Top TV For The Week Ahead: HM Queen, Gypsy Weddings, Death Unexplained, Brits...

Top TV For The Week Ahead

Here are our TV picks of the week, including more Scandinavian drama... phew.

Monday

The Diamond Queen - 9pm, BBC1

This insider's look at the royal household and the way HM conducts her daily round concludes its three-part run tonight. These fly-on-the-wall sneaky peeks are always good value, if only to see just how much effort goes into one shiny spoon in the right place for a foreign dignitary. Andrew Marr's Mr Fawlty-esque, knee-bending efforts to stay out of camera shot could have a shelf life of no more than three episodes, but it's a crackingly personal lens on the world's most public figure, and good fun guessing which of the royal children and grandchildren are going to call her by anything remotely fond, and who will settle for the stately 'Ma'am'.

My Social Network Stalker - 10pm, C4

As always, when truth is stranger than fiction, it really is very strange. Tonight's one-off documentary charts the chilling tale of student Ruth Jeffery, subjected to three years of sustained harassment - naked pictures of herself appearing on the internet, hacked emails, even a video. Who could it possibly be? Not the loving high school sweetheart with whom Ruth had recently rekindled a romance? Surely??

Tuesday

The Brit Awards - 8pm, ITV1

James Corden is back in the saddle for another go of hosting the Brits. Rihanna, Coldplay, Florence and the Machine, and Noel Gallagher are all scheduled to perform at London's O2 Arena, but they're all really just the warm-up acts for the much-trumpeted British return of Adele, who blew the roof off last year, and did it again at the Grammys last week. Post vocal surgery, can she do it again?

Big Fat Gypsy Weddings - 9pm, Channel 4

Straight off the back of last week's controversial opening episode - where even the ads drew complaints of racism - tonight's episode whisks audiences off to Doncaster, for a spot of horse-and-trap racing.

If this doesn't give fans of the programme its weekly fix of bling, fear not. There's a hen night in the works for fifteen-year-old Danielle, and Chloe is having her first communion which, we saw in last week's show, will probably not mean dressing down.

Wednesday

Waterloo Road - 8pm, BBC1

Teachers' answer to Casualty returns for another series, and it's all getting increasingly high-octane. Following Michael's run-in - quite literally - in the car park with Linda's car tyres, Sian Diamond is now acting head, which means making up, for now, with her husband Jez. It has to be a united front for everyone in the staff room, with the Dale Skeng Crew on the prowl.

Roger and Val Have Just Got In - 10pm, BBC2

More gentle humour from the marital nest of Alfred Molina and Dawn French, tonight doing their best to cheer each other up - with disastrous results.

Thursday

Kidnap and Ransom - 9pm, ITV1

Trevor Eve - you know, the thinking woman's currant bun when Bill Nighy isn't available - is back for more action as a negotiator Dominic King. This series opens with a whole bus of foreign tourists taken captive after a botched hostage swap, where King must stop everyone firing on the bus. The acting's good, and the script is better. This quality of production could have been on the big screen five years ago.

Those Who Kill - 10pm, ITV3

The old news - there's Scandinavian thriller on the TV, corpses and subtitles both. The new news - it's not on BBC4. Instead, it's ITV3 who've scooped up this one, with - guess what - a committed female cop at its midst. This is no refined Borgen, though - much more raw, including one particularly nasty beating of a woman.

Friday

Melvyn Bragg on Class and Culture - 9pm, BBC2

If anybody is living proof that Britain is now a classless society with all the social liquidity that implies, it is Melvyn Bragg himself, sorry, Lord Bragg, Labour peer, doyen of the arts, former South Bank show presenter, novelist, and - before any of that - Cumbrian working-class stock. Bragg sets out to prove if he is typical of our new mercantile, consumerist society.

Benidorm - 9pm, ITV1

With no little irony, tonight's other-channel fare provides more goings-on in Benidorm, where Lord Bragg presumably won't be going for his summer break. This week sees new manager Joyce Temple Savage (Sherrie Hewson) try - in vain? - to bring some of Lord Bragg's 'class' to the Solana resort, by cranking up a bit of Liszt to waft out over the loungers. Meanwhile, there's a problem of lost luggage - of course - but cross-dressing Les is on hand to offer "full access to my wardrobe" for those finding themselves without beachwear.

Close

What's Hot