The very best of the week ahead
Today The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Celebration ITV, 8pm
PICK Her Majesty’s health issues OF THE may prevent her
WEEK attendance at tonight’s
celebration, but the presence of Hollywood royalty will ensure it’s a night to remember. Delightfully, Tom Cruise has agreed to present one of four acts comprising this live theatrical event to celebrate the Queen’s 70 years on the throne. Cruise’s presence delivers global star wattage, although this will likely make the job that much harder for the other hosts Damian Lewis, Adjoa Andoh, Martin Clunes, Keala Settle and Alan Titchmarsh, with Phillip Schofield and Julie Etchingham presenting for TV. Held in the grounds of Windsor Castle, the arena event will gallop through 500 years of British history, from the reign of Elizabeth I to the coronation of Elizabeth II, with Dame Helen Mirren playing the Tudor queen and a cast of “Queen’s Players” led by Omid Djalili as The Herald. Gregory Porter and Katherine Jenkins will sing, with more music from military musicians and the National Symphony Orchestra. A cast of 1,300 will ensure that the stage is action-packed and equestrian displays by 500 horses are sure to delight the Queen, wherever she watches from. Vicki Power
Conversations with Friends
BBC Three, 10pm
Hoping lightning will strike twice after Normal People’s global success, the BBC has adapted Sally Rooney’s debut novel. In the same beautiful, pareddown fashion, this 12-parter stars Alison Oliver and (in a departure from the book) American actress Sasha Lane as students in Dublin who become friends with an older couple (Jemima Kirke and Joe Alwyn). VP
Monday The Time Traveler’s Wife
Sky Atlantic, 2am & 9pm pm
A six-part adaptation n of Audrey Niffenegger’s s bestselling novel about out an American couple, Henry enry (Theo James) and Clare are (Rose Leslie). Their relationship is based on – and compromised by
– Henry’s unique (well, almost unique) genetic malady which
causes him to jump back and forth in time. Leaving a lot of emotional confusion, and his clothes, behind him every time. Not that the sight of James’s naked bottom appearing over and again in an ever-repeating loop is likely to upset this drama’s target audience. The constant temporal to-ing and fro-ing could be a bigger problem, though writer Steven Moffat (he of Doctor Who and Sherlock) handles the technical elements of the plot with aplomb. But even ev his efforts to inject pace and nua nuance can’t stop the plot feeling repetitive, rep or prevent some of the schmaltzier elements of the book intruding every now and then. If the high romance of this opening episode doesn’t feel like your thing, then the rest assured – with a gore-s splattered bathroom a recurring feature, and the notable line “you’ve seen the blood, you know what’s coming” cutting c through – it won’t be hearts, flowers and untimely untime lovers’ tiffs all the way. Gerard O’Donovan O’Don
Joe Wicks: Facing My Childhood BBC One, 9pm
The personal trainer looks back on how an unusually tough childhood has influenced his success and mental health, opening up for the first time about his father’s heroin addiction and his mother’s eating disorders, and how they have shaped the man he is. GO
Tuesday Floodlights BBC Two, 9pm
A drama that needs a trigger warning, this 80-minute piece tells the bones of footballer Andy Woodward’s story. In 2016 Woodward went public with the horrific sexual abuse that he suffered at the hands of football coach Barry Bennell when he was a youth player at Crewe Alexandra, a secret he’d kept for 30-odd years at great personal cost. Woodward’s revelation opened the floodgates and hundreds of ex-players came forward with similar tales. Last year’s Football’s Darkest Secret covered the subject sensitively, but this dramatisation packs emotional punch. The acting is stellar by Shameless star Gerard Kearns as the grown-up
Woodward, Max Fletcher as the football-mad boy and Jonas Armstrong as the bullying Bennell. The film leap-frogs time and leaves out the most bizarre aspect of the story – that Bennell ended up marrying Woodward’s sister. Instead, it focuses on the grooming of a boy, which is ghastly to observe, and the emotional tsunami that engulfed Woodward, ending his career and pushing him to suicidal despair. Laying bare the shame victims feel, it’s important viewing. VP
Noughts + Crosses
BBC One, 10.40pm; NI, 11.10pm
A powerful final episode for the second series of this race-reversal drama reveals the fate of jinxed lovers Callum and Sephy (Jack Rowan and Masali Baduza). Their families wrestle with their consciences as Callum faces trial for the assassination attempt on his would-be father-in-law, Prime Minister Hadley (Paterson Joseph). VP
Wednesday
Derry Girls: The Agreement Channel 4, 9pm
This surprise epilogue to one of the finest sitcoms of recent years proves as impeccably judged as what came before, with flashbacks, flashforwards, starry cameos, montages, romantic pay-offs, dance interludes and a poignant rumination that looks to the future of both the Derry girls themselves and Northern Ireland in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement. But there is brilliant character comedy in abundance too, as Erin (Saoirse-Monica Jackson) and Orla (Louisa Harland) learn that their 18th birthday party clashes with an extravaganza from nemeses JennyJoyce and Aisling (Leah O’Rourke and Beccy Henderson), with the presence of “one of The Commitments” at stake. Despite the fact that “compromising’s all the rage”, the gang is split along family lines with Clare (Nicola Coughlan) caught in the middle: a falling-out fuelled by the potential release of Michelle’s (Jamie-Lee O’Donnell) brother from prison, but underpinned by adolescent anxiety and growing pains. It is of course resolved with deft, melancholy charm; ditto Sister Michael’s (Siobhán McSweeney) crisis of faith. And stay tuned for a postscript with a casting coup to surpass even Liam Neeson. Gabriel Tate
The Prince’s Master Crafters: the Next Generation
Sky Arts, 8pm
Jim “Vic Reeves” Moir introduces this entertaining series in which six amateurs demonstrate their aptitude for crafts, ranging from blacksmithing to staining glass. The series will climax with competitors presenting their pieces to the Prince of Wales. GT
Thursday Art That Made Us BBC Two, 9pm
This “alternative history of these islands told through art” has been a revelation. History is written by the victors, but can be interpreted by successive generations of artists. Even if one hasn’t always agreed with the series’s mixed conclusions about Britain’s past, as viewed through the prism of its culture, it has been an informative watch. The penultimate episode explores the trauma of the two world wars and their impact on art. Its starting point is WB Yeats’s line “All changed, changed utterly” in his poem Easter, 1916 about the Irish uprising, which marked a major strike against the British empire. Also, conceptual artist Oliver Chanarin talks about William Orpen’s 1923 painting To the Unknown British Soldier in France commissioned by the British Ministry of Information to commemorate the Peace Conference at Versailles in 1919; and film producer Andrew Macdonald explores the controversy sparked by The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, a wry take on the British war effort made by his grandfather Emeric Pressburger. It enraged Churchill, who attempted to ban it before it became a well-received hit. Veronica Lee
Secrets of the London Underground Yesterday, 8pm
This week Tim Dunn and Siddy Holloway visit the abandoned King William Street station, whose tunnels are being repurposed for the Northern Line upgrade. VL
Friday Night Sky Amazon Prime Video Night Sky
is an intriguingly slippery thing: hints of religious allegory are wrapped up in speculative sciencefiction and a love story between a
couple growing increasingly infirm and unreliable in old age. Sissy Spacek and JK Simmons are predictably persuasive as Irene and Franklin York, troubled by their failing physical and mental faculties but stoutly opposed to either the in-home care or more accommodating housing suggested by both their granddaughter and family doctor. But this is not merely cantankerous oldsters resisting the passage of time, for their home holds a secret in its backyard: a portal to a deserted planet. When Irene suggests they “go and see the stars tonight”, Franklin knows to take it literally. For a treatise on old age, it’s far from the sentimentality of Cocoon. A slow burn, certainly, but the engaging domesticity of Spacek and Simmons keeps the flights of fancy enjoyable. GT
Gardeners’ World BBC Two, 8pm; not NI/Wales
Something for everyone as Sue Kent displays her flourishing show garden, which she hopes to display at the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival. Nick Bailey scrutinises the bearded iris and Monty Don has some handy tips for vegetable growers who are short on space. GT