What's on TV tonight: Grenfell, Flowers, Fight Like a Girl and more

Fight Like a Girl

BBC One, 7.30pm

The ferocious sport of female wrestling comes under the spotlight with this lively film following Scottish fighter Kimberly Benson. She combines a gruelling training regime with her daytime job, as she aims for her first world title in Japan.

Long Lost Family: What Happened Next

ITV, 9.00pm

Nicky Campbell and Davina McCall catch up with families they’ve reunited. Cathie Cutler Evans, who met her half-sister in 2016, has found joy in her extended clan. But for Maureen Charlton, separated from her brother Michael for 40 years, progress been painstaking.

Dan Snow’s Norman Walks

PBS America, 9.00pm

Dan Snow sorts fact from fiction as he investigates the history of Norman Britain in this new series. He starts off on the Sussex coast, where aided by evidence from the Bayeux Tapestry, he pieces together William the Conqueror’s 11th-century coastal invasion.

Flowers

Channel 4, 10.00pm

Will Sharpe’s gloriously dark comedy about a dysfunctional family returns with a double bill, then continues each night this week. A seemingly chipper Maurice (Julian Bennett) and Deborah (Olivia Colman) are on a caravanning holiday, while daughter Amy (Sophia di Martino) has a brash new girlfriend.

Storyville: City Of Ghosts

BBC Four, 10.30pm

There are images of death in Matthew Heineman’s film so harrowing that it’s hard to keep watching, but these are the sights that Heineman’s subject, rebel group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered, face daily. The renegade collective have made it their task to secretly film the atrocities committed by Isil in the Syrian city of Raqqa, and show the rest of the world the reality of the regime. It’s an astonishing act of citizen-led journalism, and the participants’ fear and grief, as well as their sense of purpose, are starkly captured in Heineman’s blunt and brutal chronicle of a city in turmoil. TD

Prisons Uncovered: Out Of Control?

ITV, 10.45pm; Scotland, 11.05pm; Wales, 11.15pm; not UTV

In 2016, HMP Birmingham saw the worst prison riot for 25 years, in which 600 inmates were freed from their cells. This sobering documentary looks at the factors behind the incident and reflects on the prison system. TD

Our Kind of Traitor (2016) ★★☆☆☆

Film4, 9.00pm

Ewan McGregor stars in this so-so John le Carré adaptation as poetry lecturer Perry Makepeace, who becomes embroiled in negotiations to bring Dima (Stellan Skarsgård), a well-connected Russian oligarch, into the fold of British intelligence. Skarsgård is the standout here, charging into his role with pungency, playing Dima as a bedraggled beast of Moscow’s criminal underworld.

The Shining (1980) ★★★★★

TCM, 9.00pm

Set in a deserted hotel that’s in the care of writer Jack (Jack Nicholson) and his family for the winter, Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant psycho-horror, based on the novel by Stephen King, is subtly unsettling. But it’s stuffed, too, with unforgettable nerve-jangling shocks, including the moment when the crazed Jack smashes his way through a door with an axe as his wife (Shelley Duvall) cowers in the corner.

Teen Wolf (1985) ★★★☆☆

5STAR, 12.10am

Critics howled at this preposterous teenage comedy but audiences loved it, perhaps because it came out shortly after its star Michael J Fox’s finest hour: Back to the Future. The plot – in which Fox’s likeable nerd morphs into a basketball-playing werewolf – is almost as unlikely as the fact that he still looked fresh out of the 11th grade at the ripe old age of 25. An unparalleled analysis of puberty and adolescence.

Tuesday 12 June

Grammar Schools: Who Will Get In?

BBC Two, 9.00pm; Scotland & Wales, 11.15pm

Jamie Pickup’s series has walked a tightrope with considerable skill, highlighting the inarguable inequities of our educational system that favours a selective approach, while also acknowledging its considerable benefits and observing the situation from the points of view of both pupils and teachers. It concludes with mock GCSE exams approaching and students at Erith School, a secondary modern, and neighbouring institution Townley Grammar, having to assess their suitability for further education. Some, it’s fair to say, are taking it more seriously than others. 

Townley pupil Tanisha is underperforming and low on confidence, yet keen to raise her game and nurtured by staff aware of her limitations and capabilities. At Erith, meanwhile, Denisa is angling for a place in Townley Sixth Form and seems more than capable of attaining it, but staffing shortages are crippling science classes amid an endless round of supply teachers and stand-ins. “It keeps me awake at night,” says the admirable faculty head Mr Appiah-Gates. It’s a desperately difficult situation and one that reaches an unexpected conclusion, as common ground is found between two unlikely bedfellows. Gabriel Tate

The Champions

Netflix, from today

Created by Mindy Kaling, this new NBC sitcom plays a bachelor gym owner (Anders Holm) off against his gay, estranged son-cum-new flatmate (the brilliant J J Totah). Smartly written and nimbly performed, it’s a solid mainstream hit.

Ackley Bridge

Channel 4, 8.00pm

Matt Evans and Penny Woolcock continue to keep an implausible number of plates spinning as the fizzy pre-watershed drama continues to conduct its handbrake narrative turns. Both Jordan (Samuel Bottomley) and Missy (Poppy Lee Friar) handle cash shortages in an equally desperate manner, and the arrival of Steve’s ex Claire (Kimberly Walsh) puts head teacher Mandy’s (Jo Joyner) nose out of joint.

Our Girl

BBC One, 9.00pm

Georgie (Michelle Keegan) learns an astonishing secret about the local crime boss, before a major rescue operation begins as the flawed but well-meaning military drama continues.

Flights from Hell: Caught on Camera

ITV, 9.00pm

ITV lays down its prime-time weapons as the World Cup looms, as demonstrated by this daft three-part series of incidents filmed at 30,000 feet. These include what an engine explosion feels like to those on board the plane to the impact of volcanic ash and an extraordinarily dramatic landing.

Seeing Daylight: the Photography of Dorothy Bohm

Sky Arts, 9.00pm

Arriving in England in 1939 to escape the Nazis, Dorothy Bohm became a pioneer of street photography and portraiture of deep humanity. This profile examines her life and work.

Elvis: the Searcher

Sky Atlantic, 9.00pm

Based on Peter Guralnick’s epochal two-part biography, Thom Zimny’s HBO epic is a treat, focusing as much on Presley the man as Elvis the icon, Part one follows him out of Tupelo, into Sun Records and on to the US army, with part two’s fall, rise and fall again airing Wednesday at 10.00pm. GT

Ugly Me: My Life with Body Dysmorphia

BBC One, 10.45pm; NI, 11.10pm; Scot, 11.45pm

First shown on BBC Three, this harrowing film follows 29-year-old Liane, seeking treatment for the titular condition which has left her self-worth in tatters. GT

Field of Dreams (1989) ★★★★☆

Film4, 6.50pm

Kevin Costner clearly likes a baseball movie – he’s made five of them. In this one he’s an Iowa farmer instructed by a mysterious voice to build a baseball pitch in the middle of a cornfield, which is soon occupied by a gang of ghostly players from the past. Enjoyably dotty, and responsible for the misquote, “If you build it, they will come” – it’s actually “he will come” – the fantasy is elevated by brilliant performances all around.

A Good Day to Die Hard (2013) ★★★☆☆

Film4, 9.00pm

The fifth film in the Die Hard franchise takes place in Russia, where our hero, Bruce Willis’s now grizzled John McClane, arrives in Moscow to hunt for his estranged son Jack (Jai Courtney). McClane suspects that he may have become a drug dealer, but it transpires he is in fact working undercover for the CIA, and Dad blunders in on him mid-mission. An enjoyable but clunky thriller.

The Departed (2006) ★★★★☆

ITV4, 10.00pm

Nothing beats watching a great director in his comfort zone. Martin Scorsese’s gangland thriller – the film that finally won him an Oscar – is riveting. The plot revolves around the local police force’s efforts to stamp out Boston crime lord Frank Costello (a magnificently malevolent Jack Nicholson). There are powerhouse performances, too, from Leonardo Di Caprio, Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg.

Wednesday 13 June

Putin’s Russia with David Dimbleby

BBC One, 9.00pm, Wales, 11.05pm

“In a democracy if you fail to deliver on economic promises, if you surround yourself with cronies and use the law to suppress opposition, you would rightly be thrown out on your ear. But this is Russia, they do things differently here…” So begins David Dimbleby’s thoughtful film in which – as the eyes of the world turn towards Moscow for the 2018 World Cup football tournament – he takes the opportunity to cast an eye over Vladimir Putin’s 18 years as leader and assess the state of Russia today, especially in regard to the West. 

What he finds is a country in deep economic crisis yet with a people that seem to happily hero-worship Putin and mostly accept a state machine that controls almost every aspect of their lives with the willing assistance of security services, media, military and church. 

Dimbleby meets ordinary contented Russians as well as protesters, human rights lawyers, journalists and official spokespeople, coming away with a sense, ultimately, that Putin’s popularity is rooted in his strongman image and media-backed levels of suspicion and hostility towards the West unseen since the end of the Cold War. Gerard O’Donovan

The Fight for Women’s Bodies

BBC Three, from 10.00am

Following the landmark vote to legalise abortion in the Republic of Ireland, Ellie Flynn looks back at the issues through the eyes of campaigners on both sides.

Great Rail Restorations with Peter Snow

Channel 4, 8.00pm

Here is a visit to the Isle of Wight, where Peter Snow and his team set out to restore an 1864 wooden train carriage that has served as a holiday chalet since it was decommissioned in the Twenties.  

Before Grenfell: A Hidden History

BBC Two, 9.00pm

A year since the Grenfell Tower fire, residents of Kensington relate how the London borough has become the most unequal place in Britain, with the gap between rich and poor once again as extreme as in the 1860s when developers first built housing for the rich in Notting Hill next to the worst slum in London. 

Can Science Make Me Perfect? With Alice Roberts

BBC Four, 9.00pm

Millions of years have gone into the human body: lots of great evolutionary adaptations but lots of imperfections, too. In a film that’s as entertaining as it is instructive, anatomist Alice Roberts takes on a challenge to design a better body than the one we get at birth.

The Fast Fix: Diabetes

ITV, 9.00pm

Anita Rani presents a new two-part series exploring whether it is possible for people suffering from type 2 diabetes to reverse the condition by adhering to a radical diet. By consuming just 800 calories a day, can they “fast themselves better”? Concludes tomorrow 

Big Beasts: Last of the Giants

Sky One, 9.00pm

Biologist Patrick Aryee explores why size matters in the natural world. Beginning in the Americas, he checks out the planet’s largest predator, the sperm whale; comes face to face with a grizzly bear and gets rather too close to an anaconda that’s as long as a bus. GO

How to Start an Airline

Channel 4, 10.30pm

This documentary follows Bangladeshi-British entrepreneur Kazi Shafiqur Rahman as he attempts to break into the fiercely competitive airline industry while also fulfilling the demands of his faith by insisting that the airline must comply with the teachings of Islam. GO

Regarding Henry (1991) ★★☆☆☆

Film4, 6.50pm

Telling the story of a hotshot lawyer (Harrison Ford) who learns to question his values after a head injury, this film formed a companion piece to Wolf (1994), with Jack Nicholson as a publisher who is bitten by a wolf and turns into a boardroom predator. Directed by Mike Nichols, whose Oscar-winning movie The Graduate was a cinematic landmark of the 1960s, it’s a bit of an embarrassment, but interesting nevertheless.

Source Code (2011) ★★★★☆

ITV4, 10.00pm

Jake Gyllenhaal repeatedly finds himself reliving the last eight minutes in the life of a man on board a train which is about to be destroyed by a bomb as part of an experiment. Meanwhile, scientists Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright are monitoring Gyllenhaal’s exploits. Duncan Jones confirmed the promise of his directing debut Moon with this thrilling whodunit, which also serves as a moving meditation on life.

Beetlejuice (1988) ★★★★☆

Syfy, 10.00pm

Michael Keaton is an actor of rare versatility (as his triumphant role in Birdman proved). In this cult, Oscar-winning film by Tim Burton, Keaton shines as a con artist ghost called Beetlejuice, who aims to help two other ghosts (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) to scare the obnoxious new residents out of their old house. But he then falls for lovely goth Lydia (Winona Ryder), the family’s daughter.

Thursday 14 June

FIFA World Cup 2018: Opening Ceremony

ITV, 2.30pm

Regardless of how you think Russia got to be awarded the 21st staging of football’s biggest tournament (by corrupt means or otherwise), it’s time to cast those aspersions aside because the Russia 2018 championship is here. 

But, two hours before a ball is kicked, the opening ceremony marks the official start of the highest prize in football. And as we all know, entertaining opening ceremonies can be a great curtain-raiser for sport events, if they are done well – think the London 2012 Olympics. 

This one takes place at the 80,000-seat Luzhniki Stadium, which is the jewel in Russia’s crown of stadiums and will also host the final on July 15. Mark Pougatch presents the live coverage of the ceremony, which is headlined by actor and rapper Will Smith and Nicky Jam, who will perform Live It Up, the official World Cup song, which has received mixed reviews. As well as that, the ceremony will include local performers showing off different aspects of Russian culture, with gymnasts and trampolinists in among the fireworks and performances on display.

The matches get under way following the ceremony with the host nation against Saudi Arabia. Clive Morgan

Britain’s Best Home Cook

BBC One, 8.00pm

While the BBC’s post-Bake Off cookery contest may not have set the world alight, it’s given the judges plenty to get their teeth into. This week, it’s the final, and three challenges stand between the contestants and the title: a summer favourite, their best main course and a pudding. 

Springwatch 2018

BBC Two, 8.00pm

After three weeks of cute animals, Springwatch comes to an end with Chris Packham, Michaela Strachan and co reliving this year’s best moments at Sherborne Park Estate.  

The Trouble with Women with Anne Robinson

BBC One, 9.00pm

As a journalist and TV presenter, Anne Robinson shattered the glass ceiling as she built her career. She imagined that now, 50 years later, we’d be much closer to achieving equality than we are. With the ongoing discussions about gender pay, Robinson asks women around the UK what’s preventing parity?

Inside HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs

Channel 5, 9.00pm

Wormwood Scrubs has had some infamous inmates: from serial killers Ian Brady and Peter Sutcliffe to rockers Pete Docherty and Keith Richards. This documentary exploring the prison’s history tells the stories of a Soviet spy who escaped from the jail and its best-known inmate, Charles Bronson. CM

Missions

BBC Four, 10.00pm and 10.20pm

The absorbing French sci-fi drama about the first manned mission to Mars concludes with its final double header. This week, psychiatrist Jeanne (Hélène Viviès) discovers the reason behind cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov’s (Arben Bajraktaraj) mission. 

I Am Evidence

Sky Atlantic, 10.10pm

Even though Mariska Hargitay spent almost 20 years as crime fighter Olivia Benson in Law & Order: SVU, nothing prepared her for what she was to learn in real life. In this shocking documentary, Hargitay investigates the flaws in the US justice system that have allowed tens of thousands of rape kits to go untested for years. It’s a tough film to watch at times, especially as it highlights the issue through deeply personal and harrowing, first-person accounts from four women whose attacks are still fresh in their minds decades after the assaults due to a lack of closure. “I felt like my body was a crime scene,” one of the women recalls. CM

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) ★★★☆☆

Comedy Central, 9.00pm

Will Ferrell fans will need little encouragement to lap up this affectionate send-up of Nascar racing, redneck culture and male bonding. Ferrell pays a Nascar speed-demon who is challenged by a gay, French Formula One driver (Sacha Baron Cohen), to see who is the ultimate racer. It’s a full throttle comedy that plays to Ferrell’s strengths.

The Hills Have Eyes (2006) ★★★☆☆

Horror Channel, 9.00pm

French director Alexandre Aja makes his Hollywood debut with this grim but gripping remake of Wes Craven’s semi-cult horror film about a family battling a brood of mutants in the New Mexico desert. Aja ups the visceral violence, and the characters – including Ted Levine and Kathleen Quinlan as the parents – are sufficiently well-drawn to make the outcome shocking.

The Ghost (2010) ★★★★☆

ITV4, 9.00pm

Ewan McGregor plays a talented ghost writer, who lands a lucrative contract to edit the memoirs of Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), the former UK Prime Minister, in this Roman Polanski adaptation of the Robert Harris novel. Soon after, Lang is accused of committing a war crime and the Ghost finds himself drawn into a world of dangerous secrets that put his life at risk. This is a deeply unsettling thriller.

Friday 15 June

Building Britain’s Canals

Channel 5, 8.00pm

His tattoos may have a nerdish medieval theme, but historian Dan Jones still seems too hip to be fronting a stuffy-sounding series about Britain’s iconic canals. Jones’s lively style and eye for interesting detail, however, keeps this subject surprisingly fresh, as he begins this three-part run with a look at the Grand Union Canal, the longest stretch of man-made waterway in Britain. 

It’s a story that reaches back 200 years, when the demands of the Industrial Revolution called for a speedy way to move goods between Birmingham and London, and the country’s engineering super-brains found ingenious means to link seven separate channels into one connected flow. 

As Jones explains, while the financial benefits were big, construction of the Grand Union was time consuming and dangerous. The 12-year stop-start struggle to complete the technically complex Blisworth Hill tunnel, for example, saw the deaths of up to 60 workers. Unable to compete with the advent of the speedy steam train, the Grand Union itself soon declined too. The canal is now a source of summertime pleasure, so this is a welcome reminder of its once vital purpose. Toby Dantzic

Queer Eye

Netflix, from today

The success of this heart-warming makeover series, which returned to much acclaim earlier this year, was something of a surprise. Netflix then have been quick to capitalise, snappily rolling out another run barely four months later, with the likeable quintet all returning for more lifestyle revamping. Details are so far scant, but the show’s culture guru Karamo Brown has hinted that women and the trans community could be featured.

World Cup 2018: Portugal v Spain

BBC One, 6.20pm

The pick of this week’s World Cup matches happens on day two at the Fisht Stadium in Sochi and comes from Group B. Expect a tense affair as Spain, who suffered the ignominy of failing to make it to the knockout rounds four years ago, take on their bitter rivals Portugal.

The Crystal Maze: Celebrity Special

Channel 4, 9.00pm

Former footballer Dennis Wise heads the team of celebrity hopefuls, joined by Katie Price, Roman Kemp, Bez and Binky Felstead.Wise struggles with a fiendish skill game, while a number-based challenge sets Felstead’s head spinning.

Cruising with Jane McDonald

Channel 5, 9.00pm

Jane McDonald wraps up her Antipodean adventure in New Zealand’s North Island. She rubs noses with a Maori tribe in Napier, explores Rotorua’s dramatic geothermal landscapes and views Auckland’s skyline from a helicopter. 

Tracey Breaks the News

BBC One, 9.40pm

This is a final bout of topical treats from veteran impressionist Tracey Ullman. Favourites Angela Merkel and Rupert Murdoch get a look in, alongside more takes on Jeremy Corbyn, Michael Gove and Nanny, the dedicated carer of Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Africa: A Journey Into Music

BBC Four, 10.00pm

Apart from the occasional act on Later… with Jools Holland, world music doesn’t get much airtime on our TVs, so this beguiling series helmed by DJ Rita Ray offers a welcome insight into its traditions. For her final foray, Ray heads to Mali, home to more Grammy award-winning artists than any other African country. From her attempts at a sinuous wedding dance to meeting renowned harp player Toumani Diabaté, Ray’s journey is full of stirring encounters. TD

Dale Winton’s Florida Fly Drive

Channel 5, 10.00pm

A fitting reminder of Dale Winton’s easy-going charm, this swansong travelogue series resumes after a hiatus with our host in ocean-front Miami. Highlights include a trip to Little Havana, the city’s Cuban quarter, and a look at fashion designer Versace’s opulent former home. TD

Blade Runner 2049 (2017) ★★★☆☆

Sky Cinema Premiere, 8.00pm

In a similar but distinct way to Ridley Scott’s masterful original, Blade Runner 2049 mulls one of the meatiest questions around: is surface all that there is, or do life’s currents run deeper than the things we can see, hear and touch? Denis Villeneuve’s film toys with both options, making neither a comfort – and in the process, maps out a provocative blockbuster. Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford star.

Red (2010) ★★★☆☆

Film4, 9.00pm

A starry line-up of actors of pensionable age is the attraction of this light-hearted adaptation of Warren Ellis’s graphic novel, and it’s hard to resist Helen Mirren with a submachine gun. RED stands for “Retired Extremely Dangerous”, which is what the CIA has labelled former agents Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Mirren, who team up to find out who has marked them for assassination, and why.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) ★★★★★

Channel 4, 11.40pm

Soaked in sex, drugs and scandal, Martin Scorsese’s epic is based on the memoir of stockbroker Jordan Belfort, who spent the Nineties illegally amassing a vast personal fortune. With a fantastic performance from Leonardo DiCaprio, this morally bankrupt romp was lauded by audiences and critics alike. Jonah Hill and Margot Robbie co-star.

Television previewers

Toby Dantzic, Sarah Hughes, Gerard O'Donovan, Vicki Power and Gabriel Tate