert Walker) meet on a train heading out of Washington. Both are itching to get rid of a troublesome relation, so they decide to hatch a murder scheme. If the fear factor is not quite as deft as it would prove to be in Hitchcock’s later films, it is nevertheless riveting, as is his dual manipulation of sympathy and surprise. For more Hitchcock, Psycho follows at 10pm.

Marley & Me (2008) ★★★
ITV1, 12.35pm  
David Frankel’s tear-jerking romcom, based on John Grogan’s autobiography, follows a pair of newlywed journalists (Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston) who move to Florida and pursue jobs at rival papers. To better ease them into family life they buy a hard-to-control labrador, Marley. Remembered mostly for its ability to have you sobbing into a clutch of tissues, this is a decent watch for the whole family, dog-lovers or not.

The Mask (1994) ★★★★
BBC One, 4.30pm  
The film that cementedJim Carrey’s reputation as a towering comedy presence tells the story of Stanley Ipkiss, a bank clerk who becomes a manic superhero when he puts on a magical green mask. Packed full of classic cartoonish moments and physical riffs that showcase Carrey’s comedy at its peak, Chuck Russell’s eclectic, family friendly flick also established Cameron Diaz’s career as a Hollywood leading lady. 

Blade Runner 2049 (2017) ★★★★★
BBC One, 11.30pm  
In a way that distinguishes it from Ridley Scott’s original, this sequel mulls the meatiest questions around: do life’s currents run deeper than the things we can see, hear and touch? Director Denis Villeneuve (Dune) maps out one of the most visually spectacular and staggering blockbusters of our time, as LAPD Officer K (a brilliantly nuanced, chilling turn from Ryan Gosling) learns of a secret that could plunge society into chaos.

Monday 19 August

We Might Regret This
BBC Two, 10pm; NI, 11.05pm
BBC comedy is enjoying something of a grown-up moment. Only a week after David Morrissey and Aimee Lou Wood’s excellent Daddy Issues, comes another top-class offering featuring a man negotiating a midlife crisis in the company of a much smarter younger woman. The pairing here is lawyer Abe (Darren Boyd), who’s recently begun living with his girlfriend, the Canadian tetraplegic artist and model Freya (Kyla Harris, co-creator with Lee Getty). With their privacy already compromised by Freya’s need for a 24-hour live-in carer – a situation graphically illustrated in the opening scene – the arrival on their doorstep of Freya’s chaotic best friend Jo (Elena Saurel), seeking somewhere to stay, does not bode well.

Among the heavy themes handled – grief and depression, alongside living with disability – Freya and Jo’s spiky, sparky relationship provides much of the laughs and best exemplifies the firecracker quality of the writing and acting (be warned, some of the humour is very near the knuckle, especially around the more intimate necessities of tetraplegic care). The superb cast includes Sally Phillips, Tim Key, Aasiya Shah and Ed Bluemel. GO

Neighbours
Amazon Prime Video
A week of high drama awaits as a group of Ramsay Street residents head into the Outback and – if the Neighbours press bulletin headline “Death in the Outback” Week is to be believed – not all of them return. With veteran series actor Ryan Moloney already confirmed to be leaving the show, could this spell a nasty end for Toadfish? 

The Answer Run
BBC One, 4.30pm 
A new quiz show in which competitors face torrents of questions, answering against the clock, to build up cash pots for the big-money final round. Jason Manford is your host.  

The Kingdom: The World’s Most Powerful Prince
BBC Two, 9pm
Making Succession look like child’s play, this two-part documentary follows the Machiavellian rise of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman from minor royal to the country’s de facto ruler. Tonight’s opener traces how, since his early twenties, “MBS” ruthlessly outmanoeuvred and swept aside the many powerful figures who stood between him and the throne.  

Merseyside Detectives: The Murders of Ashley and Olivia
Channel 4, 9pm
The senseless shooting of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel and 29-year-old Ashley Dale within two days in Liverpool in 2022 shocked Britain. As one police officer says here, the murders “took things to a new level” in the city. This gripping four-part documentary (continuing tomorrow) tracks the intensive Merseyside Police investigation that eventually brought the culprits to justice. 

Slavery at Sea
BBC Two, 11.05pm; NI, 11.35pm
A grim report following a three-year investigation by BBC Scotland’s Disclosure strand into modern slavery aboard UK fishing vessels. Reporter Chris Clements hears from migrant workers who thought that they were coming to Britain for a better life, only to find hardship and misery at the hands of an international illegal-exploitation network. 

The Flight Attendant Murders
Channel 4, 12.50am
Yet more true crime in a documentary series re-examining the murders of four Texan air stewardesses in the 1970s and 1980s, and questioning whether the wrong man was jailed for their deaths. Featuring interviews with friends, family, police and journalists, as well as the man convicted, all four parts air overnight. 

Bagdad Cafe (1987) ★★★★
Talking Pictures TV, 11.25pm  
Inspired by Carson McCullers’s novella The Ballad of the Sad Café, Percy Adlon’s sunny comedy centres on German tourist Jasmin (Marianne Sägebrecht), who leaves her husband behind after an argument in the Californian desert and storms off to the Bagdad Cafe, where she forges a surprising friendship with the outpost’s moody owner (CCH Pounder). Jack Palance co-stars.

Daddio (2024) ★★★★
Sky Cinema Premiere, 11.50pm  
Director Christy Hall (who wrote the script for current box-office smash hit It Ends With Us) crafts a tender portrait of love and loss in NYC in this Lost in Translation-esque drama. Dakota Johnson plays a young woman who, upon returning to Manhattan from a trip, shares a candid conversation with her taxi driver (Sean Penn) about their past relationships and future hopes. 

The Levelling (2016) ★★★★★
BBC Two, 12.05am  
Hope Dickson Leach’s slow-burning drama is a beautiful, introspective portrait of a young woman. When Clove Catto (Game of Thrones’s Ellie Kendrick), a vet in training, is told that her brother Harry has killed himself, she returns to the idyllic Somerset farm where she grew up. A reckoning with her difficult father (David Troughton) ensues. The landscape, the atmosphere and Kendrick herself are all magnificent.

Tuesday 20 August

Saving Lives in Cardiff
BBC Two/BBC One Wales, 9pm
Last year Saving Lives in Leeds took us behind the scenes of an NHS hospital, with a focus on the enormous waiting lists that loom over doctors and surgeons. This six-part sequel series picks up that thread at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. In neurosurgery, for instance, almost 200 people are waiting for life-saving procedures. Tonight, consultant George Eralil prioritises the endearingly upbeat 19-year-old Chelsea, whose extremely rare brain tumour resides close to areas that control her speech and ability to walk. The operation is exceptionally difficult and its risks haunt Eralil, who is crushingly aware of the power that he holds in his hands. 

The desperate state of the NHS is writ large in the vascular department, which treats life-threatening conditions caused by diseased blood vessels. Surgeon Lewis Meecham has a waiting list of 78. He arrives on a morning set to perform three procedures. However, a flood of emergency cases means that he must cancel all but one. “This is a perfect example of how the NHS runs every single day,” he says, dejected. “If I knew it was getting better it’d be fine but I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.” SK

Celebrity MasterChef
BBC One, 8pm
Facing the second heat this week are former EastEnders star Danielle Harold, actress Rochenda Sandall, comedian Eshaan Akbar, Love Island’s Chloe Burrows and Gladiator Harry Aikines-Aryeetey (aka Nitro). At the same time over on ITV1, Cooking with the Stars tasks quarter-finalists Carol Vorderman, Linford Christie and Ellie Simmonds with serving up a family favourite dish.  

Secrets of the London Underground
U&Yesterday, 8pm 
This week the ever-amiable rail historian Tim Dunn finds himself in Stockwell station in south London, where he explores the remnants of a deep-level bomb shelter used during the Second World War. Meanwhile, his partner-in-ferroequinology Siddy Holloway visits the depot for the Docklands Light Railway to learn about a new technology which can alert staff to passengers on the tracks.

Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams On Tour
BBC One/BBC Two Wales, 9pm 
Flintoff is settling into his role as father figure to his rag-tag cricket team. Take the heart-to-heart he shares in this second episode with Afghan refugee Adnan, who is struggling to adjust to life on tour in India. Or the moment he is moved to tears by Ben’s heartfelt speech to schoolchildren. 

Warship: Life in the Royal Navy 
Channel 5, 9pm 
JJ Chalmers and Julia Bradbury seek out more naval stories. But tonight features an extraordinary segment in which Rob Bell spends four days aboard HMS Trenchant, one of the UK’s nuclear submarines. It’s tense TV. At one point the crew are forced to dive to evade a foreign warship; while Bell also witnesses a test drill for a nuclear launch. 

Country House Auction
More4, 9pm 
It is not the size of the painting that matters, but the stature of the painter. The auction room’s biggest lot this week is a postcard-sized painting by Constable. Elsewhere, cabinet-maker Kieran fixes up a 19th-century boules table ready for sale. 

Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World?
BBC Four, 10pm  
It is rare to watch a polished series with such high-profile interviewees, which simmers with such rage. This distressing episode on the Rwandan genocide details how diplomatic cables forewarning the horror were ignored by the US state department. 

Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017) ★★★★
Film4, 4.35pm  
This not-so-cuddly biopic (not to be confused with Disney’s 2018 Ewan McGregor-led tear-jerker Christopher Robin) reveals the sadness behind Winnie-the-Pooh – a broken family – and suggests that the idyll depicted in the books was a momentary respite from their trauma. Domhnall Gleeson and Margot Robbie star as AA Milne and his wife, Dorothy, while Will Tilston is a delight as their young son, Christopher.

The Thirty-Nine Steps (1978) ★★★
Talking Pictures TV, 4.55pm  
Hitchcock’s may be regarded as the best, but this third film version of John Buchan’s 1915 novel is the one that sticks the closest to the text. Brimming with twists and turns, it stars Robert Powell as spy-catcher Richard Hannay. The final scene, in which Hannay dangles from the hands of Big Ben, is excellent; Powell later reprised his role in the 1988 TV series Hannay.

Boiling Point (2021) ★★★★
Film4, 9pm  
Before the brilliant 2023 TV mini-series came this simmering kitchen drama from director Philip Barantini. Filmed in one frantic, continuous shot, Boiling Point follows Stephen Graham’s spiralling head chef Andy as he (unsuccessfully) tries to keep it all together. Jason Flemyng is terrific in support as Andy’s villainous ex-boss, chasing past debts, while Alice Feetham grips as a hapless hostess.

Wednesday 21 August

Ukraine 1933, Seeds of Hunger
PBS America, 8.35pm
This harrowing documentary film shines a light on one of the most tragic events in Ukraine’s history. In 1933, Welsh journalist Gareth Jones was smuggled into the country to report on the famine (or “Holodomor”) orchestrated by Joseph Stalin that resulted in the deaths of four million people. Stalin, intent on keeping Ukraine in line, had confiscated crops from farmers as a way of punishing the rural dwellers brave enough to defy communism, leaving millions to starve. 

The documentary details how Jones, upon returning home to the UK, desperately tried to get authorities and the government to intervene in what was occuring in the Soviet Union; but Stalin’s propaganda machine and far-reaching power prevented him from succeeding. Using previously unpublished archive footage and photographs, Soviet films and clips from Jones’s own work, Seeds of Hunger offers significant insight to the cause and consequences of one of the world’s most horrific humanitarian disasters. It makes for timely viewing given the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia, and debates about Vladimir Putin’s government’s role in hiding evidence of its wrongdoings. PP

The Repair Shop
BBC One, 8pm
Everyone knows that The Repair Shop is more about the weepy backstories than the antiques, and tonight’s episode is no different. Jay Blades and the team are tasked with fixing a dictaphone once owned by Anglo-Russian author William Gerhardie – by his godson, Sebastian – that contains a recording unheard for 80 years, while elsewhere on the restoration list is a sentimental stuffed cat and a broken fruit bowl.

Celebrity Race Across the World
BBC One, 9pm
The celebrity pairings – Kelly Brook and her husband Jeremy, Ted Lasso’s Kola Bokinni and his cousin Mary, radio host Scott Mills and his husband Sam, and presenter Jeff Brazier and son Freddy – race further towards their Chilean endpoint, departing the Brazilian beach town of Canoa Quebrada to take on the vast oasis of the Chapada Diamantina National Park.

Irvine Welsh’s Crime
ITV1, 9pm
In this penultimate episode of series two, Dougray Scott’s grizzled DI Ray Lennox ramps up the search for the killer wreaking terror on Edinburgh after they target one of his own team. Could the clue to their motives lie in a case from 1992? It concludes on Thursday.

Tom Davis: Underdog
Sky Comedy, 9pm
A 2023 stand-up special from the London comedian, best known for hit comedies King Gary and Murder in Successville, riffing on everything from leaving school with zero qualifications to life and banter on a building site, and fatherhood. 

To the Manor Born
BBC Two, 10pm; not NI/Wales
Shown as part of BBC Two’s current classic sitcom season, a repeat of the final episode of Peter Spence and Christopher Bond’s aristo-satire. Audrey’s (Penelope Keith) long-held dreams of regaining control of the family manor (and Peter Bowles’s Richard’s affections) are offered a lifeline by the death of a wealthy relative.

Untold: Can I Own A Home in My Twenties?
Channel 4, 12.05pm
Huge deposits, sky-high mortgage rates, unpredictable employment... Home ownership is a pipe dream for many young people, but as reporter Daisy Maskell finds in this one-off doc, it’s not impossible. She meets twentysomethings building property portfolios despite the housing crisis. 

Bob Marley: One Love (2024) ★★★
Paramount+  
We’ve become accustomed to slick but surface-level musical biopics: Back to Black, Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman. Unfortunately, Reinaldo Marcus Green’s ode to reggae hero Bob Marley doesn’t fare much better, despite a gorgeous lead performance from Kingsley Ben-Adir. Greenlit by Marley’s children and widow, the story covers everything from assassination attempts to gigs and romances.

Scarygirl (2023) ★★★★
Sky Cinema Premiere, 4.30pm  
Think of Ricard Cussó and Tania Vincent’s vivid animation as a lighter (and more child -friendly) take on the Gothic themes explored in Coraline and Coco. To save her father from mad scientist Dr Maybe (voiced by Sam Neill), and prevent her planet’s destruction, a young girl (Jillian Nguyen) overcomes her fears to travel to a mysterious city of light. Tim Minchin voices fellow baddie Chihoohoo.

Snowpiercer (2013) ★★★★★
ITV4, 9pm  
South Korean director Bong Joon-ho became a critical darling after the 2020 Academy Awards, where he won Best Picture and Best Director with his searing class satire Parasite. Snowpiercer, his first English-language film, is a superbly paced masterpiece set in a post-apocalyptic ice age, as a train stratified by social class endlessly circles the globe. Tilda Swinton, Chris Evans and Octavia Spencer are all dazzling.

Thursday 22 August

Michael Mosley: Wonders of the Human Body
Channel 5, 8pm
Michael Mosley completed this medical science series shortly before his tragic death earlier this year. His wife, Dr Clare Bailey, wanted it to be broadcast, saying how one of her late husband’s “biggest passions was to reveal the extraordinary secrets of how our bodies work”. To that end, as fans of the presenter’s work have come to expect, he puts his own body under the microscope to help viewers to understand theirs. There are poignant moments as we see Mosley undergoing various tests to help to prolong a healthy life when we know that, ultimately, the randomness of the universe can sometimes decide our fate.

In the first of three episodes, Mosley meets Thomas, who is about to undergo pioneering brain surgery to alleviate his tremors, and Allen, who finds out if his experimental cancer treatment has been a success. Mosley also looks into the benefits of cold-water swimming and gamely takes a dip in a freezing pool. As ever he explains complicated science in relatable terms – describing the build-up of plaque in coronary arteries: “Think of this as the pipes in your house getting clogged up.” VL

Guiltology/How to Rob a Bank
U
Two very watchable US true-crime series – both boxsetted – land today on streaming service U (formerly UKTV Play). Guiltology describes how developments in DNA technology allow detectives to revisit cold cases, some decades old. The series opens with a burglary/homicide where DNA tests deliver a shocking revelation to the investigators. In How to Rob a Bank, felons describe their audacious get-rich-quick crimes – some of the 14 bank robberies committed each day in the States. First up is a security guard for whom temptation became too much.

Who Do You Think You Are?
BBC One, 9pm
Rarely can a participant in this show have known so little about their antecedents as presenter Paddy McGuinness, but researchers help him uncover his family’s Irish connections – and reveal that both his grandfathers served in wars, decades and continents apart.

The Trial of Harold Shipman
Channel 5, 9pm
Perhaps the most frightening thing about serial-killer GP Harold Shipman is that he might have gotten away with it – his victims were frail or elderly, or both, so their deaths did not arouse immediate suspicion. This fascinating one-off uses trial transcripts, reconstruction and interviews to examine how the prosecution made its case at trial.

The Walking Dead: Dead City
Sky Max, 9pm
The sprawling zombie universe expands with a fourth spin-off series. Picking up after the main series finale, it follows Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) as they head to Manhattan, which is cut off from the mainland, and has zombie hordes around every corner.

Hitchcock at the NFT
BBC Four, 9.35pm
This interview by fellow director Bryan Forbes – first broadcast in 1969 and featuring clips from Hitchcock’s movies – anchors the channel’s Hitchcock evening. It’s preceded by Strangers on a Train at 8pm, and followed by Psycho at 10.35pm. Scene by Scene: Janet Leigh rounds things off at 12.20am.

Rosie Jones’ Disability Extravaganza
U&Dave, 10pm
Comedian and disability campaigner Rosie Jones returns with a third series (boxsetted) of her comedy showcase. All the acts joining her have a disability and tonight’s line-up includes Jonny Pelham, Lara Ricote and Tim Renkow. 

Secret Life of Orangutans (2024)
Netflix  
Narrated by David Attenborough, this inevitably stunning nature film follows a group of orangutans living in the jungles of Sumatra. We meet eight-year-old Eden, who is about to face the biggest challenge of her life, as well as cute Rakus, who was the first wild animal to be filmed treating a wound with a medicinal herb. Expertly shot by Huw Cordey, this is an engrossing window into a species not entirely unlike our own.

Barbarian (2022) ★★★★
Film4, 9pm  
Director Zach Cregger’s frighteningly tense, craftily structured film is one of this decade’s finest horror-thrillers. Tess (Georgina Campbell) arrives at an Airbnb in Detroit to find another guest (Bill Skarsgård) has already checked in. With nowhere else to go, she decides to stay the night – and soon discovers it’s not just the two of them who are home. The murderous Mother (Matthew Patrick Davis) will leave your hairs on end.

Never Say Never Again (1983) ★★★
ITV1, 10.45pm  
Sean Connery’s final turn as James Bond is packed with swagger and stylish action sequences, even if the plot is a bit wishy-washy. After a failed training mission, M (Edward Fox) becomes convinced that 007 is past his prime, and suspends him. But when Fatima Bush (Barbara Carrera) and her gang of terrorists steal two nukes from the US, M must do whatever it takes to get Bond back on board. 

Friday 23 August

Pachinko
Apple TV+
Viewers coming fresh to season two of Apple TV+’s powerful adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s sprawling novel – about a Korean family’s multi-generational struggles (largely against racism) in Japan – and hoping to pick up the story, would be best advised not to even try. Just go back to the beginning. Too much has already happened and the time-jumping storyline – which leaps erratically from 1945 Osaka to 1980s New York and points in between – doesn’t make allowances for anyone struggling to keep up. It helps that series one is superb.

The opening episode picks up exactly where season one’s finale left off, with the impoverished Baek family facing more pain and prejudice in a wartime Japan that’s slowly coming to terms with the inevitability of losing the fight against America. Following her husband’s incarceration, heroine Sunja (Minha Kim) is forced to make decisions that push her, and her sister, to the edge of criminality to feed their children. Two generations on, ambitious fund manager Solomon (Jin Ha), struggling to get backers for a new venture in the wake of his dismissal, is buoyed by an offer of investment from an old friend. But is it all it seems? Top-class drama. GO

Dating Naked UK
Paramount+
Sun, sea and skinny-dipping, anyone? Pitched as a “jaw-dropping, drawer-dropping new series”, this Naked Attraction meets Love Island mash-up follows 10 British singletons spending time holidaying together in the buff, to see whether sparks fly. Rylan hosts – clothed. 

Mozart, Mendelssohn and A Midsummer Night’s Dream
BBC Four, 8pm
A Proms concert by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and National Youth Choir of Scotland. As well as Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the programme features Mel Bonis’s Salome and Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto with soloist Anthony McGill.

Brian May: The Badgers, the Farmers and Me
BBC Two, 9pm
For years the Queen guitarist has been leading a campaign to stop badgers from being “scapegoated” in the fight against bovine TB. Some 230,000 badgers have been culled since 2011 without any reduction in rates of the disease. In this eye-opening documentary, May points an accusing finger at the government’s “grossly inefficient” TB testing regime and meets farmers to make the case for a new method of TB control. A night of Queen-themed repeats follows on BBC Four.

Champions: Full Gallop
ITV1, 9pm
In the final edition of the horse-racing series, as the season nears its close, a three-way sprint for the Trainers’ Championship title opens between reigning champion Paul Nicholls, his protégé Dan Skelton and Irish trainer Willie Mullins. 

The Big Fat Quiz of Telly
Channel 4, 9pm 
What did The Mandalorian’s Pedro Pascal ask fans to stop doing? What got Nigella Lawson’s viewers tittering in 2020? Babatunde Aléshé, Daisy May Cooper, siblings Natasia and Jamie Demetriou, Judi Love and Russell Howard compete to see who knows the most about television.

Marilyn: The Movie Star Who Changed the World
Channel 5, 10pm
Marilyn Monroe’s stardom may have dimmed in recent years but it remains bright enough for her still to be a household name 62 years after her death, aged 36, in 1962. This generous profile features rarely seen video and audio interviews with Monroe as well as archive contributions from people who knew her at the peak of her fame. 

Migration (2023) ★★★★
Sky Cinema Premiere, 6pm  
This perky animation from the ever-inventive Illumination (Despicable Me) will have the whole family howling with laughter (the script is by Mike “White Lotus” White after all). Two New England ducklings crave adventure but are held back by their timid dad (voiced by Kumail Nanjiani) and uncle (Danny DeVito). However, thanks to some cajoling from the ducklings’ mum (Elizabeth Banks), the family decide to embark on a journey to Jamaica.

The Italian Job (1969) ★★★★★
Film4, 6.55pm  
Is there a film that delivers a greater infusion of pure joy than The Italian Job? The cast of this chirpily patriotic movie is led by the peerless Michael Caine, who plays Charlie Croker, a disconcertingly friendly criminal who inherits a daring plan to rob the Fiat factory in Turin by causing the world’s largest traffic jam. Noël Coward co-stars as the urbane crime lord Mr Bridger; Peter Collinson directs with bags of wit and vibrancy.

Calendar Girls (2003) ★★★★
BBC One, 10.40pm  
This gentle, eye-moistening comedy is based on the true story of a group of Women’s Institute members in Yorkshire who raised money for leukaemia research by posing naked for a charity calendar. Helen Mirren, Julie Walters and Celia Imrie are among the women stripping off (well, more or less: certain body parts are always obscured by tea cups, cream buns and the like). Jam-packed with British talent and stunning scenery to boot.

Defiance (2008) ★★★
BBC Two, 12.05am  
Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell star as the Bielski brothers, three Jews who escaped from Nazi-occupied Poland and helped to form a partisan army in the wild forests of Belarus. As well as fighting tooth-and-nail, their aim is to rescue people from the ghettos – but those objectives may not be compatible. Edward Zwick’s direction is crude and moralistic, but it’s saved by the excellent acting from the talented leads.

Television previewers

Stephen Kelly (SK), Veronica Lee (VL), Gerard O’Donovan (GO), Poppie Platt (PP) and Gabriel Tate (GT)