The very best of the week ahead
Today
Theresa v Boris: How May Became PM
BBC TWO, 9.00PM; WALES, 10.30PM
There’s hardly been a more tumultuous year in British politics than the past one. And no period has been more turbulent and downright jaw-dropping than that in which the battle was fought to determine who would run for leadership of the Conservative Party – and the country – following David Cameron’s post-EU referendum resignation. This terrific dramadocumentary delivers on its ambitious claim to give the inside story of “what went on behind the scenes” in the Theresa May (Jacqueline King) and Boris Johnson (Will Barton) camps by mixing eyewitness testimony from key figures involved in their campaign teams with dramatised footage of many of the pivotal moments. Gerard O’Donovan Merciless CHANNEL 4, 10.15PM
Channel 4’s foreign-drama strand
Walter Presents brings the UK its first ever Brazilian TV show. The 13-part drama, known in Portuguese as Dupla
Identidade, pulled in 22 million viewers a week when it aired in Brazil. It follows a suave high-flyer called Eduardo (Bruno Gagliasso), who spends his spare time murdering young women. The full series will be available online straight after.
Monday
Ripper Street BBC TWO, 9.00PM
Richard Warlow’s weird eird and wonderful Victorian melodrama has always been an under-rated beast. This final series has already aired on Amazon, who saved the show from extinction and in the process allowed Warlow to head down bolder, less clear-cut paths. Over the course of five seasons, Ripper Street has moved from being a tawdry crime-story-by-thenumbers into an intense characterdriven tale of three men all haunted in their own different ways. One of those men, Jerome Flynn’s Bennet Drake is now dead, gruesomely killed off at the end of the last series, and we open with his funeral, a suitably depressing affair populated by sonorously singing policemen and his grieving wife. Absent entirely are Drake’s companions-in-arms, Edmund Reid (Matthew Macfadyen) and Homer Jackson (Adam Rothenberg), who are holed up in a sewer with Jackson’s love, Long Susan (MyAnna Buring). What follows is a tense, taut game of cat and mouse as our heroes attempt to avoid the long arm of the law they once represented. Sarah Hughes
Horizon: 10 Things You Need to Know About the Future
BBC TWO, 8.00PM; NOT SCOTLAND
Wouldn’t it be nice to know what the future holds? Hannah Fry thinks so, and here she tries to answer questions from the general public. These include whether we could live forever and if the planet is on the verge of another mass extinction.
Clive Morgan
Tuesday
Hospital BBC TWO, 9.00PM
A welcome second run for this fly-on-the-wall series whose immediacy and complexity – going beyond the front line to probe managerial decisions and the effects of immigration – added yet more layers of interest to the absorbing world of the hospital. Back in the spring, cameras returned to the five hospitals in the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust for this fourpart documentary, and they captured the response to the Westminster terror attack on March 22, as is shown in this opener. As St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington is the nearest major trauma centre to the incident, a Major Incident Protocol is invoked and the hospital is put in lockdown, while some critically ill patients are transferred to nearby Charing Cross to prepare for the influx of casualties. Among the first to arrive are two French teenagers on a school trip and a British man who needs immediate surgery to save his leg. Gabriel Tate
Fight Game: The McGuigans BBC ONE, FROM 10.45PM; NI, 11.10PM; SCOT, 11.45PM
Three back-to-back episodes of the documentary following the fortunes of Barry McGuigan, his family and their stable of boxers. It begins with preparations for Carl Frampton’s world-title bout against Leo Santa Cruz. GT
Wednesday
Brexit Means Brexit BBC TWO, 9.00PM; SCOTLAND, 11.15PM Bafta-winning documentary maker Patrick Forbes follows up last year’s superb fly-on-the-campaign film
Brexit: A Very British Coup with another that follows players in the ongoing Brexit debate over the turbulent 12 months since Britain voted to leave the EU. Forbes spent time with people from all sides, from Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer to Anna Soubry, Nicholas Soames and Jacob Rees-Mogg and captured some extraordinary moments. He was at “ordinary citizen” Gina Miller’s side as she dragged the government to the supreme court over the triggering of Brexit and he was in the USA with Nigel Farage as he “went off as Donald Trump’s very special friend to the inauguration”. And he was filming right up to, and after, the recent General Election. “One thing I am clearer about,” says Forbes, “is that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ is not just an empty slogan. It is a genuine moment in history that’s going to test the British establishment as it has never been tested.” GO Love Your Garden ITV, 8.00PM; UTV, 10.40PM
Alan Titchmarsh’s series returns to help transform more people’s gardens. It begins in Plymouth, where Titchmarsh and the team create a contemporary outdoor space for former Marine Mark Ormord, who lost three limbs while fighting in Afghanistan. CG
Thursday
Who Should We Let In? Ian Hislop on the First Great Immigration Row
BBC TWO, 9.00PM
Publicity for this film about British attitudes toward immigration, both now and way back when, is likely to focus on the tiresome Katie Hopkins, who is here given the chance to spout her controversial view of the world. Away from her headline-grabbing appearance, however, lies a different kind of film with Ian Hislop proving a thoughtful guide to the late Victorian/ early Edwardian age when British attitudes towards immigration changed seemingly forever, transforming us from a country that prided itself on its open doors into the would-be Fortress Britain of today. It’s a balanced, admirably even-handed take in which plenty of people are given the chance to make their cases, both for and against migration. Yet what lingers longest in the mind is a newspaper leader column from 1853, which passionately declares: “Every civilised people on the face of the earth must be fully aware that this country is the asylum of nations, and it will defend that asylum to… the last drop of its blood.” We live, perhaps
understandably, in very different times now, yet it’s hard not to feel that something once inherent to this nation has been sadly, irrevocably lost. SH Host the Week CHANNEL 4, 9.00PM
Despite its similar title, this new series is not to be mistaken for BBC Two’s improvised show Mock the Week. Here, the presenter has no script and relies instead on a group of comedians, who do, to guide them through sketches and games. Gogglebox star Scarlett Moffatt is the first guest host. CM
Friday
Glastonbury 2017 BBC TWO, 8.00PM & 10.00PM; BBC FOUR, FROM 7.30PM
Jo Whiley, Huw Stephens and Clara Amfo host the show as Radiohead return to play the Pyramid Stage, 14 years after their last appearance as Glastonbury headliners. Over on BBC Four, there is a showcase of Glastonbury’s sprawl of genres and generations. Mark Radcliffe and Alice Levine introduce a performance from Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders at 7.30pm, before, at the age of 80, country singer Kris Kristofferson makes, startlingly, his first appearance at Worthy Farm, and much-fêted Brighton duo Royal Blood take to the stage. Later still, at 10.30pm, rapper Dizzee Rascal will be demonstrating that he can still put on a good show for the masses. Comprehensive coverage continues online, on the radio and on the Red Button. GT The Celebrity Crystal Maze CHANNEL 4, 9.00PM
Diminishing returns are kicking in with The Crystal Maze since last year’s revival, although Richard Ayoade makes an agreeably sardonic host and the format remains as winning as ever. Strictly 2016 winner Ore Oduba and I’m a Celebrity… 2015 queen Vicky Pattinson are among those taking on the Dome. GT