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Grantchester
ITV, 9pm
“Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.” (Matthew 9:17) There are old bottles aplenty in this second series of Grantchester, which is based on James Runcie’s detective novels set in the 1950s. First off, there is the quintessential Midsomer setting, with dappled sunshine and green meadows and punts floating down the River Cam. There is a tried-and-tested cast, with James Norton as the handsome clergyman and Robson Green as the hard-bitten detective doing a take on the good-cop, bad-cop routine. You don’t get much safer than that. And to top it all, there are the whodunnit storylines. The lead writer on the series is Daisy Coulam, whose credits include Death in Paradise. One way and another, this is classic Sunday-night television moved to the middle of the week — with Norton stripping off for a swim in the river just to add to the excitement. There is, however, an abundance of new wine sploshing about. Our handsome clergyman drinks whisky, smokes cigarettes, listens to jazz and has views on tolerance that owe far more to 2016 than 1950. Even more contemporary, he is subject to allegations of sexual assault. The Church is seen to be complicit in a cover-up; young girls dream of becoming celebrities and the police use a variation on waterboarding as part of their interrogation methods. It’s the old and the new, the past seen through the present . . . and the wine runneth out and the bottles perish.
One Child
BBC Two, 9pm
The final part of this well-intentioned drama reaches its manipulative and heavy-handed climax tonight. The adopted daughter (Katie Leung) has returned to China to try to save the life of her brother who has been condemned to death for a crime he did not commit. “It can’t happen. It can’t be allowed,” she says. With fortuitous timing, the party central committee in Beijing has sent out a stern warning to the officials of Guangdong Province as part of an anti-corruption drive, warning that anyone who attempts to corrupt the courts will face life imprisonment. So will he be saved from the execution chamber?
The Prosecutors
BBC Four, 9pm
The CPS, described here as “the silent partners in the criminal justice system”, prosecutes two savage cases of murder. In the first, a carpet fitter stabbed a 42-year-old mother 13 times. In the second, a son murdered his 83-year-old mother with a knife and hammer. The CPS has to decide whether or not they committed the crime; whether they intended to kill the victim; if there are any mental-health issues involved; and if there was anything that happened that might constitute a defence in law. Even when the evidence appears overwhelming, securing a conviction is rarely straightforward.
Raised By Wolves
Channel 4, 10pm
The Moran clan are back. In an age of austerity, Mum (Rebekah Staton) has decided that the family can no longer afford £29.99 a month for an internet connection, so the younger family members head down to the local library. Despite funding cuts and shelves of books about endangered wildlife already extinct, the library remains a fount of knowledge. “Only in here,” says Aretha (Alexa Davies), “can you sit and read for free. Have you any idea how precious that is?” For Germaine (Helen Monks), it is the perfect place in which to unleash the power of her sexual magnetism.
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Secrets of the Sauna
Channel 4, 10.35pm
In almost every town and city in Britain there is a sauna where men go to have sex with strangers. In the interests of public-service broadcasting, the programme makers visit one such sauna in Nottingham to find out exactly what goes on there. It is run by John and Joe, a couple who have been together for 30 years. It opens at 8pm and charges a £12 entrance fee. Downstairs are spa facilities; upstairs are “rest rooms” catering to every taste where no one does much resting. “It’s like a tropical paradise,” says satisfied customer.
Catch-up TV
Rudolf Nureyev: Dance to Freedom
BBC iPlayer, available until March 14
Did a dancer change the course of the Cold War? That’s the assertion made about Rudolf Nureyev, the Soviet ballet star who defected to the West during the Kirov Ballet Company’s European tour in 1961. In this docudrama, we’re led through events in the run-up to his change of alliance in Paris. The Russian dancer Artem Ovcharenko plays Nureyev (including re-creating his spectacular dance routines), while those giving their perspective include the former prima ballerina Alla Osipenko, rival male soloist Sergei Vikulov, ex-KGB agents and Nureyev’s friend Clara Saint. Over 90 minutes, Nureyev is described as “enormously expressive”, a “difficult partner” and a man whose story had the impact of an “atom bomb”. Alex Hardy
Films of the day
Inside Llewyn Davis (15, 2013)
Film4, 9pm
From the moment that Llewyn Davis (a terrific Oscar Isaac who, with his doleful gaze, luxuriant facial hair and existential inertia, ticks every beatnik box as a singer-songwriter hustling on the fringes of Greenwich Village in the early Sixties) sings a folk ballad in a halo of smoke in 1961 New York, you know that you are going to love this movie. With their usual melancholy irony the Coen brothers chronicle the travails of Llewyn, who lives by couch-surfing in the apartments of his increasingly irritated friends. His problems are compounded when he acquires a cat, which becomes a metaphor for his struggles. This antihero’s circle includes a folk-singing couple played by Justin Timberlake and Carey Mulligan, in the blackest of moods. (104min) Kate Mu ir
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The Face of An Angel (15, 2014)
Sky Movies Select, 10pm
Michael Winterbottom’s film is a meta-fictional take on the 2007 Meredith Kercher murder case, exploring the characters on the sidelines, rather than plunging into the heart of the case. Names have been changed, and the crime scene in Perugia replaced by Siena, but the movie otherwise sticks closely to the facts, as Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are eventually convicted of murder, and then retried on appeal. Daniel Brühl plays Thomas Lang, a morally upright film-maker, who is plunged into the wicked, cut-throat world of pack journalism. He decides to base his story on a book of the trial by an American journalist (Kate Beckinsale), whom he also fancies. Soon he meets the frisky student Melanie (model Cara Delevingne, probably playing herself) leading a parallel life to Kercher, and begins to see the story anew. (101min) KM
Win Win (15, 2011)
Film4, 1.35am
Hollywood’s No 1 choice for beleaguered sad sack roles, Paul Giamatti is particularly fine in this comedy drama by the writer/director Thomas McCarthy (The Visitor). Giamatti plays an attorney and part-time wrestling coach, who schemes to keep his failing law practice from foundering by appropriating the savings of an elderly client. The plan hits a bump in the road when the client’s grandson turns up out of the blue, looking for a place to stay, followed shortly after by his troubled mother, fresh out of rehab. The cast is first rate: Amy Ryan, Bobby Cannavale and Melanie Lynskey stand out. And McCarthy demonstrates yet again that when it comes to smart, humane, real-life comedies, there are few who can match him. (106min) Wendy Ide
Radio choice by John Bungey
Chain Reaction
Radio 4, 6.30pm
Perhaps because Chain Reaction involves an interviewee and interviewer who both exist in the glare of the media spotlight, tricky questions are rarely asked. This week Al Murray interviews Ian Hislop and it’s only when Hislop asks his questioner about the Pub Landlord’s libel action involving Nigel Farage that we get an awkward moment. Murray responds with a swift, “I can’t really talk about that.” Still, this is an entertaining glimpse into the rise and rise of Hislop, editor, historian and wit. When he took over at Private Eye, aged 26, he loftily declared he would probably do the job for a couple of years, but almost three decades he labours on. Hislop confesses to his alarm soon after he took over when he thought a libel action had bankrupted the paper and is sanguine about what biting political commentary can achieve: “How many governments have crumbled due to satire — none.”
An Eton Experience
Radio 4, 11am
So what is it like to be plucked from your inner-city comp to attend the school that has educated 19 British PMs? Eton spends £6.5 million on means-tested bursaries and 73 of the 1,300 pupils have their entire fees paid for them. But for some newcomers the transition can be difficult from run-down inner-city schools to a £35,000-a-year establishment with its own beagle pack. The scholarships can also be a tricky political issue for state school heads. Penny Marshall investigates.