Bridget & Eamon
Monday, RTÉ Two, 10pm
Remember the 1980s, when you could smoke wherever you liked, drive home from the pub and the nation was obsessed with goings-on in Glenroe? Well, get ready for a trip back to that golden era in the company of Bridget & Eamon. You'll already know this smokin', drinkin', cursin' and bickering Irish country couple, played by Jennifer Zamparelli and Bernard O'Shea, from their hilarious, politically incorrect sketches on Republic of Telly. Now, the couple have been given their own series and they're ready to ramp up the Eighties references and load up on the laughs.
O’Shea and Zamparelli admit it’s not going to be easy expanding their small but perfectly formed sketches into a half-hour of full-blown comedy, but you know they’re going to give it the lash. In episode one, Eamon must be stopped from spending the money from the Trócaire box, while a delivery mix-up turns Bridget’s Tupperware party into a condom fiesta.
The Great British Interior Design Challenge
BBC Two, Monday
Back for its third run, The Great British Interior Design Challenge once againsees amateurs show off their design skills in front of very picky judges. Where else can you see someone try to upholster a wardrobe on a Monday evening?
Life Before the Rising
Monday, RTÉ One, 9.35pm
This documentar digs deeper into everyday life in Ireland in the years leading up 1916, when the Catholic middle-classes were on the up and the poor in tenements just got on with it. Historian Catherine Crowe explores life in Ireland pre-Rising, when Dublin was a major tourist destination, the most common crimes in the city were petty theft and desertion, and the biggest news came from the killing grounds of Gallipoli.
Time for the Weekend: The 1950s
Tuesday, BBC Two 8pm
Imagine living in a home with no computers, tablets or smartphones constantly buzzing and pinging, and where the coolest gadget is a sewing machine. One modern family experiences what life in Britain was like more than a half century ago in Back in Time for the Weekend: The 1950s. In this social experiment, the Ashby-Hawkinses relinquish the trappings of modern life to experience the reality for ordinary families in a time when playing the piano, darning socks and relaxing with a pipe were high on the leisure list. Dad Rob has to reacquaint himself with the old-fashioned toolbox, while mum Steph has to keep the household in order without the aid of a washer, dryer, microwave or dishwasher.
South Of Hell
Tuesday, Pick TV, 10pm
If you want to avoid demons, better stay away from Charleston, South Carolina, as it's the setting for a new supernatural horror series, . The series stars Mena Suvari as demon-hunter Maria Abascal, who roams the country performing guerrilla exorcisms. What gives her the talent for rooting out demons? Easy – she's possessed by one herself, a green-eyed she-demon known as Abigail. Somehow Maria manages to keep Abigail under control, unleashing her to catch demons while at the same time trying to find a way to get back to normality. Buffy meets True Blood? Yer darn tootin'!
Eipic
Thursday, TG4, 10pm
In 1916, a group of rebels took over the GPO and instigated the Easter Rising. In 2016, a group of rural Irish teenagers take over an abandoned post office and stage their own musical revolution. Eipic is a new six-part Irish-language comedy-drama, written by Mike O'Leary and featuring a cast of hip young actors. O'Leary was a writer on cult E4 drama Misfits, so he has past form in tapping into teens' concerns. In the small town of Dobhar, as everyone is getting ready to celebrate 1916, five teenagers embark on their own rebellion against boredom, urged on by a mysterious online figure who looks uncannily like a certain Big Fella from 100 years ago.
