Pick of the Week
Creedon’s Musical Atlas of Ireland
Sunday, RTÉ One, 6.30pm
One of our finest broadcasters and a music nut to boot, John Creedon is certainly the kind of person you would trust to guide you on a tour around the music of Ireland. His series Creedon’s Musical Atlas of Ireland, which explores how music shapes the identity of the country, returns on Sunday for a new series. Across three episodes, Creedon will look at the impact that music has on Irish culture. He will travel across the country and across centuries, meeting musicians, historians and cultural experts to understand how music has influenced Irish identity.
Along the way there will be interviews with musicians Sibéal Ní Chasaide, Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill and Róis, and composer Eímear Noone. In this first episode he looks at the myth of the Dagda’s magical harp
Highlights
Richard E Grant’s Very Modern Odyssey
Sunday, Channel 4, 8pm
We’re all Odyssey-mad at the moment thanks to Christopher Nolan’s new film, which will be plonked at number one in the box office for the next few weeks. If you’d like to venture more into the world of Homer’s epic poem, then try this new four-part travel series presented by the always charming Richard E Grant. The actor follows the route taken by Odysseus on his 10-year voyage home – which means travels around Europe, Asia Minor and North Africa, from Turkey to Tunisia, through Sicily and Italy and on to Greece before arriving at the island of Ithaca.
Seeing as this journey will be full of modern conveniences and free from Sirens and one-eyed monsters, this will probably be a very relaxing trip for Grant. But expect many beautiful sights, some mythical tales and inspiration for your next holiday in the sun
Celebrity Hunted
Monday, Channel 4, 9pm
In the TV show Hunted, ordinary folks go on the run in Britain, trying to stay one step ahead of a team of “hunters” trying to track them down. For us mere mortals, this isn’t easy – but it’s certainly a lot easier than it is for celebrities, who might find fans around every corner. All of which makes Celebrity Hunted good craic to watch and on Monday it returns (in aid of Stand Up To Cancer) with a new line-up: Strictly Come Dancing stars and professional dancers Amy Dowden and Carlos Gu; actor Brian Conley and comedian Lucy Conley; Love Island duo Chris Taylor and Toby Aromolaran; TV presenter JJ Chalmers and TV presenter and disability advocate Sophie Morgan; TV presenters and siblings Scarlette and Stuart Douglas; and stand-up comedian Jen Brister and comedian Laura Smyth.
These celeb pairs will go on the run for 14 days, trying not to leave a trail or get tracked down by Ray Howard and his elite team of Hunters, who come from policing, military and intelligence backgrounds. While the show is fun, it’s also a reminder that in today’s world, almost every step we take might leave a footprint
The Salisbury Poisonings: A Spy Next Door
Tuesday, Sky Documentaries, 9pm
In 2018, former Russian military officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a bench in the town of Salisbury. Incredibly, it transpired they had been poisoned by a Novichok nerve agent. This programme uses first-hand testimony from former British prime minister Theresa May, former home secretary Amber Rudd, former MI6 chiefs Richard Dearlove and John Sawers, journalists and victims to tell the full story of what happened
It looks at the race to identify the perpetrators and to contain a deadly chemical weapon in the town, and what happened when the British government accused Russia of attempted murder. It also includes an interview with Charlie Rowley, whose partner Dawn Sturgess died after Rowley unknowingly discovered a perfume bottle containing the nerve agent months after the Skripals were targeted
The Disappearance of Captain Nairac
Wednesday, RTÉ One, 9.35pm
In May 1977, a British army captain named Robert Nairac set out on an undercover mission. He drove from his military base to a rural bar near the Irish border, where his singing of Irish rebel songs aroused suspicion among some men. That night, Nairac was abducted, driven over the Border and shot by the IRA before being secretly buried. His remains have never been found
This documentary, filmed along the Border area, was made by Bafta-winning director Alison Millar and journalist Darragh MacIntyre. It follows the search for Captain Nairac’s body by someone unexpected: the former IRA prisoner Martin McAllister, who says that it is “a matter of honour” for him to return Nairac’s remains to his family for a Christian burial
Possession
Thursday, Sky Atlantic, 9pm
In this brand-new supernatural thriller series about the impact and aftermath of slavery, Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays Claudia, a bi‑racial lawyer who travels to Jamaica to challenge an inheritance claim made by a local man, Cudjoe East (Sheldon Shepherd), against the wealthy aristocrat Oliver Connaught (Jonny Lee Miller). But Claudia soon discovers that the disputed estate at the centre of the claim is a building that has been haunting her nightmares. It’s called Hope Hill, and is the Connaught family’s former plantation. Claudia and Oliver dig into the case and discover a link between the plantation’s brutal past and injustices in the present.
Tradfest – The Dublin Sessions
Friday, RTÉ One, 8.30pm
Musician and broadcaster Fiachna Ó Braonáin is at the helm of Tradfest: The Dublin Sessions, which this Friday comes to us from the GPO and St Patrick’s Hall in Dublin Castle. The musicians featured are Hothouse Flowers, who are joined by Clare Sands on fiddle for one night only. Together, Sands, Liam Ó Maonlaí, Ó Braonáin and Peter O’Toole rework Hothouse Flowers classics like Give It Up for the live event. Making things even more interesting is that there’s no set list, with the band only deciding what to play on the night itself. If you’re looking for some live music on screen, but you’d prefer it with a twist, give this a spin.
Streaming
Lioness
From Sunday, August 2nd, Paramount+
Zoe Saldaña, Nicole Kidman, Morgan Freeman and Michael Kelly are reporting back for duty in the third series of the all-action espionage thriller and you probably wouldn’t be far off the mark to guess that the stakes are getting higher and the danger is getting perilously closer to home. Saldaña is soldier and CIA operative Joe McNamara, whose job it is to recruit women for the agency’s Lioness programme, teach them the skills of spycraft and close-quarters combat, and send them out to befriend the wives and girlfriends of the world’s most wanted criminals and terrorists and infiltrate their operations. Kidman returns as Kaitlyn Meade, Joe’s boss within the CIA, with Freeman reprising his role as US secretary of state Edwin Mullins. – Kevin Courtney
[ Cover bands: The serious business of pretending to be someone elseOpens in new window ]
Ted Lasso
From Wednesday, August 5th, Apple TV
Fresh from his appearance on the sidelines at the World Cup final in New Jersey last month, when he brought Justin Bieber on as a surprise substitute during the half-time show, Ted Lasso is back at AFC Richmond, but things have changed utterly in the three years since he left the London soccer club and returned home to Kansas. Instead of managing the men’s team he’s now coaching the club’s women’s soccer team – the Lady Greyhounds, who are in the second-division doldrums – but his annoyingly positive, can-do attitude has not diminished and his Marty moustache is as gloriously luxuriant as ever.
We thought we’d seen the last of Ted following the end of the third season, which seemed to close things off neatly, but star and executive producer Jason Sudeikis couldn’t resist reprising the role (he says it’s good for his own mental wellbeing), so he’s back on the AFC Richmond sidelines, tasked with turning the women’s side into a winning outfit. Impossible? It might take more than putting an apostrophe after the “i” to keep these girls out of the relegation zone. Hannah Waddingham is back as the club’s owner Rebecca Welton, with other returning cast members Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt, Juno Temple and Jeremy Swift, and new cast members including Tanya Reynolds, Jude Mack, Faye Marsay, Rex Hayes and Aisling Sharkey. – KC
Sterling Point
From Wednesday, August 5th, Prime Video
Streaming networks know their teen viewership needs characters they can really relate to, and what could be more relatable than a coming-of-age drama featuring a gorgeous 17-year-old dealing with the burden of having just inherited an entire island from her mysterious grandad? Ella Rubin stars as New Yorker Annie Jacobson, with Keen Ruffalo as her twin brother Connor. Both are being raised in New York by their adoptive dad, Steven (Jay Duplass), but Annie’s world is shaken when she learns the grandfather she never knew has left her a prime piece of real estate in Canada, complete with boat dock and holiday cottage. Heading up to explore her new asset, she makes new friends, meets new crushes and discovers a sister she never knew existed. Just to lock in that relatability, the trailer features a new song from pop star Gracie Abrams, Look at My Life. – KC
The Shards
From Thursday, August 6th, Disney+
It’s summer in Los Angeles in the early 1980s and a bunch of beautiful, rich, privileged high school seniors are getting on with their usual sex, seduction and social climbing. But this isn’t your usual steamy teen drama – The Shards is based on the 2023 novel by Bret Easton Ellis, veteran chronicler of Gen X teen nihilism. It’s a metafictional story loosely based on Ellis’s own adolescence, with added layers of lust and obsession, plus a big dollop of horror. Bret is a young student and aspiring writer at the exclusive Buckley prep school, trying to navigate his fluid sexual identity, when a charismatic new transfer student, Robert Mallory, changes the dynamics of his tight-knit friend group. His arrival coincides with a spate of murders and soon LA is in the grip of terror as it becomes clear a serial killer is on the loose – and he’s targeting the teens in Bret’s social circle. Could there be more to the mysterious Robert than meets the eye? – KC
