Viewing guide, by Chris Bennion
Trust Me
BBC One, 9pm
You will all have heard by now that Jodie Whittaker — the actress best-known as Danny Latimer’s mum in Broadchurch — is to be the Doctor. The Doctor. Well, before she collects the keys to the Tardis from Peter Capaldi and generates as the Doctor who is not actually a doctor, here she is portraying an actual doctor. Except, this doctor isn’t actually a doctor either. She’s a nurse called Cath Hardacre, a hardworking, caring nurse in Sheffield who blows the whistle on a spate of grisly malpractices in her Trust and is given the heave-ho for her troubles. Cath can’t afford to lose her job: she has a young daughter, a feckless ex and a father in a care home. So, when her friend, an emergency department doctor, quits her job and emigrates to New Zealand to cuddle up to a handsome sheep farmer, Cath nabs her identity and winds up at a failing department in Edinburgh, calling herself “Ally” and googling things such as “emergency tracheotomy, how to”. It is a highly implausible scenario, but one worth suspending your disbelief for, not least because of Whittaker’s performance, which flits neatly between what-have-I-done terror and turkey-cock arrogance. Kudos to the writer, Dan Sefton (Good Karma Hospital — but don’t let that put you off), for making Cath a flawed hero. Her eyes bulge greedily when she opens her first pay packet and she makes no effort to resist a fling with a handsome colleague. The tension comes, naturally, from Hardacre trying to fake it as an emergency department doctor and the clock ticking towards her inevitable unmasking, but also from the attentions of a curious journalist and her ex, both of whom, we presume, will follow her to Scotland.
World Athletics 2017
BBC Two, 6.30pm
There are five gold medals to be won tonight, including the women’s javelin and men’s pole vault. However, the headline act is on the track, where Wayde van Niekerk will be defending his 400m title (9.50pm). The South African is also the Olympic champion in the distance — during the Rio 2016 Games he broke Michael Johnson’s 17-year-old world record. Good luck to his opponents. Sadly, injury has robbed the event of the great David Rudisha, opening the 800m final (9.35pm) up for Botswana’s Nijel Amos.
Get a House for Free
Channel 4, 9pm
The housing crisis as a game show? It was bound to happen. Marco Robinson, a landlord with a £25 million portfolio, has decided to give something back by handing over a three-bedroom flat in Preston to one lucky recipient. Unsurprisingly, Robinson received more than 8,000 applications, which he diligently sifted through to find “the right person”. It is an admirable idea, although one that smacks slightly of the “deserving poor”, and Robinson quite clearly has his heart in the right place. Here, he meets a shortlist of applicants to hear why they would benefit from the property before picking his winner.
Utopia: In Search of the Dream
BBC Four, 9pm
In this three-part series the art historian Professor Richard Clay, like many before him, goes in search of Utopia. He starts off by asking what is this word “utopia”, coined by Thomas More in 1516, and why humans are inherently attracted to the philosophies behind it. From Gulliver’s Travels and Thomas Spence’s battle for common land, to the unity of football crowds and the ideals of Wikipedia, Clay winkles out what is at the heart of utopian values. The answer, in this absorbing programme, lies in Star Trek, a land where celebrities live on petals and, most surprisingly, dystopias.
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The Yorkshire Dales and the Lakes
More 4, 9pm
There is nothing revelatory about this gentle series, but it makes for a pleasant hour. As we wend our way around the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales, with Ian McMillan’s euphonious Barnsley tones for company, we meet Pip the farmer, who has a novel solution to an age-old problem for sheep farmers — finding the damned things. There is also inspiration for anyone daydreaming of a different career — the Tan Hill Inn, the highest pub in Britain, needs a new landlord. Meanwhile, Jon makes a living in a manner that won’t suit all — clambering to the summit of Helvellyn every day.
Catch-up TV, by Chris Bennion
This month marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana, and there have been the inevitable slew of documentaries. What sets this one apart are the weighty contributions from Prince William and Prince Harry. The pair speak openly about their mother as they make their way through a photo album created by Diana, talking about the last time they saw her, her death and the effect it had on them as young boys. Prepare for a lump in your throat. “She was our mum,” Harry says. “She was the best mum in the world.” He also describes her as “one of the naughtiest of parents”, while William discusses how important it was that their mother understood that there was “a life outside of the palace walls”.
Film choice, by Wendy Ide
Unbroken (15, 2014)
Film4, 9pm
Angelina Jolie’s second film as a director is an ambitious biographical take on the life of Louis Zamperini, an American Olympic runner who became a Second World War bombardier, survived a plane wreck at sea for 47 days and ended up in the sadistic hell of a Japanese prison camp. Unbroken stars the English actor Jack O’Connell as Zamperini and his performance is raw, brave and agonising. He grinds his body through the mincer in this role, building muscle to run, letting it waste away and dehydrate on a liferaft and starve and break in the Tokyo camp. Jolie’s war movie is less compelling than its young star, shot in conventional, almost classical style, with a script full of heartwarming, Christian cliché that was doctored by the Coen brothers, although perhaps not doctored enough. (135min) Kate Muir
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Shakespeare in Love (15, 1998)
Sony Movie Channel, 9pm
The Bard (Joseph Fiennes) is young, penniless and most importantly, suffering from a massive case of writer’s block. Unfortunately, his equally broke benefactor (Geoffrey Rush) has staked his theatre on Shakespeare’s next play, Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter. However, a young aristocratic woman (an award-laden performance from Gwyneth Paltrow) posing as a man to win a role in the play could be just the thing to stir Shakespeare’s creative juices again. Tom Stoppard’s screenplay is a playful delight; the tone is exuberant and lively. It’s great fun, although whether the seven Oscar wins were deserved is a moot point. (122min)
Kramer vs Kramer (PG, 1979)
Film4, 1.30am
This multi Oscar-winning domestic drama became the byword for wrenching tales of acrimonious divorce. Ted Kramer (Dustin Hoffman) is a career man. Family comes a distant second to his ambition. His wife Joanna (Meryl Streep) decides that she can’t accept distant second any longer and leaves him. Ted must now learn to care for a child and a house as well as his own career prospects. However, just when he starts to get a handle on it, Joanna reappears and demands custody of their son. The sympathy of the audience is manoeuvred in favour of the father rather than the feckless mother — a symptom of the era in which it was made perhaps. Yet there is no denying the high quality of the performances here. (105min)
Radio choice, by Catherine Nixey
Great Lives: Stephen Fry on PG Wodehouse
Radio 4, 4.30pm
In recent years Great Lives has had a little trouble living up to its title. Many of those featured on it have — while interesting — felt a little closer to middling rather than great. And then along comes this one on PG Wodehouse, championed by — who else? — Stephen Fry. It is easy to underestimate Wodehouse — he is after all “just” a comic writer, and comic writers tend to be thought of as enjoyable rather than great. This programme scotches that misconception by listing some of the accolades poured on him: Evelyn Waugh called Wodehouse “the Master”; WH Auden called him “our greatest expert on English Eden”; while Kipling said he had written the greatest story of the 20th century. And — to make him even more perfect for this programme — he had an interesting (and at points rather tragic) life too.
Queer Icons
Radio 4, 11.30am
Highlights from the series in which guests champion a piece of LGBTQ artwork that is important to them. This programme, presented by Alan Carr, features Mary Portas, Alan Hollinghurst and Will Young. This series is of course celebratory, and quite right too. But each choice is also, indirectly, a reminder of the misery and suppression that so recently existed. And that still does in some communities, as some Anglicans have been vividly demonstrating in recent weeks. Here, Young talks about his choice: the Joan Armatrading song that inspired him to come out.