KEEPING UP WITH THE ARISTOCRATS

ITV, 9pm

Oh what a jolly lot they are, these aristocrats. Just like the rest of us, really, apart from the titles, historic homes and vast estates, and the need to “earn a crust” (upper only) in order to manage the upkeep. Which must be why so many are currently waking up to the publicity value of throwing their doors open and sharing the sumptuousness of their lives on screen, whether it be to give Sally Lindsay a posh bed for the night (C5, Saturdays) or, in this new series, following some seriously grand folk over the course of a single social season. It’s an ingenious idea which this frothy documentary pulls off with pizzazz.

Tonight we meet Lord Ivar Mountbatten and his husband, James Coyle, as they collaborate with chef Jean-Christophe Novelli to create a pop-up restaurant at their home, Bridwell Park in Devon; the fabulously pottymouthed Princess Olga Romanoff as she hunts for a new man; Alexandra and Rick Sitwell at Renishaw Hall in Derbyshire; and the rather endearing Lord Gerald Fitzalan-Howard and his wife, Emma, as they test out their latest money-making venture, a new vineyard producing English sparkling wine at their Carlton Towers estate in Yorkshire.

Simon Callow narrates, with extra plum.

Gerard O’Donovan series conveying a palpable sense of the vast range of treatments offered by hospitals and the effort that goes into the care of every patient. Tonight’s episode covers everything from a liver transplant and children’s heart operations to the key role of the chaplain’s welfare dog.

Lord Gerald Fitzalan-Howard at Carlton Towers, Yorkshire