The very best of the week ahead
Today
Epidemic: When Britain Fought Aids CHANNEL 4, 10.00PM This thought-provoking documentary looks at the Aids epidemic in the UK and how it changed attitudes. Where the programme excels is in the revealing testimony from its talking heads: from campaigners and activists such as Tony Whitehead and Dr Rupert Whitaker (the latter of whom movingly recalls his relationship with Terrence Higgins, one of the first people in the UK to die of an Aidsrelated illness) to the doctors who treated the disease and sought to contain its spread. Former secretary of state for social services Norman Fowler is honest about how difficult it was to convince then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to support a campaign while Paul O’Grady talks about the way in which gay men were ostracised. The most poignant moment belongs to Whitehead: “I’m not one for numbers,” he says. “It was more that my life was suddenly filled with person-shaped holes.” Sarah Hughes
London Anniversary Games BBC TWO, 12.15PM & BBC ONE, 1.15PM The world’s best athletes will descend on the London Stadium in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for the Anniversary Games. Mo Farah is the main draw as the four-time Olympic gold medallist races for the final time in the Diamond League. Meanwhile, Laura Muir, who has been in flying form, is set to tackle Zola Budd’s 32-year-old British mile record of 4min 17.57sec. Clive Morgan
Monday
Catching a Killer: The Wind in the Willows Murder CHANNELANNEL 4, 9.00PM There’s no sign of TV’s insatiable appetite for true-crime documentaries waning and there’s something undeniably compelling about watching diligent professionals going about their work, however thankless the task. The Wind the Willows Murder explores the case of Adrian Greenwood, a dealer in art and antiquarian books who was stabbed over 30 times in his Oxford home during an incident when his valuable early edition of the titular book also appears to have gone missing. A suspect rapidly emerges, but there are complications as the case begins to envelop the family of the accused. This goes deeper than the merely procedural, and explores the fallout of the case for those beyond the victim’s family. The access to all levels of the case is extraordinary, and director Jezza Neumann knows exactly when to pose a question and whenw to stand back. Gabriel Tate
Mini Monet MillionaireMi BBC ONE, 7.30PM In 2009, KieronKier Williamson held his first art show. He is now worth £2million and, at the riper old age of 14, preparingpreparin for a major exhibition. MartinM Shaw narrates thist profile of the watercolourwa prodigyprodi and the parentspare who have so carefullyc ma managed his car career. GT
Tuesday
In the Dark BBC ONE, 9.00PM Bestselling British crime writer Mark Billingham’s books have been adapted for television before but never so compellingly as in this new series scripted by Danny Brocklehurst ( Ordinary Lies). He sidesteps the author’s Tom Thorne character and pushes his sidekick DI Helen Weeks (MyAnna Buring) to the fore. It is a strategy that succeeds brilliantly in this opening episode. The pregnant Weeks returns to her home in Derbyshire and becomes embroiled in a high-profile investigation. Her involvement is peripheral at first – the prime suspect’s wife, Linda Bates (Emma Fryer), is Weeks’ childhood friend – but, little by little, she’s drawn into the case, not least because of a secret of her own. Buring, from Ripper Street, is terrific in her first lead role, entirely credible as a cop with a conscience and great instincts, and she receives great support all round, especially from Ben Batt as her personal partner and fellow detective DI Paul Hopkins. Gerard O’Donovan
Grandad, Dementia & Me BBC ONE, 10.45PM; NI/WALES, 11.10PM; SCOTLAND, 11.45PM This is a deeply poignant film from talented young documentary-maker Dominic Sivyer, who filmed his 79-year-old grandfather Tom over the difficult two years or so following a brain scan in 2014 revealed that he was suffering from dementia. “I wanted to make sense of an illness that was taking away the most important man in my life and dismantling 50 years of a marriage, but what I found defied expectation,” says Sivyer. The focus on the illness’s impact on Sivyer’s grandparents’ seemingly unbreakable relationship is heartbreaking at times but ultimately uplifting. GO
Wednesday
Ackley Bridge CHANNEL 4, 8.00PM Channel 4’s attempt to give school drama a shot in the arm while reviving family TV has been a mixed bag. The script – and some of the acting – is a little obvious and there’s heavyhanded telegraphing of plot lines. Yet there’s also a rough-and-ready charm to those stories that makes you enjoy watching them play out. This finale sees Jo Joyner’s head teacher Mandy Carter facing the fallout from her affair with the school’s sponsor Sadiq Nawaz (Adil Ray). As ever, the plaudits really belong to the younger cast: Samuel Bottomley, who gives the troubled Jordan a spiky appeal, makes you understand why Paul Nicholls’ harried teacher would put his neck on the line for him. Ackley Bridge has done enough to earn its second series. SH
The Week the Landlords Moved in BBC ONE, 9.00PM; WALES, 10.40PM Life-swap TV is a familiar format, but this series has been eye-opening for viewers and participants alike. The final episode features Samuel, 25, who spends “less than five minutes a month” managing his property portfolio. After a week in the shoes of single mother Marie, he concludes: “Just understanding my tenants will make me a better landlord”. Rachel Ward
Thursday
Horizon: Dippy and the Whale BBC TWO, 9.00PM The centrepiece of the Natural History Museum’s entrance hall since 1979, Dippy the diplodocus, is now being replaced by a 136-year-old skeleton of a blue whale. The decision is symbolic as well as aesthetic: criticised as a little navel-gazing, the institution has decided to make a statement about conservation and looking to the future by championing a creature first driven to the brink of extinction and then saved by the actions of humanity. David Attenborough narrates this enlightening overview of the logistical nightmare of restoring, constructing and then hanging the skeleton of Earth’s largest mammal from a ceiling. Raising the whale edifice centimetre by painstaking centimetre, using what amounts to hand-cranks, doesn’t come without its dangers as one ear-splitting crack, mid-lift, makes clear. But with the whale due to be unveiled this evening, it’s no spoiler to say that this ends on an optimistic note. GT
Who Do You Think You Are? BBC ONE, 9.00PM Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood gives his family tree a good shake and, even though no skeletons come out, there are enough tales of financial disaster, resilience and even a brush with showbiz to keep the old ham happy. It takes a while to get going, but the pay-off is worth it. GT
Friday
BBC Proms 2017 BBC TWO, 9.00PM AND BBC FOUR, 8.00PM There remains no better opportunity to experience live classical music at its very best than the Proms. This year commemorates events as diverse as the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, 300 years of Handel’s Water Music, 500 years of the Protestant Reformation, and celebrates the birthdays of two experimentalists, Philip Glass and John Adams. Harmonium, the latter’s 1981 masterpiece comprising a captivating setting of poems by John Donne and Emily Dickinson, takes up the second half of this First Night concert when BBC Two takes over coverage at 9.00pm. Before the interval, BBC Four gets things off to a lively start with a raucous new piece, St John’s Dance, by Tom Coult. GO
Chasing Coral NETFLIX, FROM TODAY “This has got to wake up the world,” says film-maker Jeff Orlowski of his superb documentary. For a film about the awful ravages of global warming on the world’s coral beds and reefs, it is not just surprisingly, but staggeringly, beautiful. And that’s precisely the point, because it makes the loss of these living structures due to “bleaching” events, recorded in time lapse before our very eyes, all the more tragic. GO