DNA Family Secrets

This affecting, fascinating new series is fronted by Stacey Dooley and foregrounds the work of geneticist Professor Turi King (who identified the remains of Richard III). The first three cases feature a man wanting to trace his father – an Africanamerican GI – a mother concerned about passing on the gene for Huntington’s disease that afflicts her father, and a man wondering about the identity of his biological father. GT

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965, b/w) TALKING PICTURES TV, 8.15PM ★★★★

Martin Ritt’s brooding John le Carré adaptation earned Richard Burton his fourth Oscar nomination. He plays Alec Leamas, a British agent marked out by the East German intelligence service as a potential defector. It’s a gorgeously chilly and sad piece of film-making, and Burton receives great support from Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner and Cyril Cusack.

Dark River (2017) FILM4, 11PM ★★★

One of many among a burgeoning trend of films set deep in rural Britain, occupying the same grey, gritty pastoral space as God’s Own Country. The work of Clio Barnard, Dark River is severe: dialogue is spare, even the clouds are portentous. Ruth Wilson is excellent as Alice, a woman who’s spent 15 years drifting from farm to farm, before returning to North Yorkshire to confront her brother.

8 Mile (2002) ITV4, 11.15PM ★★★★

The role of aspiring model Alex in this gritty drama was arguably the finest performance of Brittany Murphy’s tragically short career (she died age 32 in 2009). But it’s Eminem who takes the lead as the semiautobiographical Rabbit, a rapper trying to make a name for himself. The language is X-rated, but Rabbit’s fall and rise is affecting and the Oscarwinning soundtrack still stands up.