My F-ing Tourette’s Family
Channel 4, 9.00pm
“Have you ever had roasted Donald Trump? He tastes nice,” announces nine-year-old Lewis to a surprised restaurant midway through this eye-opening and moving documentary. Lewis and his older brother Spencer, 13, both have an extreme strain of Tourette’s Syndrome, meaning that, in addition to multiple physical tics, they are prone to swearing and making uncontrolled statements. Parents Hayley and Richard Davies-Monk admit that this has made family life very difficult – “I’ve had people tell me my children are possessed by the devil,” says Hayley matter-of-factly – but they’re determined not to hide their sons away and thus embark on a six-month experiment to get out more.
While the shy Spencer is acutely aware of how strangers might misinterpret his tics, Lewis is largely unaware of how his behaviour might appear, which inevitably leads to the sort of half-entertaining/half- embarrassing scenes we’ve seen before in documentaries about Tourette’s. Yet what marks My F-ing Tourette’s Family out is the close family bond – it’s obvious that the Davies-Monks all adore each other and by the end of the film you’re rooting for them all to achieve their dreams. SH
Class of Mum and Dad
Channel 4, 8.00pm
This is the last episode in what has proved an interesting but flawed series, and it is also the last week of term. But that also means that it’s SATs week – can Class 6M cope with the exam pressure? SH
The Split
BBC One, 9.00pm
Abi Morgan’s sibling drama continues as Hannah (Nicola Walker) oversees a high-profile prenup, middle sister Rose (Fiona Button) plans her wedding and the youngest, Nina (Annabel Scholey), finds herself caught in-between her family’s demands. It’s hugely enjoyable. SH
Hospital
BBC Two, 9.00pm
This fly-on-the-wall series ends with a focus on the increasing pressures heaped on the NHS. At the Nottingham University Hospitals Trust the critical care unit headed by Dave Selwyn has been forced to differentiate between life-threatening cases and those which can be rescheduled, making for some tough calls. SH
Cunk on Britain
BBC Two, 10.00pm; NI, 11.15pm
The final episode of the mockumentary series is aptly titled The Arse End of History and sees the ever-questioning Ms Cunk find herself at “the point where olden times end and now times begin… where something you might have heard of actually happened”. From the Beatles to Brexit, no stone is left unturned. SH
Tate Britain’s Great Art Walks
Sky Arts, 9.00pm
This engaging mix of nature and art history continues with Helena Bonham Carter joining Guy Casely-Hayford to look at Dora Carrington, who was a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Best known for her intense relationship with the gay writer Lytton Strachey, Carrington’s work is ripe for reappraisal, and this film begins that process. SH
Paterno
Sky Atlantic, 9.00pm
The Penn State abuse scandal, which saw the college’s American football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky jailed for more than 40 counts of child sex abuse, is given the biopic treatment by Barry Levinson (Rain Man). The film concentrates on the team’s celebrated head coach Joe Paterno (Al Pacino), and has one main question: how much did Paterno, who was sacked following Sandusky’s conviction and died a week later, know? Levinson’s film suggests a person can be complicit even if they are unaware of the extent of the crimes committed. SH
Look Back in Anger (1958, b/w) ★★★☆☆
London Live, 2.40pm
This searing film of John Osborne’s play defined the “angry young men” drama of the Fifties. Richard Burton stars as Jimmy Porter, a working-class man with a chip the size of the Royal Court Theatre on his shoulder, who torments his upper-middle-class wife (Mary Ure) and claims to despise her visiting best friend Helena (Claire Bloom). It’s poignant, claustrophobic and sexually charged.
We’re No Angels (1955) ★★★★☆
Film4, 4.40pm
Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov and Aldo Ray star in this charming comedy as the eponymous “no angels”. They play three convicts who escape from an island prison and head to a nearby town, planning to swindle their way to boarding a ship. But they are invited to Christmas dinner by the owners of the shop they are intending to rob, and find themselves reluctantly softening when they learn of the family’s financial trouble.
Poltergeist (2015) ★★☆☆☆
5STAR, 10.00pm
Much like The Italian Job, above, this was a remake that no one needed. The film adds little new to the story of a family home that is haunted by evil spirits, but it is a fun scare-fest nonetheless and those who haven’t seen Tobe Hooper’s original will see it as satisfactory everyday horror. Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt star as the parents who buy a new house, only to find the electrical items seem to have a life of their own.
Wednesday 2 May
Love in the Countryside
BBC Two, 9.00pm
Among the many challenges facing British farmers today, the lack of potential partners is a perhaps under-reported one. Seeking to right this wrong, Sara Cox has gathered eight agricultural singletons for this new series. After posting profiles and pictures on the BBC website, they have received sacks of letters from which they must select a few hopefuls to meet and then take home for a few days on the farm.
The focus for this opening week falls on three of them. There’s 52-year-old Pete, whose bachelordom comes as no surprise given his claim that “cows are probably better behaved than women”, but whose softer centre emerges over the course of the hour; Dumfries farmer Christine, 32 and a vulnerable soul whose unwillingness to leave the family farm is as much psychological as practical; and 25-year-old Ed, a former wild child tamed by the quieter rhythms of rural life. Their brief dates veer from faltering to sweet and unwatchable, but by the end each has a shortlist of potential mates. Although six episodes feels like a stretch, it’s an engaging concept, and with a made-to-measure host in down-to-earth farmer’s daughter Cox. GT
Heathrow: Britain’s Busiest Airport
ITV, 8.00pm
Passenger experience manager Demi and the check-in staff have to deal with disgruntled passengers and broken baggage belts, while border guard Bob assesses whether or not to allow a Brazilian student into the country, as the fourth series of the docusoap begins. GT
Benidorm
ITV, 9.00pm
Holly Johnson follows in the footsteps of Carol Decker and Tony Hadley, as he arrives to entertain the guests in the final episode of another star-studded series of the sun-drenched sitcom. Elsewhere, Joyce (Sherrie Hewson) hears news of potential investors. GT
Britain’s Fat Fight with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
BBC One, 9.00pm; Scotland, 10.45pm
Hugh challenges restaurants to improve calorie information on menus, spreads the word about the high sugar content in fruit juices and smoothies, and recruits comedian Ross Noble for his campaign to improve Newcastle’s eating habits. GT
Rich House, Poor House: the Big Surprise
Channel 5, 9.00pm
Series five, and the wealthy Whitings switch houses with the Timmins family, who live in a two-bed property in Newquay: one is in the wealthiest 10 per cent, the other in the poorest; expect life lessons to be learnt. GT
Mystery of the Lost Paintings
Sky Arts, 8.00pm
Factum Arte, a company that uses technology to preserve or recreate damaged or lost art works, receives a nifty publicity boost with this new series. It begins with a look at Graham Sutherland’s 1954 portrait of Winston Churchill, so loathed by Churchill’s wife Clementine that it was burnt; a story recently told in Netflix series The Crown. The Mona Lisa Myth, narrated by Morgan Freeman, which investigates the theory that Leonardo painted two versions of the portrait, airs at 10.00pm. GT
Discovering: Jack Palance
Sky Arts, 9.00pm
Initially typecast as a villain in westerns (Shane) and melodramas (Sudden Fear), Jack Palance went on to have an unpredictable career, working with Jean-Luc Godard in Le Mepris and Percy Adlon in Baghdad Café, before capping his career with his ornery, Oscar-winning turn in Billy Crystal comedy City Slickers. This brisk, concise profile pays tribute. GT
The Lego Movie (2014) ★★★★☆
5STAR, 7.00pm
Andy Warhol would have been knocked sideways by this uproarious all-art, all-advertising family adventure that perfectly captures Lego’s unique charms. The plot is a Star Wars/Matrix hybrid with jokes, in which a builder from the town of Bricksburg becomes the unlikely leader of a resistance movement. Parents who grew up with Lego will feel the prickle of nostalgia, and children will be swept away.
The Dressmaker (2015) ★★☆☆☆
Film4, 9.00pm
In Jocelyn Moorhouse’s royally daffy outback melodrama, Kate Winslet plays the perfectly styled seamstress Tilly Dunnage, returning to her dusty hometown. There are scores to be settled, an amnesiac mother (Judy Davis) to be coaxed into lucidity and a rugby-playing stud (Liam Hemsworth) to be ensnared. But most of all, there are frocks: every scene’s a Dior-inspired catwalk in the scrub.
The Day of the Triffids (1962, b/w) ★★★☆☆
Talking Pictures TV, 9.00pm
An adaptation of John Wyndham’s more serious novel, this is clunky, hammy, hysterical sci-fi fun from an age when films could end with a narrator saying, “Mankind survived and once again have reason to give thanks.” Giant carnivorous plants arrive in a meteor shower. They attack mankind. Mankind runs around shrieking. Mankind gets its act together. The end.
Thursday 3 May
Prince Harry’s Story: Four Royal Weddings
ITV, 9.00pm
The weddings are those of Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, the Prince of Wales and Camilla, William and Kate and now the Prince’s own. And we know what comes after next… the funeral, of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. With just over a fortnight to go before Prince Harry and Meghan Markle tie the knot, this documentary looks back over the prince’s life (all 33 years of it) as a royal, charting the journey from a childhood marked by grief, through his active service as a soldier in Afghanistan and later charity work, to what we must hope will be the happiest day of his life, his wedding day, Saturday 19 May.
Explored through the usual selection of archive footage, news reports and commentary, the documentary stands out because of its contributors, the net being cast rather wider than usual. So we get to hear from people such as Steve Hoare, guitarist in a band that played at the pub near Highgrove where young Harry enjoyed drinking, as well as singer Geri Horner, Olympian Dame Kelly Holmes, former Royal chef Carolyn Robb and many others. All of these faces help build a picture of how, and why, this prince is regarded with such particular affection. GO
Britain’s Best Home Cook
BBC One, 8.00pm
Here is yet another attempt by the BBC to reproduce the lost magic of The Great British Bake Off. Here Mary Berry is joined by Strictly co-host Claudia Winkleman, chef Dan Doherty and produce expert Chris Bavin for an eight-week live-in contest in which 10 amateur cooks vie for the title of Britain’s best. GO
Ambulance
BBC One, 9.00pm
A machete attack and two shootings keep the West Midlands ambulance service’s specialist trauma team busy on an eventful weekend night shift, while another crew answers a call from a victim of domestic abuse. GO
Syria: The World’s War
BBC Two, 9.00pm
How could peaceful protest spiral into such unspeakable savagery – half a million people killed, millions of lives shattered and so much of Syria in ruins? That’s the question at the heart of Lyse Doucet’s deeply disturbing two-part documentary about the terrible conflict in Syria and the roles other states have played in perpetuating it. Concludes tomorrow. GO
Election 2018
BBC One, 11.45pm; NI, 12.15am
As the results from English local council elections roll in, Huw Edwards, Laura Kuenssberg and a panel of politicians and pundits discuss the impact on key districts and boroughs. GO
Urban Myths: Alice Cooper and Salvador Dali
Sky Arts, 9.00pm
In probably the best episode of the current run, comedian Noel Fielding plays US rocker Alice Cooper while David Suchet is surrealist artist Salvador Dali in an entertainingly reimagined account of the pair’s bizarre four-day collaboration in New York in 1973 to produce in one of the world’s first holograms. Bonuses include Paul Kaye’s performance as Cooper’s legendary manager, Shep Gordon, and an original score by Richard Hawley and Jarvis Cocker. GO
Barry
Sky Atlantic, 10.45pm
Very few new TV series ever receive such near-universal praise as Bill Hader’s entertaining comedy about a hitman who finds himself badly bitten by the acting bug while out on a job. In this second episode, hitman Barry (Hader) is forced to confront a bitter truth about his day job when acting coach Gene (Henry Winkler) encourages the class to channel their feelings into their work. GO
Control (2007) ★★★★☆
AMC, 9.00pm
Released one day short of the 27th anniversary of Ian Curtis’s suicide, Anton Corbijn’s homage to the troubled Joy Division frontman is superbly researched and exquisitely executed in black and white. Starring Sam Riley (his first time in a lead role) and Samantha Morton, the film charts Curtis’s rise to fame, his battle with epilepsy, and his eventual demise. It’s a beautiful, but extremely sad tale.
For Your Eyes Only (1981) ★★★☆☆
ITV4, 9.00pm
In Roger Moore’s fifth Bond film, 007 is sent to recover a communication device which was lost at sea when a British spy ship sank in the Ionian. The transmitter can order attacks from Britain’s submarine missiles, so Bond must reach it before the Soviets do, but he’s distracted by Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet), whose parents were murdered by the KGB. The plot is thin, but the film is rescued somewhat by high-quality stunts.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) ★★★☆☆
Sony Movie Channel, 9.00pm
The first novel in Stieg Larsson’s popular crime series gets the Hollywood treatment via the trusty hands of Fight Club director David Fincher. Rooney Mara is excellent as the tormented computer hacker brought in to help writer Mikael (Daniel Craig) research a book on the wealthy Vanger family, but the flimsiness of Larsson’s whodunit awkwardly shines through.
Friday 4 May
Friday Night Dinner
Channel 4, 10.00pm
Friday Night Dinner is a one of those sitcoms that you either love or loathe, depending on your appreciation of slapstick and smutty jokes. Whichever camp you are in, the comedy has made it to a fifth series. And for those who do love it, this opening episode sees brothers Adam and Jonny (Simon Bird and Tom Rosenthal) turn up for their standard Friday night dinner, only to discover their parents Martin and Jackie (Paul Ritter and Tamsin Greig) enjoying their new hot tub (because it is apparently still the Seventies) and planning Chinese takeaway. That all changes, however, once their hapless neighbour Jim (Mark Heap) decides to leave his dog with them because of he has a hot date. Cue lots of “jokes” about internet food, furtive sex and whether going to the takeaway down the road is “very 1930s”.
The excellent cast all do their best – Rosenthal is particularly good at drily delivering the put-downs – but creator Robert Popper’s farce-heavy script requires them to do far too much heavy lifting. By the time Jim appears at the door with dirt-streaked hands and a compulsively giggling lady friend, you may find yourself silently weeping at the clunky agony of it all. SH
Unreported World
Channel 4, 7.30pm
Rania Abouzeid reports from Kabul, where kidnappings are a daily occurrence. Here, Abouzeid explores two cases – one involving a teenager who has been held for nine months – and discovers that there are no easy answers. This is a bleak but important piece of reporting. SH
Home from Home
BBC One, 9.30pm
The ghost of Ever Decreasing Circles continues to haunt this amiable sitcom, although it lacks the dark edge of the Richard Briers hit. Here, a fed-up Neil (Johnny Vegas) throws a party, much to his snobby neighbour Robert’s (Adam James) delight. SH
Episodes
BBC Two, 10.00pm; Wales, 11.05pm
The final series of the acerbic satire of Hollywood has been an absolute delight. And that continues with this episode as Sean (Stephen Mangan) and Bev (Tamsin Greig) discover just how far Matt (Matt LeBlanc) is prepared to go in order to get a co-creator credit. SH
High & Dry
Channel 4, 10.30pm
Marc Wootton’s comedy about a group of plane crash survivors initially seems behind the times given that Lost ended eight years ago. However, stick with it because Wootton is in fine comedy monster mode as air steward Brett. Plus, the whole thing perks up once Vicky Pepperdine arrives as indomitable survivor Harriet. SH
Too Fat for Love
BBC Three, from 10.00am
There’s a touch of the Carrie Bradshaw’s about this film in which vlogger Emma B asks the question: are we [the plus-sized community] too fat for love? To answer that, Emma talks to other plus-sized women, tries out life modelling and attends a sex tips class. The result is an entertaining film that is particularly astute about the way in which society portrays larger people. SH
The Jazz Ambassadors
BBC Four, 9.00pm
This intriguing documentary tells the story of how congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr convinced President Eisenhower to use jazz artists as cultural ambassadors, sending them on global tours to tackle Soviet propaganda. As the tours progressed, the musicians, including Louis Armstrong, found themselves increasingly conflicted: how could they promote America as the Land of the Free when the US’s Jim Crow segregation laws made them second-class citizens back home? SH
Dunkirk (2017) ★★★★★
Sky Cinema Premiere, 8.00pm
Director Christopher Nolan (who, bafflingly, is still yet to win an Oscar), takes a novel approach to the Dunkirk evacuation. Told through three separate perspectives, taking place in the air, the sea and on land, the film is a disorientating, dazzling, superbly crafted tribute to their bravery. Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance and Harry Styles are among the cast.
Magic Mike (2012) ★★★★☆
E4, 9.00pm
Steven Soderbergh made a surprise decision to tackle the world of male strippers in Tampa, Florida, and exceeded every expectation: it’s one of his most enjoyable movies. Channing Tatum, in a story based on his own pre-Hollywood career, is revelatory – and Soderbergh works similar wonders with young star Alex Pettyfer and the resurgent Matthew McConaughey as the club’s smooth-talking, cowboy-hat-wearing owner.
Non-Stop (2014) ★★★☆☆
Film4, 9.00pm
Liam Neeson is the dolorous air marshal who spends most of this film bounding up and down the aisle of a hijacked plane with a time-bomb under his arm in a plot so absurd that you can’t help but smile. Every passenger is a suspect, even Julianne Moore’s sweet heart-surgery patient. But Neeson wears the action-hero mantle so comfortably nowadays that you’ll become engrossed.
Television previewers
Toby Dantzic, Sarah Hughes, Gerard O'Donovan, Vicki Power and Gabriel Tate