The very best of the week ahead
Today
The Piano
Channel 4, 9pm
The first series of this heartwarming talent contest – recorded in railway stations, where those playing the piano didn’t know they were being watched by classical musician Lang Lang and popstar Mika – was an instant hit with viewers and critics alike. It was also nominated for a most memorable moment Bafta for when eventual winner, 13-year-old Lucy Illingworth – who is blind, non-verbal and autistic – stunned the judges with a complex Chopin piece. Claudia Winkleman is back as host for the second series and the judges also return, but of course the players now know they’re being assessed. This time around, The Piano also makes a stop at additional stations, with its ticketed final set to be held at Manchester’s Aviva Studios. Continuing in the long tradition of TV talent shows’ ( Britain’s Got Talent,
The X Factor) love of a sob story, the contestants fall into one of two camps: those ready to tug at the heartstrings, or those with a talent that seems incongruous with their day job. And so it proves in tonight’s opener, where one standout is gifted boxer Ellis, who started playing at the age of four on a keyboard his mother bought at Argos. Veronica Lee
Dopesick
BBC Two, 10pm & 11pm;
NI, 11.25pm & 12.25pm
Based on Beth Macy’s book – about how opioid addiction swept through the US after Purdue Pharma launched its painkiller, OxyContin, in 2000 – this superb Emmy-winning drama (first shown on Disney+) stars Michael Keaton as a doctor persuaded by Purdue rep Billy Cutler (Will Poulter) to prescribe the drug. The first two episodes air tonight, with the full series on iPlayer. VL
Monday
Miriam: Death of a Reality Star
Channel 4, 9pm “Surely somebody, somewhere could see that this was a stupid idea,” says one contributor towards the end of the opening episode of this three-part series. It is about Miriam Rivera, the
Mexican-American model who shot to fame, briefly, when she starred in Sky’s 2004 Ibiza-based “fun-in-the-sun” reality dating show There’s Something
About Miriam. The “twist” being that she was actually transgender. From today’s perspective, that show looks stupid, but also deeply exploitative, both of the six young men duped into believing that they were competing to win a date with the “girl of their dreams” (as well as £10,000), but for Rivera too. Both subjects are explored in detail, alongside the story of her childhood and her mysterious death in Mexico in 2019. Gerard O’Donovan
Narrow Escapes
Channel 4, 4pm
A new series exploring what life is like for members of the UK’s narrowboat community. Today we meet a father and son who travel the canals of the Peak District on their floating pizzeria, Carrie from Doncaster who’s swapping bricks and mortar for life on the water, and solo boater Emma. GO
Tuesday
Stalking: State of Fear
ITV1, 9pm
Thanks to the success of Richard Gadd’s dark comedy Baby Reindeer
(Netflix), stalking is back in the public consciousness, with vital conversations being had about how victims can be better protected and perpetrators prosecuted. This Exposure documentary meets victims of stalking, discussing how it has ruined their lives, wrecked their confidence and destroyed their trust in law enforcement. The statistics are damning: only one in 20 reports of stalking made to police lead to a conviction – by which time it can be too late. This reality is made heartbreakingly clear by the contributions of the family of Gracie Spinks. The 23-year-old from Derbyshire was murdered in 2021 by Michael Sellers – a man she had previously reported to police for being “obsessed” with her. Poppie Platt
Michael Palin in Nigeria
Channel 5, 9pm
The final leg of Palin’s travels take him to the historic Benin City, which
British forces burned large swathes of in 1897. He learns about the tragedy before being ambushed – verbally – by an angry local who lays into the British Museum’s ownership of priceless treasures from the city. For a bout of lighter entertainment, there’s also a boat ride down the Ethiope river, where he meets a local film-maker. PP
Wednesday
Shardlake Disney+
Having been established by Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose as crucibles of faith and fanaticism, virtue and vice, medieval monasteries make ideal settings for murder mysteries. By turns brooding psychological thriller and rollicking adventure yarn, this long-awaited adaptation of CJ Sansom’s bestselling whodunit Dissolution begins with Thomas Cromwell (Sean Bean) dispatching Matthew Shardlake (Arthur Hughes) to a remote abbey where his emissary has been murdered. Shardlake, a brilliant lawyer with scoliosis, has a two-pronged mission: catch the killer and provide the pretext to close the institution and seize its assets. Hughes and Anthony Boyle ( Masters of the Air) make an engaging odd couple as the perceptive, honourable Shardlake and Jack Barak, Cromwell’s shifty underling who, complete with “distracting codpiece”, is sent to assist or perhaps spy on his companion. A supporting cast including Babou Ceesay (defiant abbot), Paul Kaye (deranged monk) and Peter Firth (the scheming Duke of Norfolk) add plenty of interest. Gabriel Tate
A Very British Sex Scandal:
The Love Child & the Secretary Channel 5, 9pm
Conservative MP Cecil Parkinson’s long affair with his secretary was political dynamite in its day, blowing up his professional ambitions as he spent years in court trying to block publication of details about their daughter. Ian Hislop, Edwina Currie and commentator Matthew Parris are among the well-informed pundits looking back on the whole farrago. GT
Thursday
The Tattooist of Auschwitz
Sky Atlantic, 2.05am & 9pm
This immensely moving six-part drama is based on Heather Morris’s bestselling novel, inspired by the story of Holocaust survivors Lale and Gita Sokolov who met while prisoners in Auschwitz. It’s a remarkable story of love triumphing over evil, with Jonah Hauer-King ( World on Fire) sensitively portraying the young Lale. His job was to ink identification numbers on fellow prisoners’ arms – a job that he took, with great regret and shame, because “I was 26 and I wanted to live” – and is how he crossed paths with Gita Furmanova ( Baptiste’s Anna Próchniak). That they survived was a miracle, and here the forces that combined against them are represented in the form of volatile SS officer Baretzki (Jonas Nay). The devastating events of the 1940s are interwoven with that of the older Lale (Harvey Keitel), by now in his eighties and living in Melbourne, who is plagued by horrific memories. Yet when he recounts his tale to Morris (Melanie Lynskey) he starts by saying: “This is a love story.” It sounds incongruous, but we see why – and the title song, Love Will Survive by Barbra Streisand, is a perfect fit. VL
A Man in Full
Netflix
A new drama series from David E Kelley ( Big Little Lies) is always good news, even better when it stars Jeff Daniels and is based on a Tom Wolfe novel. Daniels plays Charlie Croker, an Atlanta tycoon whose property empire is about to come crashing down. VL
Friday
Clarkson’s Farm Amazon Prime Video
It’s all doom and gloom at Diddly Squat Farm as season three of Jeremy Clarkson’s unlikely – but all the more entertaining for that – agricultural odyssey gets under way. Not only has a closure notice been served on the restaurant, but the council has set its sights also on the farm-shop’s car park. Which means, somehow, that half the cow herd must be dispatched. And to add to the pain, the dry weather – we’re in 2022 as the series begins – is ruining the crops, the tractor needs a service, and the state of the world beyond the farm augurs only massive cost increases and ever-decreasing yields. Desperate to find new income streams, Clarkson’s brainstorming lands on “farming the unfarmed” – attempting to exploit the 500 acres of his estate given over to woodland – and launching new ventures including blackberry jam, goat herding, deer hunting, mushroom growing and pig farming (“We could have Piggly Squat sausages – genius!”). GO
Granite Harbour
BBC One, 8pm
The Scottish crime drama returns for a second series with the members of Aberdeen’s major investigation team – led by Bartlett (Hannah Donaldson) and Lindo (Romario Simpson) – examining two murders that appear unconnected. Elsewhere, the city’s biggest crime family, the McFaddens, are making a bid for legitimacy. GO