THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF BYRON by Emily Brand 368pp, John Murray, £10.99

BBC Two, from 8pm

A thoroughly researched, juicily readable account of how the poet Byron’s ancestors drank and spent their way from being respected courtiers to penurious disgraces.

AMERICAN DIRT by Jeanine Cummins 480pp, Tinder, £8.99

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Though it faced a backlash for its “white” perspective, Cummins’s propulsive novel about a mother and son fleeing from Mexico to the United States, pursued by a drug kingpin, cannily wraps up social issues in a heart-stopping thriller.

If we must have repeats (and it seems we must, especially on Saturday nights, due to the pandemic-depleting TV production), then it’s only polite to dress them up with a theme. And what a feast of a theme this is: a trio of uplifting triumphs from the late queen of comedy.

Victoria Wood:

A Bafta Tribute at 8pm, is the appetiser, with friends, collaborators and admirers (among them Julie Walters, Peter Kay and Dawn French) celebrating Wood’s career in laughter with some hilarious clips and anecdotes. Victoria Wood: At It Again, at 9pm, offers the maincourse meatiness of

Wood working alone, performing a precision engineered stand-up routine on stage at the Royal Albert Hall in 2001. (“I know I’m different sizes in different shops. In Gap I’m only a size 12, because they’re

American. In Marks & Spencer’s I’m only a size 3, because they don’t want to upset anybody. In Topshop, my hips set off an alarm as I go through.”) After which, dinnerladies, at 10.35pm, is the perfect digestif, a masterclass in the art of sitcom, with a classic episode in which Bren’s mother (Julie Walters) wreaks havoc at the factory. Sit back and enjoy the belly laughs. Gerard O’Donovan

There are shades of both Line of Duty and The Fall in this excellent thriller from newcomer Chris Brandon; pitched as it is in a world of gang crime, police corruption and postTroubles Northern Ireland. Yet while its predecessors used the sectarian conflict mostly as a colourful backdrop, for Bloodlands it is central to the story: James Nesbitt is DCI Tom Brannick, who, alongside partner DS Niamh McGovern (Charlene McKenna), investigates the apparent kidnapping of a dodgy local businessman and former IRA stalwart Pat Keenan (Peter Ballance). A relatively routine manhunt takes a grim turn when Brannick finds an unexpected connection to Goliath, an assassin and suspected police insider whose targeted murders nearly disrupted the Peace Process two decades earlier, and also claimed the life of his wife.

Amid the petrol bombs and shifty colleagues, Nesbitt once again proves what a fine actor he is, given the right script, here summoning grief and desperation with fierce conviction. Tightly plotted and darkly funny, Bloodlands makes a virtue of its environment without ever exploiting it. With peace in Northern Ireland ever more fragile (notably, Brexit goes unmentioned), it carries an ominous sense of “what if?”. Gabriel Tate

Can Japan’s Naomi Osaka win a fourth Grand Slam? Saturday, Eurosport 1, 8,30am

Let’s do it! Let’s do it tonight! – a celebration of the comedian

Lola Petticrew stars as James Nesbitt’s daughter in the drama