Critics’ choice
Schools in for summer
Ackley Bridge (C4, 8pm)
Educating Yorkshire is turned into drama in Penny Woolcock’s six-parter, but with a very Channel 4 twist: two schools — one predominantly Asian, the other predominantly white — have merged to form the titular new academy. With its evening slot positioning it as soapy family fare rather than kids’ telly — like Waterloo Road, unlike Grange Hill — the opener highlights teachers: the head (Jo Joyner), her husband (Paul Nicholls) and free spirit Emma (Liz White). Emma’s daughter, a prankster and a pair of friends who fall out — Missy (Poppy Lee Friar) and Nas (Amy-Leigh Hickman) — are the only teens with lines.
What’s surprising in part one, given that the set-up is a coming together of two communities, is the extent to which white characters dominate its plots. Asian teachers have yet to appear, and figures such as Adil Ray’s school sponsor and Sunetra Sarker’s canteen queen are glimpsed rather than properly introduced.
John Dugdale
Fargo (C4, 10pm)
There’s plenty of woe for Emmit (Ewan McGregor) in part two: his lawyer dies mysteriously, VM (David Thewlis) and goons take over part of his office, and an attempted reconciliation with his brother Ray (also McGregor) goes horribly wrong — while they bury the hatchet, Ray’s girlfriend (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) slips into Emmit’s house, vandalises his study, and so restarts the siblings’ feud. (JD)
Rehab (BBC3, from 10am)
Focused on an addiction therapy unit in Somerset, this bleak documentary will swiftly disabuse anyone who thinks of rehab as the waving of a magic wand. Some patients filmed do complete their programmes, but the highlighted ones struggle to stay the course: Craig, pictured, an addict son of addict parents; Emily, who self-harms; Timmy, a gypsy who’s “always about to leave” and so give up the battle. (JD)
Eat Well For Less? (BBC1, 8pm)
Gregg Wallace and Chris Bavin spy on another family as they do their weekly shop, all the better to humiliate them at the checkout. The Rielly parents are particularly obliging as the new series of this lifestyle shaming show begins, as both are already snacking on treats they have not yet bought. The hosts calculate that the family are spending about £30 per meal, but can they help them change their ways? (HS)
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Horizon (BBC2, 9pm)
The film-maker Natalie Hewit spent three months at Britain’s Halley Research Station, built on a floating ice shelf in the Weddell Sea. The scientists who live there study global problems such as climate change and the hole in the ozone layer, but more urgent is the concern that just 3½ miles from their site is a crevasse that threatens to set the £28m research base adrift on an iceberg. (HS)
Film choice
School Of Rock (2003)
Film 4, 6.50pm
This comedy about a guitar-playing loafer (Jack Black) who becomes a prep school’s music teacher has enough anti-Establishment spirit to make its recent reincarnation as an Andrew Lloyd Webber stage show a tad surprising. Plainly, though, Richard Linklater’s film always had a chance of being turned into some sort of musical. As well as having an apt story, it is full of the right exuberance.
Take Me Home Tonight (2011)
C4, 1.55am
Michael Dowse’s comedy is set in the 1980s, and viewers fond of that decade’s youth culture are more likely than others to be drawn in by this scrappy farce about a low achiever (Topher Grace) trying to impress his dream woman (Teresa Palmer) during a night of parties. For those too young to appreciate the period details, the most recognisable thing in the film might well be Chris Pratt, who was a relative newcomer when he played a part here.
Previews by Edward Porter
Radio pick of the day
Science Stories (Radio 4, 9pm)
Naomi Alderman’s lively account of Ivan Pavlov and his dogs launches five more editions of an inquisitive Radio 4 series exploring the nooks and crannies of scientific advances. Plenty here about saliva, drooling, no bells, new tricks and upheaval in Russia. Edition two, next week, looks at a medieval Big Bang theory devised by Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253), a Bishop of Lincoln.
Paul Donovan
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Sports choice
Blues v British & Irish Lions (Sky Sports 1, 8am)
French Open Tennis (ITV4/Eurosport, 12.30pm)
Champions Trophy Cricket (Sky Sports 2, 1.25pm) Highlights (BBC2, 12.40am)
Sailing (BT Sport 1, 6pm)
You say
I watched the last episode of Three Girls. I can’t remember crying so much, not just over the awful truth of the subject matter, but over the wonderful acting by the three young actors. I will remember it for a very, very long time. Thank you, BBC.
Jennie Fletcher, Rugby
More Matthew Price, please, on Today (R4). Less — much, much, much less — Nick Robinson.
Gary Martin, Aberlady
Please don’t bring back Naga with her raucous laugh best suited to the pub, not breakfast TV.
Barbara Morris
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