The very best of the week ahead
Today Unforgotten
ITV, 9.00PM
Unforgotten cements its reputation as one of the best and most realistic crime dramas on television right now with a quietly brilliant final episode, which sees Cassie (Nicola Walker) and Sunny (Sanjeev Bhaskar) work out how and why Hayley came to die. Which of the three surviving old friends is guilty of the murder? We’re not telling, except to say that creator Chris Lang’s answer is both deeply satisfying and entirely believable, as is the way that the rest of the various plot strands are pulled together, leaving some families reconciled and others ripped apart. The episode’s real power, however, comes from the way in which it unpicks the effects of murder on the lives of those left behind, in particular looking at how Hayley’s sister Jessie (Bronagh Waugh) and her mother Suzanne (Brid Brennan) have been shackled to the past by their grief. Sarah Hughes
Countryfile Live
BBC ONE, 7.00PM
The team are live from Blenheim Palace with Matt Baker winning the bravest presenter award by trying his hand at scurry driving. Elsewhere, Anita Rani meets the winners of the Young Presenter Talent Search, while John Craven learns about Winston Churchill’s dogs. SH
Monday
Who Do You Think You Are? BBC ONE, 9.00PM; SCOTLAND, 10.45PM
Paralympian Jonnie Peacock is the final subject of this run of the BBC’s genealogy strand. The ancestors that he looks into resonate strongly trongly with him. The first is his maternal ernal grandfather, a gifted amateur mateur footballer who was prevented vented from turning professional nal by his father (Peacock had dreams of a football career eer until meningitis resulted d in the amputation of his s lower right leg). A second story explores Peacock’s paternal great-great-greatgreat-grandmother
Louisa Pope, who was a single mother of four illegitimate children in the 1840s. As always, the series is an
entertaining history lesson with sheen. Vicki Power
Big Week at the Zoo CHANNEL 5, 8.00PM
This nightly programme sees a raft of presenters, including Helen Skelton and Nick Baker, meet animals and their keepers at various zoos. In this episode, keepers battle the heatwave by feeding ice lollies to spider monkeys and applying sun cream to penguins. VP
Tuesday Tuesda Manhunting Manhunt with My Mum
CHANNEL 4, 10.00PM 1
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Blackburn-born TV presenter AJ Odudu thought she would be married with five children at 30. She is, however, still resolutely single and her mother Florence has decided to intervene. The pair head to the latter’s native Nigeri Nigeria to see if any of the eligible bachelors that Florence has lined up will suit her daughter. There’s certainly variety, with tribal prince Joshua, devout Christian KC, musician Isaac and actor Timini all presented as potential suitors. The stumbling blocks are visible a mile off, although all of the men are decent products of their environment. Ultimately, Odudu finds Nigeria’s patriarchal society onerous: at best, she would be required to cook and stay in the home, at worst to bow to her husband. A breakthrough of sorts comes eventually, but when Odudu remarks of KC that “I genuinely don’t think he’d ever cheat on me”, it feels as though there are stories going untold here. But all is forgiven for the abundant warmth and affection between mother and daughter which makes this a pleasure to watch. Gabriel Tate
Age Before Beauty
BBC ONE, 9.00PM
Debbie Horsfield’s daft but entertaining beauty-salon melodrama continues to lean unduly on the excellent Polly Walker, but just about gets away with it. This week, Bel (Walker) faces her repentant husband (James Murray) and a friend with an ulterior motive (Robson Green). GT
Wednesday
The Lenny Henry Birthday Show BBC ONE, 8.00PM
Lenny Henry has been on our TV screens for so long it’s hard to believe that he’s only 60. But then again, he was only 16 when he auditioned for the ITV talent show New Faces – which he went on to win in 1975. That win launched a long career that has encompassed everything from the tough club circuit of the Seventies to the alternative scene of the Eighties and his own TV sketch shows, not to mention roles in numerous sitcoms, TV dramas, occasional movie appearances and a critically acclaimed
Othello in 2010. Hosted by Trevor McDonald, this evening of clips, anecdotes and tributes was recorded with an invited audience packed with celebrity friends and admirers from the world of TV, theatre and film – all eager to celebrate a man who wasn’t just funny but a pioneering presence and a unique influence on British entertainment. Henry himself takes a light-hearted look back over his career, revisiting favourite characters such as Theophilus P Wildebeeste and pirate radio DJ Delbert Wilkins, plus there are even some new sketches featuring very special guests. Gerard O’Donovan
Horizon: Stopping Male Suicide
BBC TWO, 9.00PM
It is one of the most staggering of health statistics: the biggest killer of men aged under 50 in Britain is suicide. In this Horizon special, Dr Xand van Tulleken explores the issue, with survivors, mental-health professionals and “zero-suicide” campaigners to find out what can be done to help. GO
Thursday
Grayson Perry: Rites of Passage CHANNEL 4, 10.00PM
Artist Grayson Perry turns his focus to the big questions of life and death for this new series – and if you can get through the opening episode on death without sobbing then you’re a stronger, far less sentimental person than I am. Using a similar format to his previous Channel 4 series All Man and Divided Britain, Perry visits two British families dealing with death and creates a work of art reflecting what he uncovers. This time, however, those works have a more personal intent, operating as a kind of memento mori. The documentary’s real power, however, comes from the two main stories: in Middlesbrough, he meets mother Alison Seddon, whose grief over the death of her 17-year-old son Jordan is a raw, almost tangible thing, while in Hounslow, Roch Maher, who has motor neurone disease, decides that the time has come to die as he is happy that he has lived his life fully with laughter and warmth. SH
Celebrity MasterChef
BBC ONE, 8.00PM
Actor Keith Allen, TV presenter Michelle Ackerley, ex-rugby player Martin Bayfield and pop star Carol Decker are the latest celebrities hoping to impress as Celebrity
MasterChef returns. Among the challenges is combining pork mince, prawns, fennel, cabbage and pears into one dish. SH
Friday Extraordinary Rituals
BBC TWO, 9.00PM
Resembling nothing so much as the sort of documentary that you might watch on a plane, Extraordinary Rituals knits together some gripping footage with thematic coherence and integrity. Narrated by Simon Reeve, this second episode focuses on rituals of epic scale, beginning with a very effective cut from the chaos of Nevada’s Burning Man Festival to the two-minute silence of Remembrance Day. In so doing, it sets out its stall very effectively: there is religion and paganism, grief and rebirth, trials both physical and mental. Some of the communal events are familiar, if only by reputation: the hair-raising clash of communities at Siena’s Palio horse race, for example. Others are alien and extraordinary: the pitched battles on horseback of Pasola, in which Indonesian tribesmen take serious risks to honour their ancestors, and the Thaipusam festival, at which we see a man repaying his deity for saving the lives of his wife and unborn child, in a sort of beatific physical test. Imagine a National Geographic photostory brought to life and you’re halfway to this mesmerising hour of TV. GT
Naked Attraction
CHANNEL 4, 10.00PM
The spirit of early Channel 4 lives on in its sense of mischief, if not profundity as this high-concept dating show returns for a third run. Anna Richardson once again hosts, as Adam, 20, scrutinises six naked bodies to identify the woman with whom he hopes to lose his virginity. Then, it’s over to a couple in search of a third person to join their relationship. What could possibly go wrong? GT