UNION WITH DAVID OLUSOGA BBC Two, 9pm

David Olusoga has forged a path as a keen observer of modern British society through its tumultuous history. In this thoughtful four-part documentary series, the historian turns his attention to the four nations of the United Kingdom, and how they came to form a single state despite dramatic cultural and political differences.

The first episode smartly plots the events leading up to the 1707

Act of Union, unpicking its foundational myth: the gunpowder plot of 1605, which became a bogeyman story about the threat of Catholicism – and helped to bolster James I’s campaign to join the kingdoms of England (and Wales) and Scotland.

There is an affecting exploration of the history of Northern Ireland, born from the Plantation of Ulster, when Protestant settlers displaced native Irish Catholics. Elevating things beyond a mildly interesting doc is the inclusion of interviews with the Britons of today – whom, Olusoga provocatively suggests, could be “destined to become its last” amid continued calls for separatism. Dermot says the legacy of the plantation was the destruction of Irish culture, while Lauren laments that, centuries later, some still believe she doesn’t belong in Ireland. All episodes are on iPlayer. Jack Taylor the first episode when she gets into an unknown car; leaving husband Sydney (Daniel Mays) devastated to discover he is a suspect in her murder. This harrowing dramatisation of the five-year investigation into serial killer Peter Sutcliffe continues to offer a moving study of the lives of the victims and their families.

The historian presents a thoughtful study of the Union