DOCUMENTARIES

Michael Palin: North Korea, which follows the broadcaster as he gently and skilfully shines a light on the tightly controlled country, is the jewel in the crown of Channel 5’s documentaries. There are plenty of sturdy war documentaries to dig into too, including the controversial World War 2: 1941 and The Man of Steel, in which David Reynolds argues that Stalin was more critical for

British survival than the Battle of Britain itself.

In Inside WW2, survivors reflect on their experiences in the early years of the war, from Hitler’s Nuremberg address to the 1942 Battle of Midway. D-Day’s Sunken Secrets follows a team of experts as they scour the seabed off the coast of Normandy looking for objects lost during the D-Day landings. The recent VE Day: The Lost Films is also well worth a look.

There’s also a slew of royal documentaries to be enjoyed. The Royal Family at War contains eyeopening accounts of the breakdown of the marriage between Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, and the rumoured rift between Meghan Markle and the Duchess of Cambridge; Prince Harry: The Troubled Prince asks whether Harry’s decision to step down from frontline royal duties opens the door to a happy future.

Finally, what would Channel 5 do without the redoubtable Ben Fogle? There are plenty of episodes of his excellent and always surprising New Lives in the Wild available, while a trawl through the Smithsonian and PBS America collections will keep most history buffs happy for a long while.