Pick of the Week
Michael D Higgins: Ireland’s Ninth President
Wednesday, RTÉ One, 9.35pm
It’s the end of an era, as Michael D Higgins hangs up his tea cosy after 14 years as Ireland’s president and hands the keys of the Áras to our new President, Catherine Connolly. So now’s a good time to look back on the life and career of Michael D, drawing on seven decades’ worth of material from the RTÉ archives, including many interviews with the man himself. In his own words, Michael D reveals how his socialist ideals drove his political career in the 1960s and 1970s, and how he campaigned in the 1980s against the reactionary politics that brought us the Eighth Amendment. The documentary will also give insights into his time as a contributor to Hot Press magazine, his transformation of the arts as a government minister in the 1990s, and of course his two terms as president of Ireland, with contributions from former president Mary Robinson, former taoiseach Leo Varadkar, film director Neil Jordan and actor Martin Sheen among others. And no doubt we’ll also get to hear some of Michael D’s most excellent poetry along the way.
Highlights
I’m a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!
Sunday, Virgin Media One & UTV, 9pm
It’s that time of the year again, when lesser-spotted celebrities fly south and camp out in the Aussie jungle, far from the comfort of their mansion, surviving on a diet of creepy-crawlies, and with only the adoration of their millions of fans to keep them going. This year’s I’m a Celebrity was announced in a Christmas-themed ad featuring Ant and Dec serving up a slimy Christmas dinner. The ad didn’t reveal who’d be taking part his year, but fans are keeping airports under constant surveillance to see who’s jetting off to the jungle, and scrutinising every social media post for clues or even a slip of the thumb. We do have a list of rumoured participants, and have no compunction about sharing this: Spandau Ballet star Martin Kemp, Emmerdale star Lisa Riley, presenter Denise Van Outen, comedian Ruby Wax and our own Vogue Williams. Also in the mix is boxer and former Love Island contestant Tommy Fury, English football legend and pundit Alex Scott and rapper Aitch.
Summerwater
Sunday, Monday & Tuesday, Channel 4, 9pm
Next time you’re planning to bring the family on holiday to a mysterious, remote resort in the wilds of Scotland, you might want to check the small print first. If it says “the management accept no responsibility for past traumas resurfacing, simmering anger and tension exploding into violence, or guests resorting to murder”, then maybe just book a week in Lanzarote instead. Those brave enough to book a cabin in Summerwater will have to face their deepest fears and reveal their darkest secrets – two activities not listed in the brochure. This six-part psychological drama is based on the bestselling novel by Sarah Moss, and stars Dougray Scott, Shirley Henderson, Valene Kane, Daniel Rigby, Anders Hayward and Anna Próchniak as guests of this anything-but-relaxing retreat. It’s like Love Island in reverse – couples arrive at a cold and bleak place and watch their relationships disintegrate – but probably a lot more fun to watch.
Sara Cox: Every Step of the Way for Children in Need
Wednesday, BBC One, 8pm
Many celebrities will step up to the plate for Children in Need, but BBC Radio 2 DJ Sara Cox is going one step further, taking on the Great Northern Marathon Challenge for Red Nose Day, trekking 135 miles (217km) through the English countryside over five days – all the while giving Pudsey bear a piggyback. Her gruelling journey will take her through Northumberland National Park, up the Pennines and across Yorkshire, and finishing up in the town of Pudsey in Leeds. Cox will encounter all sorts of terrain and weather, but she’ll also come across many supporters and helpers as she works hard to complete this demanding challenge. She’ll also meet some amazing and inspiring young people along the way who have had their lives transformed by Children in Need.
RM Block
The Death of Bunny Munro
Thursday, Sky Atlantic & Now, 9pm
Meet Bunny Munro, beauty product salesman extraordinaire who calls to housewives’ doors and tries to seduce them with his powers of persuasion. He’s an Avon ladies’ man, locked in an eternal merry-go-round of quick sales and quickies on the side. When his wife, Libby, dies by suicide, Bunny finds himself landed with the nine-year-old son he never bothered to get to know. But he’s not gonna let Bunny junior cramp his style, so he takes the kid along on a sales trip across southern England, and it’s not long before the youngster realises his dad is a total f**k-up, but he’s got no one to talk to except the ghost of his mum. Can Bunny change his wicked ways and become a real role model for his son before it’s too late for both of them? Matt Smith is gloriously gonzo as the sex-addicted sales rep, with Sarah Greene from Bad Sisters as Libby in a six-part series based on the 2009 novel by Nick Cave, and with a music score by the Bad Seed himself.
Unreported World: Inside Tenerife’s Squatter Wars
Friday, Channel 4, 7.30pm
Imagine flying off to your holiday home in Tenerife, and when you get there, you find your luxury villa has been taken over by squatters, and they’ve completely wrecked the gaff. Worse still, because of Spanish laws, you’ll need a court order to get the squatters out. This episode of unreported world focuses on a problem that’s getting out of hand across the Canary Islands, as cash-strapped locals, hit by a housing crisis and soaring rents, are breaking in to holiday homes and hotels and taking up rent-free residency. Once squatters have occupied a premises on the Canary Islands, it can take years to get them out, so many hotel and homeowners are taking matters into their own hands, hiring private eviction teams to turf the squatters, and turning the islands’ resorts into battlefields.
Daddy Issues
Friday, BBC One, 9.35pm
Aimee Lou Wood and David Morrissey are back as daughter-and-dad duo Gemma and Malcolm in the second series of the single-parenthood sitcom, and there’s a new arrival to the party: Gemma’s baby, Sadie. In the first series, pregnant party girl Gemma fetched up at her newly divorced dad’s flat looking for a dig-out. Now the baby is here, and Gemma is going to have to get her head around being a mum, while Malcolm reckons he’s good and ready to be a grandad. But the family dynamics are are still as chaotic as ever, and this series sees Gemma’s very irritating mum, Davina (Jill Halfpenny), move in, with poor Malcolm banished to the bedsit. But Gemma’s in no doubt who she’d prefer to be there helping her bring up baby, and it’s definitely not Sadie’s interloping gran.
Streaming
English Teacher
From November 19th, Disney+
Brian Jordan Alvarez is back for another term as a high-school teacher in Austin, Texas, in a series that tackles culture wars through the prism of a lively classroom setting, with lots of nostalgic nods to the 1980s and 1990s, when issues seemed a whole lot simpler and more cut-and-dried. Alvarez is English teacher Evan Marquez, still navigating the political minefield of teaching a disparate bunch of young people at Morrison-Henley High, and still unable to avoid bumping up against one hot-button topic after another, including climate change, Covid and students’ cellphone usage.
A Man on the Inside
From November 20th, Netflix
Undercover grandad is back and redefining the concept of active retirement in the second series of the comedy crime series starring Ted Danson as retired widower Charles Nieuwendyk, who’s looking for something more than working at a supermarket to occupy his time and stave off the loneliness. In the first series, he takes a job with a private investigator, infiltrating a retirement home as an inmate to solve a crime. In this new series, he goes undercover again, this time posing as a professor at the prestigious Wheeler College. His job is to find out who is blackmailing the college’s president, Jack Berenger (Max Greenfield), and whether it has anything to do with billionaire graduate Brad Vinick (Gary Cole), who is planning to make a big donation to the college. But there’s a siren call threatening to distract him from his task: music teacher Mona (Mary Steenburgen), a free spirit who gets Charles’s heart singing again, but who also may well be the blackmailer he’s looking to unmask.
