Friday television & radio
7.30pm, Channel 4
Reporter Amelia Jenne explores the illegal logging trade in Romania, where a so-called “timber mafia” is chopping down one of Europe’s last remaining virgin forests. Jenne follows the conservationists risking their lives to stop the corruption that is destroying the lungs of Europe. Environmental campaigners and law enforcement believe half of the timber harvested in Romania has been done so illegally.
Granite Harbour
8pm, BBC One
The Aberdonian crime drama left off last week with that three-way car crash, Lindo (Romario
Simpson) having mysteriously vanished from the scene, along with stowaway Miriam. Or perhaps not so mysteriously, as they later show up in a scenic loch-side safe house. “Here we have it, the two cases connected,” says Lindo’s boss – a prospect that was surely never in doubt as the dead drug dealer is now linked to the stowaways.
Gardeners’ World
8pm, BBC Two
Spring has now well and truly sprung, and Monty Don is busy moving his tender succulents outdoors and planting up his new cut-flower beds. Adam Frost, meanwhile, meets a Leicestershire couple who have created a garden boasting a year-round display of bulbs, tubers and corms. And in North Yorkshire, Frances Tophill visits the gardens at Newby Hall country house to marvel at their display of candelabra primulas.
Double the Money
8pm, Channel 4
Round three of the self-enriching reality contest and now the remaining teams are afforded one week to double £1,000. Married couple Nissy and Ben offer a webinar on how to have a happy marriage, while on Bournemouth beach, a father and son decide to run a hook-a-duck game. Perhaps most intriguingly, best friends Radhika and Seema host an erotic art workshop. Sue Perkins hosts.
Hidden Treasures of the National Trust
9pm, BBC Two
“Beautiful but a bit yellow,” says the art restorer peeling away multiple layers of varnish from a John Singer Sargent portrait of Nancy Astor. The painting’s current home is in the former home of the pioneering female MP and society hostess, Cliveden House in Berkshire, which these days serves as a luxury hotel, but whose treasures are overseen by the National Trust. The home of another renowned society hostess, the upwardly mobile brewer’s daughter Margaret Greville, is also visited; Polesden Lacey in bucolic Surrey has a clock tower which is in need of a major repair project.
The Young Offenders
9.30pm, BBC One
“One of the great things about
Cork city is that we have our own prison,” declares Conor (Alex Murphy). “So we don’t have to walk far when they let us out.” Conor has just completed his second spell inside and is back working at the fishmonger when he gets into a foolish bet with love rival Gavin: €1,000 says Conor can’t pass his school Leaving Certificate (the Irish equivalent to A levels). This amiable sitcom has returned with its mojo intact, despite the continuing absence of Conor’s partner in crime, Jock (Chris Walley), who is still banged up in that Colombian prison.
Gerard Gilbert
Gringo
10pm, BBC Three
(Nash Edgerton, 2018)
David Oyelowo and Charlize Theron head an impressive cast in this breezy caper, respectively playing a Nigerian everyman middle-manager at a US drugs firm, who doesn’t realise he is the patsy when sent to do business in Mexico, and the manipulative villain of the piece who has been dealing with a cartel. The double crosses pile up at quite a rate.
Office Space
10.35pm, Comedy Central (Mike Judge, 1999)
This droll comedy from the creator of Beavis and Butt-Head is a key text of Gen-X slacker cinema, about the soul-deadening frustrations of office life for a group of IT-firm cubicle workers, set to an incongruous gangsta rap soundtrack. The scene in which they take baseball bats to a printer is certainly cathartic.
You Were Never Really Here
11.50pm, Film4
(Lynne Ramsay, 2017)
Joaquin Phoenix stars as a taciturn ex-military type who specialises in rescuing trafficked girls. Employed to discreetly investigate the kidnapping of a senator’s daughter, he packs several guns and hammers. Ramsay’s thriller has an unusual mix of toughness and dreamy visual lyricism.
Laurence Phelan