The very best of the week ahead
Today Anne ITV, 9PM
The 14-year quest for justice by Liverpool mother Anne Williams (Maxine Peake) to discover how exactly her 15-year-old son Kevin came to die in the Hillsborough disaster becomes a powerful and, in parts, deeply distressing drama. Stripped nightly (until Thursday) for maximum impact, the script by Kevin Sampson highlights the appalling manner in which Williams and other victims’ family members were treated by the people and the public institutions that were charged with investigating the disaster – in which 97 people died, and 766 were injured while attending an FA Cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in Sheffield in April 1989. This dark opening episode is a tough but compelling watch, taking us through the first two years from the horror of Williams’s discovery that her son was missing and the realisation that he would never come home again, via the intrusions of a tabloid press and the inquest jury’s verdict of accidental death, to Williams’s first inklings of suspicion that a cover-up was orchestrated to obscure the idea that police failings caused the disaster. Gerard O’Donovan
Call the Midwife BBC ONE, 8PM
Spring comes early to Poplar as the sisters of Nonnatus House put a tough winter behind them and jump straight to Easter, tulips and Eurovision for this first episode of a new run in which dry rot, a case of incontinence, and a grisly discovery under the floorboards are among the issues. GO
Monday Four Lives BBC ONE/BBC TWO WALES, 9PM
Institutional onal police PICK failings more
OF THE usually feature eature WEEK racism or r
misogyny y at their root. Four Lives is a reminder that the force ce is equally capable of letting ting homophobia cloud judgment and competence, its writer er
Neil NcKay and exec producer Jeff Pope continuing their run of
true-crime dramas focusing less on the crimes and more on the circumstances and lives around them. Their agenda is clear from the outside when the name of Anthony Walgate (Tim Preston), fashion student and first victim of rapist/serial killer Stephen Port (Stephen Merchant), is literally put up in lights. Following Anthony’s murder, Port is rapidly interrogated, his lies giving him the cover to approach other vulnerable young men. Investigating officers, meanwhile, having visibly shifted their view of Walgate from individual to type upon hearing of his sexuality and lifestyle, resort to victim- victim blaming an and Walgate’s mother, Sarah Sak S (Sheridan Smith), fights to keep the case on track. Continues Con tomorrow, with all three thr episodes on
BBC iPlayer. iPlay Gabriel Tate
Attenb Attenborough’s Wonder of Song
6
BBC ONE, 6.30PM
The Great Gr Communicator has taken take an intriguing new route rou through his archives for this glorious one-off, picking seven recordings recordi of animal song recorded recorde in his lifetime, including includi one that, he
says, “almost broke my heart”. From humpback whales to superb lyrebirds, nightingales to lemurs, the sounds are as enchanting as the explanations are erudite. GT
Tuesday Toast of Tinseltown
BBC TWO, 10PM
Matt Berry’s monstrous bloated ego of a talentless actor, Steven Toast (co-created by Father Ted’s Arthur Mathews), returns for a cameo-packed series, this time pursuing his “big break” in the movies. As with everything Toast does, it takes time to get there but that is partly due to the transition from niche Channel 4 comedy ( Toast of London enjoyed three series before being axed in 2015) to marginally less niche BBC Two comedy. Seven years on, this opening episode gives BBC viewers an opportunity to familiarise themselves with Toast in his natural environment (theatrical London and, especially, the gloriously skewered “Colonial Club” in Soho) before plunging him into the sun-splashed freakshow that is Hollywood. And, very funny it is too, taking Toast – via his unctuous
agent, Jane Plough (Doon Mackichan), an anger management course, and his arch-rival Ray “bloody” Purchase (Harry Peacock) – from bitter failure to the brink of fame. The whole series is a hoot, and all previous episodes are available on the iPlayer. GO
Digging for Britain BBC TWO, 8PM
Professor Alice Roberts looks back over the past 12 months in British archaeology, a year packed with exciting finds, including a “spectacular and internationally significant” Roman mosaic unearthed in an East Anglian wheat field, depicting scenes from the Trojan Wars. GO
Wednesday Mandy BBC TWO, 10PM & 10.15PM
Diane Morgan’s carefully modulated variation on the Philomena Cunk idiot savant persona returns for a welcome second series, with Mandy still cycling through dead-end temp jobs which she leaves for a variety of implausible reasons. Opening with a double bill (all the episodes are available on BBC iPlayer) of quick-hit 15-minute episodes, it is a glorious showcase for Morgan’s comedic skills. Mandy’s first unlikely gig is as a scullery maid for tourists at Brampton Hall, a country pile with a dark secret. Afterwards, Deborah Meaden merrily sends herself up in familiar-sounding genealogy series Who Are You, Do You Think, whose producers pay a visit to the plush house where Mandy happens to be doing some cleaning. Bathos reigns, profundity is a stranger and the comic stupidity is expertly judged. GT
You Are What You Eat CHANNEL 5, 8PM
First thing’s first: the discredited Gillian McKeith is no longer part of this once-successful franchise, which last saw the light of day 15 years ago. Instead, doctors and nutritionists with proper qualifications – Dr Amir Khan, Professor Lindsay Hall and Kate Llewellyn-Waters – offer expert advice on how altering eating habits can transform lives. Their first quarries include a comfort-eating sports coach and a fast-food addict. Trisha Goddard is on hand to make soothing noises alongside the technical stuff. It’s an informative watch. GT
Thursday Screw CHANNEL 4, 9PM
Sitting somewhere between Porridge and Jimmy McGovern’s Time, Rob Williams’s ( The Victim) deft, incisive and often very funny new prison drama does for prison officers what
No Offence did for the police, making deadly serious points with borderline absurd – yet wholly believable – setups and forcing us to confront another example of severe underfunding in public service. Our conduit is Rose Gill ( Derry Girls’ Jamie-Lee O’Donnell), a smart, opinionated new recruit. But despite being fresh on the job, she’s being woefully under-attended by her colleagues – not least by Leigh Henry (Nina Sosanya), the dedicated screw in charge of Longmarsh’s all-male C-wing. The ensemble is excellent, particularly Laura Checkley’s no-nonsense mother hen, and, while the drama doesn’t baulk at the threat, fear and intimidation inherent in prisons, nor does it deny the weird sense of community fostered in such institutions. GT
The Apprentice BBC ONE, 9PM
If even Simon Cowell is throwing in The X Factor towel, it can’t be long before this relic is given its P45. In the meantime, Lord Sugar is back with his finger, his catchphrases and the egomaniacs, incompetents and idiots he has handpicked as possible business partners. The first task involves, yes, a marketing campaign, this one concocted for a cruise liner while onboard said ship. Karren Brady and series one winner Tim Campbell (standing in for Claude Littner) look on with bemusement. GT
Friday Death in Paradise
BBC ONE, 9PM
Moving this reassuring detective drama from Thursdays to Fridays gives the dry January brigade a reason to feel good about skipping the pub. The whodunit returns for an 11th series to
deliver a vicarious dose of tropical climes and sun-kissed beaches. Ralf Little reprises his role as DCI Neville Parker, the British cop dealing with a staggering murder rate on this tiny French-Caribbean island. Despite all the grim death, the tone fizzes like a white-wine spritzer, offering gentle jokes and physical hi-jinks alongside a spot of murderous criminality. In this first of eight episodes, a man is killed while delivering ransom money for the return of his kidnapped teenage daughter, a pretty bizarre set-up. But Parker and the sidekick with whom he is hopelessly besotted, DS Florence Cassell (Joséphine Jobert), figure it out within the hour. Vicki Power
A Discovery of Witches SKY MAX, 9PM
The news is good and bad as the final season of this earnest saga of sorcery returns. Vampire Matthew (Matthew Goode) and witch Diana (Teresa Palmer) are expecting twins but return from time-travelling to find their allies at their Sept-Tours castle home in turmoil. And raised voices between Matthew and Marcus (Edward Bluemel) bode ill for father-son relations. VP