The very best of the week ahead
Today Brotherhood: The Inner Life of Monks BBC FOUR, 8PM
Few lifestyles can seem more wholly out of sync with the modern world than that of the monks at Mount St Bernard Abbey in Leicestershire, a Trappist community of just 25 men, more than half of whom are over the age of 80. Yet in order for the abbey to persist, these monks, whose quiet lives are devoted to hard work, prayer and contemplation, must adapt like everyone else to changing times. Nick Hamer’s warm, meditative film captures the mood of the community at a pivotal moment when, having abandoned their no-longer-viable agricultural pursuits, the monks invest in the future with a bold move into hi-tech brewing. “Our brothers in the Netherlands and Belgium have been doing it for centuries,” says the Abbot; and, as the first Trappist brewery in the UK, they are determined to get it right. The stark contrast between towering steel vats, flashy computerised bottling processes and the chant-filled air of 200-year-old buildings, empty corridors and a relentlessly filling-up graveyard is not lost on Hamer. But neither is the rare devotedness of these men, to whose austere way of life, year on year, ever fewer are drawn. Gerard O’Donovan
Line of Duty BBC ONE, 9PM
If, as is by now traditional with Line of Duty, last week’s series opener left you baffled, take heart. Ten minutes into this episode the clouds of gratuitous obscurity part and a strong hint of links between the Jill Dando-esque murder victim and organised rganised crime gives Hastings (Adrian an Dunbar) and AC-12 something tangible gible to sink their anti-corruption teeth h into. GO
Monday Finding Jack Charlton ton
BBC TWO, 9PM
Gabriel Clarke’s insightful ul and often surprising rprising documentary ntary disinters the tactical revolutionary y behind the bluff exterior and, d, most startlingly, makes a very convincing case for this his archetypal Englishman an as having helped to pave ve the way for the Good Friday
Agreement. Telling his story from humble Northumberland upbringing alongside brother Bobby to his dementia-hastened death last summer, it achieves the rare feat of balancing the professional and personal while doing a disservice to neither, and boasts a delightfully diverse roll-call of contributors; who else could have drawn tributes from Roddy Doyle, Larry Mullen Jr, Niall Quinn and Brendan O O’Carroll? Carroll? His astounding achievements as m manager of the Irish national side and man management skills with char charges both spiky (David O’Leary O’Leary) and selfdestructive (Pau (Paul McGrath) are acknowledged a alongside the difficult relation relationship with his more naturally gifted brother, and an obstinacy that could as easily hinder as help him. This is no hagiography, b but a fitting tribute to a complex m man. Gabriel Tate
Unforgotten Unforgotte ITV, 9PM
This enormously enorm satisfying, pleasingly unflashy u thriller comes to a conclusion dripping with hard-earned hard-e emotion, as Cassie’s (Nicola (Ni Walker) fate after the crash cr is determined and Matthew Matthe Walsh’s murderer is unmasked amid claim and counterclaim from the quartet of surviving suspects. GT
Tuesday
The Syndicate
BBC ONE, 9PM
It’s been six years since Kay Mellor’s soapy drama about lottery winners was last on the box – inexplicably, since it’s an amiable ensemble piece that makes a change from detective dramas. The fourth series has the same basic premise as before – five Yorkshire-based folk, this time kennel employees about to be made gig workers, pick the winning numbers. Mellor sets the scene prior to their win: the twentysomethings are all in financial and emotional straits that will provide grist to the drama mill; one character is secretly pregnant, another fearful of a relative’s imminent release from prison. Episode one focuses on Keeley (Katherine Rose Morley), whose gambling addiction has resulted in debt collectors banging on the door. Neil Morrissey and Gaynor Faye play the newsagents who redeem the ticket – middle-aged sweethearts whose imminent wedding plans are derailed.
The familiar Mellor ingredients are there – ordinary northerners with empty pockets and big hearts wrestling with crushed dreams. A winner. Vicki Power
Britain’s Tiger Kings: On the Trail with Ross Kemp
ITV, 9PM
It turns out that American Joe Exotic (aka the Tiger King) isn’t the only one
keeping dangerous wild animals in his backyard. In this two-part documentary, Ross Kemp explores how easy it is in Britain to keep wild cats at home. Visiting, among others, show jumper Reece Oliver and his two pet lions in Nottinghamshire, Kemp’s incredulity and distaste are evident. VP
Wednesday In Jane Austen’s Footsteps with Gyles Brandreth CHANNEL 5, 9PM
Those who feel a little Gyles Brandreth goes a long way may want to steer clear of Channel 5 for the next few Wednesdays, as he explores the lives and works of Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens and the Brontë sisters. That said, he’s on relatively restrained form for this opening episode, reining in the archness and not dressing up any more than, say, Lucy Worsley might on a similar assignment. Along the way he encounters the scribblings of a teenage Jane that showcase her imagination already at work, splicing her name with a fictional person called Fitzwilliam. He takes the waters in Bath just as she did while accompanying her brother in search of a cure for his gout, and joins the Austentatious improv gang for a skit, alongside more serious excursions into her political views and private life. GT
Lights Up: Sadie BBC FOUR, 10.30PM
Part of the BBC’s ongoing festival of theatre recast for television and radio, David Ireland’s play unflinchingly examines the life of one Belfast cleaner (Abigail McGibbon), who confronts ghosts of her past raised by her new and intense relationship with a younger man. GT
Thursday My Years with the Queen
ITV, 9PM
It’s not just Harry and Meghan who are embracing the media these days. Lady Pamela Hicks, daughter of Lord Mountbatten, cousin of the Duke of Edinburgh, bridesmaid, companion and lifelong friend of the Queen, has been in revelatory mode recently, too, in a podcast made by her daughter, India. Never known to let a royalrelated tell-all escape its grip, ITV has picked up this one-off filmed at home in Oxfordshire, in which Lady Pamela, now 91, and India, 53, look back over an exceptionally glamorous life lived right at the top of the tree. But those looking for scandal will have to look elsewhere. “She’s an amazing person,” Lady Pamela says of the Queen. “There’s such inner strength there and she’s remained like that throughout her life.” Inevitably odd scraps leak out, relating to the Princess Royal’s hand-me-downs or the Queen’s celebrated thrift, but otherwise this is an unadulterated love letter from one of the Queen’s closest friends. GO
Pandemic 2020
BBC TWO, 9PM
Should you not be content with your own, or even the UK’s, experience of Covid-19, this absorbing new series tells the story of the pandemic from a global perspective through the experiences – and very widely varying attitudes – of people from all around the world, beginning in Wuhan. Events of the recent past make for grim but compelling viewing. GO
Friday World’s Most Scenic River Journeys
CHANNEL 5, 8PM
For many of us, what we look forward to most once the pandemic is over is the opportunity to travel again. Following on from its wanderlust-inducing series on great railway journeys, Channel 5 provides inspiration aplenty in this new six-part series, narrated by perennial favourite Bill Nighy, giving us a taste of some of the finest inland waterways on the planet. Among the rivers are the Danube, Mississippi and our very own River Spey in Scotland. But we begin with a trip down one of North America’s mightiest waterways, the Niagara River which runs along the border between Ontario in Canada and New York state in the US, before plunging headlong into the gorge beneath the world-famous Niagara Falls. GO
Sacred Songs: The Secrets of Our Hearts
BBC FOUR, 7PM
A unique recital of Easter sacred music featuring each of the Tenebrae vocal ensemble’s 20 singers filmed and recorded separately in isolation, under the direction of Nigel Short. Among the highlights in a selection of works by JS Bach, Lobo, Purcell, Parry and Allegri. GO