The very best of the week ahead
Sunday
Team GB Homecoming Concert by The National Lottery BBC ONE, 7.30PM
As our wonderful Olympians return from Tokyo with another bumper haul of medals, it’s time for us to celebrate the superhuman effort put in over weeks, months and years by individuals, teams and dedicated coaching and backroom staff to bring all that glory home for Britain. Radio 1’s Greg James and Clara Amfo head up the live event from Wembley Arena, where thousands of ticket holders (a percentage of tickets have been reserved for key workers) welcome home Team GB’s athletes. The twohour show promises a mash-up of cutting-edge performance and bigscreen content in a concert featuring some top UK musicians, among them Anne-Marie, Bastille, Yungblud, Laura Mvula, Rag’n’Bone Man and Brit Rising-Star artist, Griff. There will also be specially created pieces from the worlds of UK theatre and dance, notably from North London theatre company Chickenshed and the English National Ballet, plus a contribution from American pop legend Nile Rodgers. Gerard O’Donovan
Upgrade Me! Secrets of First Class CHANNEL 5, 7PM
Say hello to a better class of mile-high club, where the membership requirements are deep pockets and a taste for the greatest luxury imaginable. This entertaining first part of two follows first-class newbies and seasoned sybarites as they seek out the ultimate in in-flight opulence. There’s not much dramatic turbulence here, but it’s still good fun. GO
Monday
The White Lotus us SKY ATLANTIC, 9PM
This six-part series ries may look at first glance like a glossy Fantasy Island, but in fact it’s an unsettling g social satire, beautifully ly observed. It kicks ks off with a plot hook, k, the death of one unidentified character, then scrolls back a week to unspool l the events for us. s. Set in a Hawaiian n resort where America’s stressed elite head to sip cocktails and behave like entitled masters, the drama juxtaposes their lives with those of the staff tending to their needs, particularly the permasmiling duty manager Armond (Murray Bartlett). Upstairs is Dear John’s Connie Britton as a thrusting CEO on holiday with her insecure husband (Steve Zahn) and teenagers; newlywed Shane (Jake Lacy) and his bride, Rachel (Alexandra Daddario), whose honeymoon is fraught from the off; and Jennifer Coolidge as lonely Tanya, there to scatter her mother’s ashes. It’s filmed in an acidic sepia tone and with a jaunty Hawaiian Hawai soundtrack that mocks the notion no of the island paradise and an lets us know that trouble is afoot. af Vicki Power
Children of o 9/11: Our Story CHANNEL 4, 9PM
This affecting aff film about grief meets mee six of the 105 children yet y to be born when their fathers fath were killed in the 9/11 terrorist attack. Now almost a 20-years-old, they describe d the rare experience expe of losing a parent par they never knew. knew VP
Tuesday
Annika ALIBI, 9PM
No sooner has she shaken off one copper than the estimable Nicola Walker takes on another – one who may be familiar to Radio 4 listeners. Adapted from Nick Walker’s hit Annika Stranded, the investigations of DI Annika Strandhed make an occasionally wobbly but largely absorbing transfer to television. The action moves to Glasgow, where Strandhed has moved from Oslo to lead the new Marine Homicide Unit, the necessity of which becomes apparent when a man is found in the Clyde, harpoon in his head. With mismatched colleagues in tow – Katie Leung as savvy Blair, Jamie Sives as resentful Michael, Ukweli Roach as rash Tyrone – feuds and vengeance surface. Less tortured than Unforgotten’s Cassie Stuart, she nevertheless has her eccentricities, notably a literary bent that this time embraces Moby Dick and The Tempest, and Walker’s typically detailed and sympathetic performance smooths over the more workaday elements of the whodunnit, especially in those moments where Annika breaks the fourth wall. Gabriel Tate
Jonnie’s Blade Camp CHANNEL 4, 10PM
This two-parter, in which Paralympic sprinter Jonnie Peacock helps five young amputees to achieve their sporting dreams, is not the sort of series where failure is a likely outcome. But, as it concludes, the journey towards those triumphs is heartwarming, and for all the inspiration there is no sugar-coating the challenges these five remarkable young people face. GT
Wednesday
Changing Rooms CHANNEL 4, 8PM
The TV behemoth that PICK launched an entire genre OF THE of tacky DIY home decor WEEK challenges returns to our screens for the first time in 17 years. And the good news is, it’s as unapologetically garish and rough around the edges as ever. Admittedly, there’s no sign of Carol Smillie, Linda Barker or cheeky-chappy carpenter “Handy” Andy Kane. But continuity is assured by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, lumbering like a leather-trousered designer dinosaur across the screen, and the tone is camper than ever with 2LG designers Jordan Cluroe and Russell Whitehead in the opposing, er, camp. Even the absence of Anna Ryder Richardson is addressed by having Channel 4 regular Anna Richardson (see what they did there?) act as host. Otherwise, the format remains largely the same and the revamp kicks off in Swansea where two pairs of suitably loud, unselfconscious neighbours are given 48 hours, a designer and lots of eye-aching paint to transform a room each in each others’ houses – before the “reveal” shows us just what a life-changing transformation can be wrought by a drag-queen inspired bedroom and a Raj-themed living room. GO
Jay’s Yorkshire Workshop BBC TWO, 8PM
Restoration man Jay Blades builds on The Repair Shop’s popularity with this emotionally potent spin-off, in which he challenges master craftsmen and apprentice furniture-makers to create bespoke gifts for doers of good deeds. Tonight, heroic care-home workers, a disability charity founder and an organ donor are summoned for thanks. GO
Thursday
I Am Maria CHANNEL 4, 9PM
The third and final episode of the second series of Dominic Savage’s portraits of women in crisis is another emotionally intense playlet. Lesley Manville gives a flawless performance as a woman hitting her 60th birthday and realising the life she has is not the one she wants. There are shades of Shirley Valentine here, minus the comedy – Manville is raw and convincing, making Maria’s turmoil visceral as we witness her anger, sorrow and misery building to a climax. Michael Gould is an excellent sparring partner as Maria’s husband, his passive-aggressiveness a counterpoint to her emotion. The action takes place over Maria’s birthday weekend at home with their adult children, during which tension grows between the couple over several excruciating scenes. VP
Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back CHANNEL 4, 8PM
Lycett’s series returns to mix more consumer campaigns with comedy in this jocular take on Watchdog. But its aim is laudable: tonight, Lycett turns his sights on companies producing unrecyclable plastic, even staging a walkout on daytime TV to garner attention. VP
Friday
Nine Perfect Strangers
AMAZON PRIME VIDEO
Fans of The Undoing and Big Little Lies will be delighted to learn that, with Nine Perfect Strangers, David E Kelley and Nicole Kidman have reconvened for another adaptation replete with mystery, psychodrama and rich people behaving badly. The set-up for the story from bestselling author Liane Moriarty is simple: nine people arrive at a remote wellness retreat, Tranquillum House, run by the enigmatic, ethereal Masha (Kidman), an “amazing, mystical eastern Bloc unicorn” according to her loudest new client, novelist Frances (Melissa McCarthy). Among those joining Frances are Luke Evans’s cocksure divorce lawyer, Regina Hall’s shy single mother, Bobby Cannavale’s laconic urbanite, and gruff bore Michael Shannon, whose enthusiasm for the ensuing days is not shared by wife Asher Keddie or daughter Grace van Patten. In short, it’s a memorable ensemble whose actors bounce off each other to considerable effect. The first three episodes land today and weekly thereafter. GT
The Chair
NETFLIX
A role tailor-made for Sandra Oh in actor Amanda Peet’s smart writing debut: Oh’s wry, slightly chaotic, fiercely intelligent Doctor of English becomes chair of her department at a high-achieving if fusty university. Faced with an ageing teaching staff, a hard-nosed dean and student body in revolt, the last straw comes when her colleague and secret lover Jay Duplass has a public breakdown. GT