DRAMA

BBC1 Huw Edwards will be the Beeb’s late anchor CHANNEL 4 Paxo is doing things his own way SKY NEWS Sophy Ridge ITV NEWS Anchors Tom and Julie SKY ATLANTIC, 9pm

Oprah Winfrey doesn’t take on many acting roles – but when she does, she knows how to grab our attention.

And the 63-year-old talk show host, actress and producer gives a powerhouse performance in this extraordinary true story.

Henrietta Lacks was a poor AfricanAmerican tobacco farmer, whose cancerous cells – taken without her knowledge in 1951 – became one of the most important tools in medicine. The cells were the source of the HeLa cell BBC1, 9.55pm ITV, 9.55pm Channel 4, 9pm Sky News, 9pm

AFTER going out and voting for your favoured political party another big decision awaits – which side will you choose to give you the result?

line (derived from Lacks’ name) – an invaluable source of research.

But Henrietta’s name was virtually unknown, and her descendants couldn’t even afford health insurance to benefit from the changes to medicine that she brought about.

Oprah stars as Lacks’ daughter Deborah who, with the help of a journalist Rebecca Skloot (played by Rose Byrne), decides to tell her mother’s story. It’s Deborah’s heartbreaking search for the truth about the mother she barely knew, and the unauthorised harvesting of her cells which changed the course of medical history.