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Once More With Meaning RTE Player, until June 29 Does Gay Byrne believe in God the Almighty and life after death? That’s a question we still can’t answer, after 13 series of his remarkable TV show The Meaning of Life.

When I asked him, some months ago, what he would say to God at the Pearly Gates, if and when he gets there, his answer was a delighted: “I’m not going to tell you. I’m not prepared to disclose my position on this question because it would inhibit anybody I might be going to interview, if they know how I feel about all of these things. They would censor their answers.”

To celebrate his 60 years in broadcasting, Once More with Meaning gives us a chance to look back over clips from the nearly 10 years of the show’s span — Gay in conversation with a variety of public figures, everyone from Bono to Michael Parkinson, many of whom are extraordinarily forthcoming.

Nudged along by Gay’s careful questions, these celebrities and artists tackle the toughest questions of all: the many whys of life. They reminisce about personal tragedies and losses, and speculate about what might come next, who they might meet and, fundamentally, what is the point of it all. No one has the answers, obviously, but to watch them wonder is mesmerising.

Red Riding Channel4.com, episodes 1-3 This excellent three-part adaptation of David Peace’s cult noir Red Riding novels was made in 2009, and bears plenty of watching or re-watching. The episodes are set in 1974, 1980 and 1983 against a backdrop of violent serial murders spanning the same period, including the Yorkshire Ripper killings. The films and characters are fictional, although they mirror many of the facts, theories and conspiracies of the time, and track various threads of police and political corruption, and organised crime. Starring Sean Bean (left), Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan and Maxine Peake, this is gripping stuff.