Top TV Picks
Miriam Margolyes: Almost Australian
BBC Two Friday
The Oxford-born actress, who became an Australian citizen six years ago, embarks on a 10,000km drive around the country discovering more about the place she can now call home. Starting in Bondi, she meets up with an estate agent who reveals the prosperous migrant market. Heading west, Miriam is disturbed to discover that there is a growing number of women who can’t afford a home in retirement, now making up the fastest growing number of homeless in the country. With most of eastern Australia in the grip of severe drought, Miriam heads to the country town of Trundle, to see the repercussions for herself.
Skeletons of the Mary Rose: The New Evidence Channel 4, Saturday
Scientists and historians use isotope and DNA analysis to identify the crew of Henry VIII's flagship, which sank off the coast of Portsmouth in 1545.
With the help of Mary Rose Trust curator Alex Hildred, the programme uncovers evidence that many of the sailors were of African origin, and traces surviving descendants of the only two members of the crew who can be identified by name. Plus, the little-known story of a 16th-century Guinean free-diver who retrieved several treasures from the wreck.
Sicario
Channel 4, Saturday
An FBI agent is recruited to join an elite government task force based on the border between the US and Mexico, charged with preventing drugs being smuggled into the country. The team is sent on a secret mission, and the new recruit is forced to question everything she believes in order to survive. Crime drama, starring Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro
A Suitable Boy
BBC One, Saturday
In a newly independent India in 1951, passionate literature student Lata Mehra is looking towards her own future as she sets out to make her way in the world. She is not interested in romance, but her resolve is challenged when she starts to fall for a mysterious fellow student Kabir Durrani. Meanwhile, religious tensions mount between
Muslims and Hindus in the wake of Partition, as India’s first national democratic election approaches. Andrew Davies’ adaptation of Vikram Seth’s novel, starring Tanya Maniktala
Anthony
BBC One, Monday
In July 2005, 18-year-old Anthony Walker was murdered by two white men in an unprovoked racist attack in a Liverpool park.
Jimmy McGovern’s drama imagines what life may have held for Anthony if the teenager had not been killed, with the reverse chronology seeing him realise his dreams and enjoy the life he had a right to before fate – and hate – took it all away. Toheeb Jimoh stars.