THIS WEEK’S TOP TV PICKS
DRAMA Mrs America Wednesday, BBC2, 9pm & 9.45pm
Take a journey back in time almost half a century, to when feminists were battling hard against discrimination – only to find themselves sometimes facing women in the enemy camp. Cate Blanchett (right) stars as Phyllis Schlafly, the formidable conservative who led the opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment in the US, in a richly entertaining, factbased, nine-part series created by Mad Men writer Dahvi Waller. Blanchett is superb in the lead role, with the outstanding cast also featuring Tracey Ullman, and Rose Byrne as feminist Gloria Steinem. The 1970s costumes are fascinating historical items, but the fierce debate over women’s rights remains all too relevant today.
COMEDY DRAMA There She Goes Thursday, BBC2, 9.30pm
Any parent will tell you how tricky it is to have a child – but what are the pitfalls like when you’re bringing up a youngster who has severe learning disabilities? That might sound like forbidding viewing, but writers Shaun Pye and Sarah Crawford took their own experiences of a baby born with a rare chromosomal disorder and created a captivating comedy that won acclaim in the first series on BBC4. Now, on BBC2, David Tennant (above) and Jessica Hynes return as the parents contending with the unexpected in even the most ordinary of situations, thanks to the ever-unpredictable behaviour of their daughter Rosie, dancing between disaster and delight at every moment.
DOCUMENTARY Alex Brooker: Disability And Me Sunday, BBC2, 9pm
If you really want to find out what life is like for someone with a disability in Britain today, who better to ask than Alex Brooker (right)? Best known as a copresenter of The Last Leg on Channel 4, the comedy star has hand and arm deformities and uses a prosthetic leg. In a revealing and honest documentary, he looks back to his own childhood, compares notes with his friend Andy, who has spina bifida, and wonders what the future holds for attitudes to disability and particularly for his own health. He also hears from Paralympian swimmer and gold medallist Susie Rodgers, and asks the most difficult question for his own profession: is it ever OK to make a joke about disability?
HISTORY The Battle Of Britain: Three Days That Saved The Nation Tues -Thurs, Channel 5, 9pm
A battle was fought in the skies over Britain in the summer of 1940 that kept the Nazis at bay, just when Hitler’s forces seemed poised for an invasion that would have changed history forever. Now, over three consecutive nights, historian Dan Snow and co-presenter Kate Humble (above) look back over the extraordinary chapter when all hope seemed to be lost, until the RAF saw off the Luftwaffe. They reconstruct the events around the peak of the fighting over crucial days in August and September, telling the story of the pilots, the ground crew and operations-room workers, who were all vital to making an unlikely victory possible.
ENTERTAINMENT Jack Whitehall’s Sporting Nation Friday, BBC1, 8.30pm
Join comedian Jack Whitehall (right) for sporting nostalgia and clips galore as he looks back through a few of the highs and the many, many lows over the decades of Britain’s quest for glory. The opening episode of the six-part series is devoted to the events for which Britain was host nation. We go from the eccentricities of the Olympics in London in 1908 to the astonishing, world-dazzling display as the Games returned to the capital in 2012 and Team GB emerged with a clutch of gold medals on the magical ‘Super Saturday’. And then there’s the memory that still looms large more than 50 years on, at least for England: triumph at Wembley at the 1966 World Cup.