What to watch
The Queen’s Coronation in Colour
ITV, 9.00PM
Ashley Gething’s documentary doesn’t add much to what has become an exhaustively scrutinised event in the wake of the Queen’s jubilees, but it’s an engaging enough timepasser for Windsor watchers. It’s narrated by Alexander Armstrong, who meets assorted luminaries from the day, including maid of honour Lady Mary Russell and cameraman Sydney Samuelson, who had to work from a soundproof box in Westminster Abbey because of the noise of his machine.
This being ITV, there are also famous faces involved, but they add very little here. Trevor Mcdonald, Alison Steadman and Len Goodman chip in with strikingly dull reminiscences (“this was mega… like Christmas with knobs on,” reckons Len). Michael Crawford at least went to the Mall and kept a scrapbook. Far more interesting are the home movies from around the UK, evoking British eccentricity in the same way the main event does for the nation’s penchant for pageantry. Armstrong’s climactic return to Aberfan to show a home movie from the time to today’s villagers is a charming demonstration of what this documentary could have been. Gabriel Tate War and the Challenger and Columbia disasters that saw it shelved.
I Was There: Kate Adie on Tiananmen Square
BBC FOUR, 10.00PM
Bafta’s newest Fellow recalls her extraordinary coverage of the 1989 massacre in which around 2,000 pro-democracy demonstrators were shot by Chinese government troops. Adie examines shifting portrayals of China in the media since, and explains how her fearless commitment saw her wounded by gunfire and come perilously close to death.