The very best of the week ahead
Today
Bafta Film Awards 2024
BBC One, 7pm
Following a couple of years of bold but misconceived hosting experiments with Rebel Wilson and then Richard E Grant and Alison Hammond, David Tennant should provide a safe pair of hands for 2024’s instalment of the annual awards ceremony. Having said that, there could be drama elsewhere depending on whether or not the assembled masses can keep their clothes on for Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s performance of Murder on the
Dancefloor (as seen in Saltburn).
Film curator June Givanni and actress Samantha Morton will deservedly receive the Outstanding Contribution Award and the Fellowship respectively, with Bridgerton’s Phoebe Dynevor and How to Have Sex’s Mia McKenna-Bruce among the nominees for the Rising Star award. Oppenheimer and Poor Things are the big hitters in the main nominations, closely followed by The Zone of Interest and
Killers of the Flower Moon (although the latter’s star, Lily Gladstone, remains a surprising absentee in the shortlists). Perhaps most baffling of all: no hair and make-up nod for the cultural titan that is Barbie? Not to worry – this should be a night to remember, with plenty worth celebrating in a fantastic year for cinema. Gabriel Tate
Miners’ Strike: A Frontline Story
BBC Two, 9pm; Wales, 10pm Following Channel 4’s authoritative three-parter, this lengthy but absorbing feature about the 1984 Miners’ Strike (broadcast for its 40th anniversary) inevitably covers much of the same ground, but does so carefully, talking to 15 men and women from South Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, made up of miners from both sides (those who went on strike, and those who continued to work) as well as family and police. GT
Monday
Breathtaking
ITV1, 9pm
The phenomenal outrage that followed ITV1’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office is a testament to the power of TV drama. We are, after all, social creatures. We respond to faces more than names; we empathise with people more than facts. Journalism can inform you that a tragedy has happened, but fiction can make you feel it. This is most certainly the case with
Breathtaking, set amid the horrors of NHS hospital wards at the height of the Covid pandemic. The three-part drama (stripped until Wednesday, with all episodes on ITVX) follows Abbey (Joanne Froggatt), an NHS doctor working in a hospital that is underequipped and overwhelmed. The characters are fictional, although their stories are based on the memoir of doctor Rachel Clarke; she viscerally adapts for TV alongside Prasanna Puwanarajah and Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio. In the first episode, it’s March 2020 and doctors such as Abbey are grappling with the official advice from prime minister Boris Johnson (real footage is spliced with devastating effect). As more and more patients are admitted, PPE runs low and nurses are put on ventilators; the dread is unbearable. Stephen Kelly
The Way
BBC One, 9pm Created by actor Michael Sheen (who directs), playwright James Graham (who writes) and film-maker Adam Curtis (role less obvious), this ambitious, dreamlike drama follows a family caught up in the civil uprising of a Welsh town. Sheen, Callum Scott Howells and Steffan Rhodri all star. SK
Tuesday Joe Lycett vs Sewage
Channel 4, 9pm
Of the many scandals afflicting this country, there can hardly be one that people are more aware of, and disgusted by, than the appalling quantity of raw sewage that our water companies pump into our beautiful rivers and along our coastlines. So, if it feels like comedian Joe Lycett is leaping aboard the bandwagon a little late in the day, at least we can applaud the fact that – unlike most of the official agencies tasked with safeguarding the environment – he is determined to do something about it. And in typically mischievous, confrontational fashion. This always entertaining, often infuriating film sees him “investigate” how Britain’s sewage system should work, and why it has been allowed to go so badly wrong for so long. Who’s to blame: greedy companies or the government? Gerard O’Donovan
More4, 9pm
Ever since Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, men talking to men in the great British countryside has become a thing. Here, comedian Bill Bailey swaps rods for hiking boots and invites fellow celebrities to join him on a series of
Perfect Pub Walks with Bill Bailey
walks. First up, a gentle three-day trek through the Peak District with his close pal, Alan Davies. GO
Wednesday Constellation
Apple TV+ With one hit space-drama, For All Mankind, already on the roster, the arrival of Constellation on Apple TV+ should come as no surprise. But unlike Ronald D Moore’s excellent counterfactual history, this eight-part drama forgoes pulpy fun in favour of something chillier, invoking the likes of Solaris, Interstellar and Gravity.
At its heart is Noomi Rapace’s Jo, an astronaut preparing for her first spacewalk on the ISS when the craft is hit by something and an on-board experiment goes bafflingly awry, eventually leaving Jo alone and plagued by hallucinations. All the while, her husband (James D’Arcy) and daughter wait anxiously on Earth, where Cold War rivalries resurface and Jonathan Banks’s quantum physicist insists that the ISS experiments should continue. GT
Small Island
BBC Four, 10pm
A more recent repeat than many of the archive treats on BBC Four’s Wednesday nights, but this excellent 2009 adaptation of Andrea Levy’s novel is both impeccably cast and timely in its exploration of the Jamaican diaspora in the UK through the intertwined lives of Hortense (Naomie Harris), Michael (Ashley Walters), Bernard (David Oyelowo), Queenie (Ruth Wilson) and Gilbert (Benedict Cumberbatch). GT
Thursday Gymnastics: A Culture of Abuse?
ITV1, 9pm
“I can’t watch gymnastics because I know what I’m watching is child abuse,” says one former gymnast in this documentary, which follows similar shocking reports of widespread abuse in the US. It is at times a tough watch as it chronicles victims’ fight for justice, with some claiming that they were physically, emotionally or sexually abused by their coaches and are now suing the sport’s governing body, British Gymnastics, for allegedly ignoring their allegations. Many of the accusers say that not being believed forced them to leave the sport they loved; others had to live with a range of devastating consequences, including failed relationships in adulthood, anorexia and alcohol addiction. The contributors – gymnasts, parents, coaches and experts, including Anne Whyte KC, who wrote a damning review into the allegations of abuse – tell harrowing stories of bullying and worse by coaches that have gone largely unpunished for decades. In a year when we will see dedication bringing the ultimate reward of Olympic gold medals, it’s a sobering reminder of the dark side of sport. Veronica Lee
Julia
Sky Atlantic, 9pm
Sadly, no third series of this gorgeous biography of chef and television trailblazer Julia Child is on the menu, so have your fill of Sarah Lancashire giving another meaty performance in the title role. In this final episode, The French Chef is under threat when its makers are accused of un-American activities and the FBI pays the TV station a visit. VL
Friday National Trust: My Historic Home
Channel 4, 8pm
Plagued by criticisms from supporters who decry it for being too “woke”, the National Trust is surely thrilled with this enjoyable puff-piece celebrating some of its grandest buildings – and the people who keep them in tip-top shape. Faced with dwindling membership and ever-rising costs, how do they do it? Well, Castle Ward in County Down, Northern Ireland, has had a welcome boost from the TV industry, as a major shooting location in HBO’s Game of Thrones, reveals Collection and House Manager Neil. Over in Herefordshire, meanwhile, Ian must juggle the demands of family life with managing Croft Castle – where his family has lived for 17 years – and its 600 daily visitors. And in north Wales, Emily doesn’t just have Penrhyn Castle to contend with: she’s heavily pregnant and her dog Willow is as demanding as ever. It might serve mostly as an advertorial for new members, but this is also a warm celebration of the good people who have committed themselves to preserving Britain’s historical gems for future generations. Poppie Platt
Monty Don’s Spanish Gardens
BBC Two, 8pm
Swapping the shared limelight of
Gardeners’ World for his own time in the sun, Monty Don heads to Spain to visit some of the nation’s most beautiful gardens. Tonight, that means the vast palatial enclosures of the El Escorial, near Madrid, and a flower-filled public park formed out of a disused river bed. PP