Stolen
BBC One, 9pm
Some dramas are written to raise awareness about subjects of such importance that whether or not they work as dramas becomes almost irrelevant. Stolen, written by Stephen Butchard (Five Daughters, House of Saddam) is a case in point. The statistics revealed at the end of the film are diabolical. Unicef values the global market for child trafficking at $12 billion a year, with more than 1.2 million victims. Clearly it is a subject that needs desperately to be publicised. In this film, Damian Lewis plays a policeman in Manchester’s Human Trafficking Unit whose job brings him into contact with three young victims. All have been brought into the UK illegally. An 11-year-old Nigerian girl ends up working as a domestic slave for an African family, a 15-year-old Vietnamese boy is locked up in a house in the suburbs where marijuana is cultivated, and a 14-year-old from the Ukraine is kept in disgusting conditions in a hostel for itinerant workers. It is a solid and unashamedly didactic film where all the joins are visible, but it achieves what it sets out to do — and who could argue with that?
Fake or Fortune?
BBC One, 7pm
In tonight’s episode, Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould investigate a painting called The Procuress belonging to the Courtauld Institute. It could be a 17th-century work or a fake by the most accomplished forger of the 20th century, Han van Meegeren, who used 17th-century techniques and materials and duped the art world out of £65 million in today’s money. Paradoxically, a genuine forgery by Van Meegeren would now be more valuable than the original. The programme provides the definitive answer — and the clue lies in those old-fashioned telephones.
Scott & Bailey
ITV1, 9pm
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Why are men such a useless bunch of slithy toves? Why is it that these egotistical Neanderthals dressed in suits will stop at nothing to safeguard their careers? Why are there different rules for men and women in the Manchester police force? “And why is it,” wonders DC Scott (Lesley Sharp), “that perfectly intelligent, seriously attractive women end up with blokes who aren’t fit to polish their boots”? There may not be any definitive answers in this — the last and best — episode of Sally Wainwright’s superior series, but it is refreshing to come across a cop show that at least asks such questions.