Your guide to the week’s best on Sky and free-to-air TV
Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (9.30pm, Mondays from April 22, SoHo)
Based on Laurence Leamer’s bestselling 2021 book Capote's Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era, this star-studded eight-part drama focuses on how the acclaimed writer Truman Capote ruined his friendships with a group of New York socialites in the mid-1960s by writing a thinly fictionalised account of their scandalous and hedonistic lives.
The impressive acting troupe assembled includes Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Chloe Sevigny, Calista Flockhart, Demi Moore, Tom Hollander and Molly Ringwald.
“The series is richly executed and a hoot, but also unexpectedly moving,” wrote Chicago Tribune’s Nina Metz, while Entertainment Weekly’s Kristen Baldwin thought that “the storytelling is ultimately supplanted by the spectacle of watching the drama’s dazzling ensemble”.
The Great British Sewing Bee (8.30pm, Fridays from April 19, TVNZ 1)
Break out your bobbins, this beloved UK reality competition is back for its ninth season.
Host Sara Pascoe returns to usher
12 of Britain’s best home sewers on their journey, as they create exquisite and imaginative garments in the hopes of impressing judges Esme Young and Patrick Grant.
“Bake Off's less smug sibling is as delightful as ever,” wrote The Telegraph’s Anita Singh of this latest instalment, “[the judges] are critical yet kind, while the gifted contestants make a marvellous case for making your own clothes.”
Rock Chicks: I Am Not Female to You
(9.30pm, Friday, April 19, Sky Arts)
A 2023 documentary that aims to challenge the male-dominated narrative of rock music. Featuring interviews with Linda Gail Lewis, Kathy Valentine, Suzi Quatro, Rosie Flores and Kristin Hersh, writer-director Marita Stocker’s tale also unearths the forgotten stories of influential women who shaped the genre – everyone from Memphis Minnie to Sister Rosetta.
Celebrity Bake Off (7pm, Saturdays from April 20, TVNZ 1)
Hosts Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas are joined by stars like David Schwimmer (who proves to be something of a “baking ninja”, as one reviewer so eloquently put it), Rose Matafeo, Jay Blades, Judi Love, Paddy McGuinness, Tom Daley and Gemma Collins in the Bake Off tent to craft all manner of confections in the hopes of impressing judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith – and winning cash for their chosen charities. Airing last year, this five-part series is the fifth season of the spin-off competition.
Call the Midwife (8.10pm, Saturdays from April 20, TVNZ 1)
As the 13th season of this beloved UK drama begins, we rejoin the midwives of Nonnatus House in 1969 and, against a backdrop of social and economic change, they have their hands full as they navigate the evolving landscape of maternity care in postwar Britain.
Four new trainees enter the fray, including Rosalind Clifford (Natalie Quarry) and Joyce Highland (Renee Bailey).
Look out for British comedian Rosie Jones in an opening episode that The Telegraph’s Benji Wilson described as “a superb balance of convention and controversy”.
My Life is Murder (8.30pm, Sundays from April 21, TVNZ 1)
Lucy Lawless returns as fearless investigator Alexa Crowe for a fourth season of murder-mysteries. Emboldened by the changes in her life, this year Alexa is even more of a force – and determined to crack the most bewildering of cases. Bill Bailey, Erik Thomson, Rodger Corser, Siobhan Marshall and Dame Miranda Harcourt are among the guest stars set to feature during the eightepisode run.
I, Tonya
(8.30pm, Sunday, April 21, Eden)
Based, as Aussie director Craig Gillespie's 2017 movie so elegantly puts it, on "irony-free, totally contradictory interviews", this aims to explore the troubled backstories of all the major players in one of US sport's greatest scandals, while also allowing them to have their say. Coupled with quite brilliant performances from both Margot Robbie and Allison Janney, what could have been a straight-forward documentary or a conventional biopic is instead a hilarious, confronting and compelling black comedy.