FILM P The Great Escaper ★★★ 12 9.30pm BBC Two Catch up via iPlayer Bernard Jordan hit headlines around the world in June 2014 when, without the knowledge of staff at the Hove care home where he lived, he headed to Normandy to attend a D-Day commemoration ceremony. His carers thought the 89-year-old was off to meet friends in Portsmouth — but he was heading further afield. The home’s manager was quoted as saying: “He left his home and did what he wanted to do, just the same as you and I.” It was a story just begging to be made into a movie, and here it is, with Michael Caine as Bernard and fellow British cinema titan Glenda Jackson making her final screen appearance as his wife Irene. The 2023…

DRAMA The Night Manager 9.05pm BBC One Catch up via iPlayer “I am the man who will not explode,” Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) says to his MI6 psychiatrist in a reassuring tone of voice, yet the nails digging into the flesh of his hand tell a different story. For despite many years having passed since Pine infiltrated the coterie of arms dealer Richard Roper, he’s still scarred by that undercover mission. Hence his current low-risk role overseeing a night-time surveillance team in London. Only, a quiet job with unsociable hours does not a spy drama make, and it isn’t long before a chance glimpse of a former Roper collaborator is upending Pine’s life of seclusion. What ensues makes for, on the basis of this opening episode at least, an engaging enough espionage…

DRAMA Call the Midwife 8.15pm BBC One Catch up via iPlayer The Nonnatus House regulars are trading in their bicycles for rickshaws this Christmas, with the likes of Sisters Julienne (Jenny Agutter) and Veronica (Rebecca Gethings) seen making a mercy dash to Hong Kong following a disaster at the Branch House in Kowloon. But, as it turns out, the aftermath of this horrendous building collapse brings with it some unforeseen dangers, most notably the threat posed by organised crime in the neighbourhood. Dr Turner (Stephen McGann) may have stitched wounds inflicted by the Kray twins back home, but how will he fare with the Triad? Credit ought to go to writer Heidi Thomas for finding fresh ways of taking her characters way out of their comfort zone, though any viewer seeking the…

DRAMA Lynley 8.30pm BBC One Full series available on iPlayer NEW SERIES When the BBC axed NEW The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, it said it wanted to “move on”. But nearly two decades later, we find that it’s come full circle, hence this reboot starring Leo Suter as the aristocratic detective and Sofia Barclay as his working-class sidekick, DS Barbara Havers. Aside from that recasting, it’s pretty much business as usual, with Lynley still someone who’s concerned more with justice than he is with his title, while the tenacious Havers remains ever alert to the ways a suspect with wealth or privilege can use power to protect themselves. As such, theirs is an unusual partnership, though their first case feels highly conventional, dealing as it does with a suspicious death in…

DOCUMENTARY Christmas Treasures of the National Trust 9.00pm (not Wales) BBC Two Catch up via iPlayer While a blizzard of shows about Christmas decorations in stately piles covers the television schedules, this programme promises to be much more interesting, because it doesn’t simply show people putting up festive bling. Instead, it visits three National Trust properties: Arts and Crafts mansion Cragside in Northumberland, Tudor house Cotehele in Cornwall and Devon’s example of Arts and Crafts, Coleton Fishacre, as they prepare for the holiday season. The property curators share the historical inspiration for some of their festive experiences, such as a tiny paper dance card from 1894 that gives a glimpse into life for servants at Cragside. In Coleton Fishacre, a 1920s cocktail cabinet is being prepared for a Roaring Twenties party serving…

FILM P Operation Mincemeat ★★★★ 12 9.00pm BBC Two Catch up via iPlayer Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen bring a wealth of period drama talent to this polished 2022 movie by director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love). It depicts the fanciful but amazing real-life wartime plan to fool the Germans about the proposed site of an Allied attack in 1943, which sent them to defend Sardinia, when the landings were made in Sicily.Previously filmed more prosaically as The Man Who Never Was in 1955, the story sees Firth and Macfadyen working together to prepare a back story and false papers to be left on a dead body, helped by assistant Kelly Macdonald, who becomes a romantic focus for both men. Although they had not met previously, the two men had both…

DRAMA The Serpent Queen 10.05pm C4 Series one and two on C4 streaming from today NEW SERIES That episode one of this historical drama — first streamed in the UK on Starzplay in 2022 — is entitled Medici Bitch gives you an idea of the tone. There are strong shades of The Great as Samantha Morton delivers a rollicking performance as Catherine de Medici, who marries into the French monarchy in the middle of the 16th century. But, by the time she has become queen, she’s surmised that the royal court is a cesspit of idiots, backstabbers and vicious sexists, so she’ll have to be the most ruthless of them all if she’s to survive and reign. The opening episode flashes back to the young Catherine (Liv Hill of Three Girls fame),…

DRAMA Prisoner 951 9.00pm BBC One Full series on iPlayer NEW SERIES In April 2016 charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was returning to Britain with her young daughter after visiting her parents in Iran. The country’s Revolutionary Guard detained her at Tehran’s airport, separating her from her child. She didn’t know why and they offered no explanation. It was six years before her family was reunited. Written by Stephen Butchard and based on Nazanin’s book about her experiences, this brilliantly — but distressingly — evokes the feelings of fear, uncertainty, helplessness and frustration felt by Nazanin (Narges Rashidi) and her British husband Richard (Joseph Fiennes) as she was moved from one filthy prison to another. Cruelly, she was told she would be freed in 24 hours, or on a Saturday, but never was.…

Never a good time for Microsoft to update Windows I understand the argument made by Les Hornby in Issue 657 that Microsoft should extend Windows 10 support beyond October 2025. By regularly updating the operating system, Microsoft has made it feel fresh and modern. The problem with Microsoft extending support is that it incentivises users to cling on to an old and rapidly decaying operating system. Also, if Microsoft can’t terminate support after 10 years, when can it? If a week is a long time in politics, a decade is an eternity in computing. Technology has already changed immeasurably since Windows 10 launched in 2015. The emergence of AI will accelerate this between now and 2025. There simply is never a good time for Microsoft to end support because there…

DRAMA Summerwater 9.00pm C4 Full series available on C4 streaming after tonight’s episode NEW SERIES If you fancy a relaxing holiday in some quiet spot so that you can get away from the stresses and strains of life, I wouldn’t recommend the loch-side cabins at Summerwater. It’s not because the site is remote, nor that it rains nearly all the time, nor that it’s surrounded by spooky woods or even its lack of mobile phone signal. It’s not even, as we see at the start, the fact that there’s a fire in one cabin and somebody dies in it. Although that may well put you off. No, it’s the people staying in the five cabins. As this adaptation of Sarah Moss’s heart-pounder of a novel gradually reveals, all have unresolved conflicts,…

FOOD A Mary Berry Christmas 9.00pm BBC One Catch up via iPlayer With so many TV shows about preparing for the Big Day in the schedules, you could be forgiven for feeling a bit “bah humbug” about it all. However, it’s always undeniably delightful watching Dame Mary Berry prepare some delicious dish or other, but here she’s joined by celebrity pals to cook and to share the Christmas traditions that add so much to the festivities. “It’s the icing on the cake,” she says. She and Alison Steadman admire the elaborate twinkling lights at RHS Wisley before taking Harry Aikines-Aryeetey to watch The Snowman in the West End. Finally, she and Zoe Ball go to Windsor Great Park to choose a Christmas tree. She promises there’s a special reason for…

ENTERTAINMENT BBC New Comedy Awards 9.00pm BBC Three Catch up via iPlayer Thirty years ago, the winner of the inaugural BBC New Comedy Awards was crowned: Julian Barratt bested a line-up including Lee Mack and Daniel Kitson. Other winners have included Alan Carr, Lucy Beaumont and Lost Voice Guy; Sarah Millican, Joe Lycett and Peter Kay have been among the losing finalists. So it’s fair to say that this contest has maintained a decent track record for identifying up-and-comers with potential. 2025 will once again feature six heats of five comedians, filmed across the UK. The winners will then compete in the grand final at Bradford’s Alhambra Theatre, hosted by Guz Khan. Tonight’s first heat comes from St George’s in Bristol in an evening hosted by Josh Jones; this year’s…

DOCUMENTARY What’s the Monarchy For? 9.00pm BBC One Full series on iPlayer NEW SERIES The title asks what a king or queen is for, but we might also ask — what are royal documentaries like this for? 5 has a deep shelf of programmes to track each cough and spit of every royal storyline, and it does very well out of them. But this is seasoned veteran David Dimbleby offering more of an expansive essay on a subject he knows better than most. He interviews former courtiers and cabinet ministers on what the limits of royal power are or should be, but he doesn’t look as if he believes any of them. He just fixes them with a patrician glare as if they were young whippersnappers trying to pull the wool…

DRAMA All Creatures Great and Small 9.00pm 5 Catch up via 5 streaming With the war only recently over, Darrowby is still more used to blackouts than fairy lights, so the opportunity to make Christmas 1945 feel extra special is ready to be seized. But events are conspiring against the Skeldale House regulars, thanks to lingering memories of battlefields, a national shortage of turkeys and Tristan forgetting to source a pine tree for the Drovers pub. But this golden glow of a festive special reminds us that happiness can be wrested from what may appear the glummest of circumstances. And indeed, all that’s required is something as simple as a malapropism from a small child — in this case, young Jimmy saying “Hebden” instead of “Heaven” when playing an angel in…

FILM P Oppenheimer ★★★★ 15 9.00pm BBC Two Catch up via iPlayer It’s not exactly cheery, but Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning 2023 biopic of J Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who managed the creation of the atomic bomb, is one of the rare modern films that can truly stand next to those classic Hollywood epics in the Christmas schedules. It’s three hours long; its cast is stuffed with headline stars; its visual scale and grand musical score are second to none. Yet, this is still a movie from the director of time-jumbling thrillers Memento and Tenet, and Nolan works to make it probably the artsiest film to have grossed (nearly) a billion dollars. “We have to find a way into this guy’s head,” said the film-maker of his unusual screenplay, which was written in the…

FILM P Back to Black ★★★ 15 10.00pm BBC Two Catch up via iPlayer It took a while before Marisa Abela felt ready to accept the role of Amy Winehouse in this 2024 biopic. You can understand the hesitation. It’s almost 15 years since Winehouse died, but the legendary singer-songwriter still has a massive and dedicated fanbase ready to pounce on perceived misrepresentations. But if anyone could rise to the challenge it would have to be Abela, one of the UK’s brightest young talents, as she showed in the hit BBC series Industry. Abela went into “full boot-camp mode”, as she put it, to study the role, learning guitar and singing in her own voice, to “tell [Amy’s] emotional story through the songs”. Abela recalls singing live in front of…

DRAMA Death in Paradise 8.30pm BBC One Catch up via iPlayer Some consider him no-nonsense, others believe he borders on the insensitive, but whatever your take on DI Mervin Wilson (Don Gilet) — when it comes to Christmas, he’s about as festive as turkey leftovers in January. So, when a dead body is found in suspicious circumstances in the pool of a Caribbean villa, the Saint Marie detective thinks nothing of cancelling his colleagues’ annual leave so that they can crack on with the case. True, he may have personal reasons for wanting to lose himself in work, but compared with the amiable social fumbling of his predecessors, Mervin is a hard taskmaster. Having said that, it’s not hard to see why he’d be so obsessed with this mystery, what with the…

FILM P The Batman ★★★★ 15 10.25pm ITV1 Catch up via ITVX How to solve a problem like the Batman? When writer/director Matt Reeves (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) was tasked with bringing a new version of the Caped Crusader to the screen, he knew one thing: he had to avoid repeating the “Playboy version” of Bruce Wayne that had been a key feature of the films starring Michael Keaton, Christian Bale and Ben Affleck. The solution? Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. “I put on Nirvana’s Something in the Way — that’s when it came to me,” Reeves said. “There’s another version [of the character] who had gone through a great tragedy and became a recluse.” Enter Robert Pattinson as the “emo” Bat, complete with guy-liner, floppy hair and a brooding…

ENTERTAINMENT Strictly Come Dancing: the Final 7.00pm BBC One Catch up via iPlayer SERIES FINALE It’s been an interesting year for Strictly Come Dancing. It began with a line-up that — more than ever — elicited cries of “who?”, and it has struggled to pick up. There were a record number of contestants who withdrew along the way due to injury, even more alarming headlines in the press relating to the show, and Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman announcing, mid-run, that this would be their final series (their last appearance will be in the Christmas Day special, see page 162). A mammoth two-hour-ten-minute final brings the curtain down with the finalists each performing three times in a bid for Glitterball glory. They will revisit one of their previous routines, perform a show…

DOCUMENTARY Inside the Christmas Factory 8.00pm BBC One Catch up via iPlayer Paddy McGuinness pops on his hairnet once more to explore the family business in Market Drayton, Shropshire, that churns out an astonishing four million biscuits every year to see how they produce that traditional Christmas treat — gingerbread figures. There’s a blizzard of fun festive statistics and facts to go with all the shots of happy workers on the production line and it’s all very jolly as he helps — or, more accurately, hinders — them piping on Santa’s beard or Rudolph’s red nose. And having the occasional nibble too, of course. “Ooh, ground ginger,” Paddy says appreciatively, taking a big sniff of the biscuit mix. “That smells like Christmas right there!” Meanwhile, historian Ruth Goodman learns what it’s like to spend…

DRAMA The Forsytes 9.00pm 5 Catch up via 5 streaming NEW SERIES The word “Saga” may have been dropped from the title, and it certainly doesn’t follow John Galsworthy’s novels to the letter, but Debbie Horsfield has given us a version of the wealthy Victorian family’s story to match the acclaimed TV epics of 1967 and 2002. This one is sumptuous to look at — both the styling and the starry cast (which includes Tuppence Middleton, Jack Davenport, Francesca Annis, Eleanor Tomlinson and Susan Hampshire) are glorious. Clearly no expense has been spared bringing it to the screen. It starts with the coming-of-age of June (Justine Moore), the stepdaughter of Jolyon Forsyte (Danny Griffin), a kind and artistic man with rumours of racy escapades while travelling Europe. Meanwhile, his ambitious and ruthless cousin Soames (Joshua…

ART Turner: the Secret Sketchbooks 9.00pm (11.00pm Northern Ireland) BBC Two Catch up via iPlayer This is the TV equivalent of one of those big, blockbuster exhibitions, except here, there are no crowds of art-lovers blocking the view. Instead, the masterpieces are clear as day, with experts and celebrity fans alike here to help us appreciate them. The premise is that JMW Turner left 37,000 sketches in scores of notebooks — some of them incredibly saucy, depicting brothels and lovers. That’s the news angle, if you like, but the film is broader, a life story taking in the sweep of Turner’s career, how it evolved through highs and lows as he went in and out of taste, and how the pain in his life became drama in his work. You may find…

FOOD Celebrity MasterChef 9.00pm BBC One Catch up via iPlayer John Torode was sacked from MasterChef over four months ago, so it’s more than a little surprising to see him pictured with Grace Dent, seemingly hailing a new era of the show. If nothing else, it illustrates how far in advance the series is filmed as, since he was let go, Dent and MasterChef: the Professionals’ Anna Haugh have been announced as the new new hosts, and they will take over from the next series. But back to this series and these celebrities: unlike the amateur contestants, these are all big, confident characters who are used to performing for the cameras, so Torode’s role is minimal. Dent demonstrates a softer side, although her critiques are witty and to the point: “It’s all…

FILM P The Menu ★★★ 15 9.00pm C4 Catch up via C4 streaming Foodie Nicholas Hoult and his last-minute guest Anya Taylor-Joy take their seats at maverick chef Ralph Fiennes’s exclusive island restaurant ant in this stylish, satirical horror comedy from 2022. Director Mark Mylod is better known for TV, with Succession and Game of Thrones on his CV, and he brings elements of both to this off-beat film, including razor-sharp dialogue and shocking violence. The dishes were created ed by Michelin-starred chef Dominique Crenn, who gave Fiennes valuable insight into her philosophy and method. Mylod declares himself as a massive fan of Robert Altman, and Gosford Park — with its ensemble cast and overlapping dialogue — was a big influence on The Menu, helping Seth Reiss and Will Tracy’s screenplay come…

DRAMA Riot Women 9.00pm BBC One Full series available today via iPlayer NEW SERIES It can be tough for women when they reach a certain age. They’re often dealing with elderly parents with failing health, their grown-up families ignoring or dismissing them, their husbands having inexplicable mid-life crises and — where once they were a force to be reckoned with — the world no longer sees them. They’re invisible, dispensable or simply a nuisance. Sally Wainwright’s characters — including an NHS worker, a police officer and a publican — are angry for all these reasons so, in a moment of rebellion, start a punk band and enter a talent contest to raise money for refugees. “So, Putin starts a war and you’re going to sort it out by making a fanny of yourself…

DRAMA Waiting for the Out 9.30pm BBC One Full series available today on iPlayer NEW SERIES There is layer upon layer of satisfying dramatic sophistication in this new series by the playwright Dennis Kelly, whose eclectic TV CV consists of the Sharon Horgan sitcom Pulling, startling conspiracy thriller Utopia and Jude Law-led folk horror The Third Day. This is much more what you’d expect from a writer known mostly for theatre, since it includes long, talky scenes set in the prison philosophy classes led by Dan (Josh Finan), a clever but nervous young man whose troubled background has left him with obsessive behaviours and a limited capacity to cope with adulthood. As Dan’s class of prisoners challenge his attempts to school them on Locke, Descartes and the rest — either because…

DRAMA Grantchester 9.00pm ITV1 Full series available on ITVX Due to its improbably high turnover of vicars who’ve all had a sideline in sleuthing, it’s been easy to make jokes at the expense of Grantchester over the years. But as a new series (its penultimate, sob) gets under way, it feels apt to note its subtler aspects. This first episode, for instance (there’s another at 9.00pm tomorrow), opens on a scene of Easter celebration in the parish, where home-made bonnets are being judged while eggs are raced upon spoons. But beneath the surface cheer is a degree of melancholy, with Alphy (Rishi Nair) clearly lonely despite a string of first dates, and Leonard (Al Weaver) obviously worried that partner Daniel (Oliver Dimsdale) will be exposing himself to trauma should he try to…

DOCUMENTARY Secrets of the Conclave 9.00pm BBC Two Catch up via iPlayer As Cardinal Vincent Nichols sat with colleagues gathered in the Sistine Chapel, he thought to himself: “Someone in here has been chosen by God from birth to be the Pope, like he has the word ‘Pope’ written on his heart, and all we have to do is find him.” It’s a vivid way of putting it, worthy of Robert Harris’s novel Conclave or its film adaptation — both of which loom large over this fine documentary about how a real conclave works. You don’t have to be religious to find the process fascinating and peculiar — a centuries-old ritual with all the creamy Catholic ceremonial of vestments, processions, marble halls, incense — and Latin, lots of Latin. Cardinals recall…

DRAMA Super Pumped: the Battle for Uber 10.15pm ITV1 Full series available on ITVX First shown in the US in 2022, this drama was meant to be the first of several about big tech startups — a second run, planned to cover the rise of Facebook, is yet to appear. This debut is all about ride-sharing app Uber — or, as it’s known when we arrive in its San Francisco offices in 2010, Ubercab. This is the company that wants to replace traditional taxis, which goes down poorly with the local transit authorities. But just as Ubercab looks like it will drown in running costs and municipal fines, its CEO Travis Kalanick doubles down. It’s a drama set at the sharp end of late-stage capitalism, with billions to be made by men with…

DRAMA Wild Cherry 9.00pm, 9.55pm BBC One Full series available today on iPlayer NEW SERIES A heady mix of Desperate Housewives, Big Little Lies and Euphoria combines for a frothy drama about a well-heeled clique of mothers and daughters whose murky misdemeanours lurk beneath the shiny surface. Bestselling author Juliet (Eve Best) seems to have it all: a gorgeous mansion, devoted husband (James Murray) and children, including daughter Allegra (Amelia May). Yet, in what’s become the near-obligatory flash-forward, we see Juliet and Allegra at a marbled bathroom sink, frantically washing blood from their hands. Their friends, fellow monied mum Lorna (Carmen Ejogo) and her daughter Grace (Imogen Faires) are with them, also scrubbing away whatever wrongdoing this foursome has become embroiled in. In her BBC Three drama Mood, writer/actor Nicôle Lecky explored…

REALITY The Celebrity Apprentice 9.00pm BBC One Catch up via iPlayer Have the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future decided to visit Lord Sugar? This two-part festive special finds the usually Scrooge-esque mogul in buoyant form; he even puts a call in to Father Christmas in the opening of this episode. Yes, really. It sets the tone for a knockabout task where two teams of celebrities, including Rob Rinder, AJ Odudu, Angela Scanlon and Sarah Hadland, must make and market gingerbread biscuits. Despite their starry status, they still manage to fall into every Apprentice pitfall: bickering, burning their bakes and instigating a bizarre brainstorm (the latter of which Karren Brady says in her 10 years of doing the show, she hasn’t seen the like). Still, it’s all for a good cause:…

DOCUMENTARY Inside the Factory 8.00pm BBC One Catch up via iPlayer “I’m like a kid in a sweet shop… well, a biscuit factory,” says an excited Paddy McGuinness as he steps inside the building in Cwmbran, South Wales that’s been manufacturing bikkies since 1939. He’s following the production of Jammie Dodgers (so it’s perhaps inevitable that we hear Bob Marley’s Jamming at one point) although he can’t resist taking a nostalgic detour to another production line to see Wagon Wheels being rolled out, too. There’s the usual conveyor belt of statistics, jolly chat with workers and shots of industrial machinery churning out dough/jam/filling (delete as applicable), while Cherry Healey enjoys herself holding a scientific dunking test to see which biscuit is best for this very British habit, as well as learning about…

HISTORY Civilisations: Rise and Fall 9.00pm BBC Two Full series available on iPlayer NEW SERIES The BBC is clear that this handsomely produced series is a successor to Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation, but there are some key differences. Gone is the authored presentation; instead we have almost too many experts talking to camera, and lots of (shudder) dramatic reconstructions. And all to push the same notion; that what’s happening in the world today is mirrored in the fall of great civilisations of the past. In this first episode, for example, looking at events leading to the sack of Rome in AD 410 by the Goths, we have the blowback from imperial expansion, a refugee crisis, the concentration of wealth among a few super-rich… The gloom is leavened with some glorious objects courtesy…

TRAVEL Sandi Toksvig’s Great Riviera Rail Trip 8.05pm C4 Catch up via C4 streaming NEW SERIES After digging around in the dirt for her recent archaeology series, Sandi Toksvig deserves a nice little jaunt somewhere. And so, carrying a surprisingly old-fashioned suitcase, she takes the train along the glorious French Riviera from Marseille to Menton, hopping off at picturesque places en route. “As well as sunshine,” she says, “there’s bucketloads of history, art, literature and incredible food and wine. It’s going to be hell!” However, when she tries a traditional bouillabaisse in the former fishing village of Sanary, she’s in heaven at the taste. As you’ll know if you’ve enjoyed her Extraordinary Escapes, it’s not only food that thrills her (although both ice cream and a glass of rosé make her happy).…

FILM P The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent ★★★★ 15 9.00pm C4 Catch up: C4 streaming Nicolas Cage stars as a fictional version of himself in this lively 2022 action comedy about a fading superstar who is thrown into a wild adventure after accepting a $1 million offer from a super-fan. The plot allows Cage to indulge himself in references to his previous screen roles — he and co-star Pedro Pascal reportedly had a lot of fun playing with his filmography. So, did he jump at the chance? “I turned it down three or four times,” Cage admitted in an interview. He was concerned that audiences would confuse his “Nick Cage” character — note the addition of the letter “k” — with the real-life Nic Cage. (“I don’t use that much profanity,”…

DRAMA Midsomer Murders 8.30pm ITV1 Catch up via ITVX At the centre of this episode is a puzzle book that sparked a nationwide treasure hunt, the inspiration for which must surely be Kit Williams’s Masquerade from 1979. Viewers of a certain vintage will no doubt recall the prize of a jewelled golden hare that remained hidden until someone was able to decipher the clues found within the pages (those who aren’t old enough should perhaps imagine a rather more primitive Pokémon Go). Here in Midsomer, though, the bounty promised in the bestselling Seeker has never been located. Only now, a decade on from its original publication, writer Bertram Jewel (Dead Ringers’ Jon Culshaw) is hoping to reignite the search with a new illustration featuring fresh pointers. But the trail is set to be tainted…