For full TV listings for the week, see thetimes.co.uk/tvplanner
Viewing guide, by Ben Dowell
Stonehouse
ITV, 9pm
When the BBC made A Very English Scandal (based on John Preston’s book) there were rumours that it would then move on to the story of John Stonehouse MP. The Beeb opted instead for the scandalous sexual saga involving the Duchess of Argyll, leaving the way for ITV to snap up this equally bizarre and lurid 1970s tale. As the three-parter’s scriptwriter, Preston seems alive to the Thorpe parallels — politician up to his eyes does something drastic — and the mixture of dark and buffoonish registers plus the jaunty music feel similar too. While the manner in which the two men evaded personal difficulty are similarly brazen, Matthew Macfadyen’s Stonehouse is probably less sinister than Hugh Grant’s Thorpe. A well-spoken, blithely libidinous and grasping man happy to embrace private education for his children, Stonehouse nevertheless sports the red rosette of a Labour Party led by Harold Wilson, who soon makes him his aviation minister. However, it doesn’t take long before Stonehouse’s fondness for sex gets him into all sorts of trouble that leads to his incredible decision to leave his clothes on a Miami beach and flee. While the true story is reasonably well known it’s still a dramatically compelling watch, thanks in part to Preston’s keen eye for detail. We learn how Stonehouse’s plot was inspired partly by something his lover has told him about the British records office, and partly from watching the film The Day of the Jackal. It’s also great to see Macfadyen deliver another commanding performance and appear once again on screen alongside his real wife, Keeley Hawes, who puts in a typically well-modulated performance as the MPs put-upon spouse Barbara.
Frozen Planet II: Worlds of Wonder
BBC1, 8pm
A chance to relive some of the best moments of the standout natural history programme of 2022, accompanied, of course, by the reassuring voice of David Attenborough. You probably have your personal favourites but here the editors have, I am happy to say, picked the Pallas’s cat, whose comic appearance shows why it’s known as the world’s grumpiest feline. Also making the cut is the stunning footage of killer whales tipping a Weddell seal off its ice floe and a breathtaking hunt involving a pack of wolves and a herd of bison in the Canadian wilderness.
Silent Witness
BBC1, 9pm
Opening with a man falling from a city of London skyscraper, Nikki’s matter-of-fact voiceover about terminal velocities and the fact that “it’s not the fall that would kill you it’s the hard stop” heralds a welcome return to form for this series. Forget that shonky 25th anniversary series — the conspiracy chiller that didn’t quite thrill — series 26 opens with a pleasingly conventional two-parter involving a kidnap and Italian gangsters. Plus there are two fresh and intriguing new characters joining Nikki (Emilia Fox) and Jack (David Caves) in the dissection suite: Velvy (Alastair Michael) and Gabriel (Aki Omoshaybi). Concludes tomorrow.
Search Party
BBC3, 10pm/10.25pm
When tragedy strikes, the modern way is for people to seek personal affirmation. A #sad tweet, say, even if they didn’t know the person. There is a fair bit of that in series one of this inviting 2016 US drama about the disappearance of a college student called Chantal Witherbottom that seizes the attention of listless millennial Dory (Alia Shawkat), who ropes in her friends to get to the truth, if only for something to do. Her pals include Elliott, whose brazen narcissism proves, useful and actress Portia, who is adept at charming suspects. It’s nicely plotted over ten short episodes and the satire is often scarily spot-on.
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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
BBC4, 10pm
Before a welcome repeat showing of the BBC’s acclaimed 1979 adaptation of John le Carré’s classic spy tale Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (BBC4, 10.10pm/11pm), Michael Jayston remembers his role in the drama. He played George Smiley’s right-hand man Peter Guillam and looks back on the experience, recalling what it was like working on what is still considered one of the best television series ever made, and how he held his own acting alongside the great Alec Guinness.
Catch-up TV, by James Jackson
Somewhere Boy
All4
How strange, frightening even, the outside world would seem if you had spent your first 18 years locked up in a remote house. That’s the premise of this unusual and compelling drama told in eight brief episodes. Teenager Danny (Lewis Gribben) has spent a life indoors watching vintage films and listening to old LPs, his father keeping him safe from the “monsters outside”. The dad has clearly had a breakdown, but then a turn of events leads to Danny taking his first steps outside under the care of his aunt’s family as he forms a friendship with her son. Pete Jackson’s series has already won an award at an international TV festival because while events lead to some dark places, there is also a humane, atmospheric feeling that’s hard to pin down.
Film choice, by Wendy Ide
Romeo + Juliet (12, 1996)
BBC2, 10pm
The Australian director Baz Luhrmann certainly stuck his neck out with this contemporary version of perhaps Shakespeare’s most famous play, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes as the ill-fated lovers. Despite a hip Miami backdrop, and the quarrel between the Montagues and Capulets played out like a gang feud, the director retained the play’s original text. But it works beautifully, and the film was a smash hit. As a result, Luhrmann’s idiosyncratic take on the Bard spawned a number of teen-orientated adaptations, including O (an update of Othello) and 10 Things I Hate About You (The Taming of the Shrew) — but none had anything like this film’s infectious panache. (120min)
The Shawshank Redemption (15, 1994)
BBC1, 10.30pm
William Goldman’s Hollywood maxim that “nobody knows anything” is painfully pertinent when applied to this prison-set standout. The production company didn’t want Frank Darabont to direct it. Darabont wanted Tom Cruise or Kevin Costner to star in it (both declined). He often clashed, on an infamously tense set, with the star Morgan Freeman over Darabont’s penchant for multiple takes and with the cinematographer Roger Deakins over the director’s perfectionism. The studio then forced Darabont to add the happy-ever-after ending where the inmates Andy (Tim Robbins) and Red (Freeman) are reunited in Mexico. And to top it all, the movie was a flop! And what is it now? A beloved stone-cold classic. (142min) Kevin Maher
Radio choice, by Ben Dowell
The Essay: Behind the Veil — the story of Irish Nuns
Radio 3, 10.45pm
Documentaries about the Roman Catholic church have tended in recent years to be a grim story of lies, sexual abuse and suffering. This one, from the Irish journalist Olivia O’Leary, is pleasingly different. A lapsed Catholic who attended a boarding school run by nuns, she does have some hard questions, but the general tone is elegiac and wistful. There are now just a few thousand nuns left in Ireland and many are aged over 70, we are told. This programme is an important examination of their place in Irish history before, as seems very possible, they disappear for ever.