TV guide: 13 of the best new shows to watch, beginning tonight

The Meaning of Life – Johnny Logan

Sunday, RTÉ1, 10.30pm

Johnny Logan is Joe Duffy’s guest, and the man born Seán Sherrard chats about his relationship with his father, the Irish-Australian tenor Patrick O’Hagan, who had a successful career Down Under long before his son became a three-time winner of the Eurovision Song Contest. Logan will also talk about his own faith, which was inculcated in him by his father, his huge sense of loss when his parents and siblings passed away, and the send-off he would like when his own time comes. He also touches on his fractious relationship with the media, which has made him wary of giving interviews.

Johnny Logan chats about his relationship with his father to Joe Duffy in The Meaning of Life

First Dates

Monday, RTÉ1, 9.30pm

Welcome back to the restaurant, where love stories begin with a tasty starter ... or end on a sour note. Maitre D’ Mateo welcomes back a new bunch of singletons to the restaurant (Coda Eatery at the Gibson Hotel), where they will sit down and share a meal, and hopefully click with each other. Barman Neil and waiters Alice and Pete are on hand to see to the diners’ every need and let them get on with the business of letting love blossom. With 20 cameras arrayed discreetly around the restaurant, the diners can relax and get to know each other, but their every move and gesture will be on display, so viewers can quickly see if the chemistry is there.

Upfront with Katie Hannon

Monday, RTÉ1, 9.35pm

Katie Hannon is back with her live audience-centred current affairs programme

Katie Hannon is back in the TV studio for another season of Upfront, but you’re not just asked to sit back and watch the panellists and studio audience debate the topics of the day. As before, this series goes beyond the studio, inviting TV viewers and those engaging online to take part in the lively conversation.

The programme will go behind the headlines and straight to the heart of what’s impacting on ordinary people’s lives every day – and it’s all live, no safety net, so expect things to take some unpredictable topical twists and turns.

Tuesday, RTÉ1, 7pm

In this episode of the Irish-language documentary series, we’re transported to Tuam in Co Galway, where a bunch of lads calling themselves The Saw Doctors wrote one of Ireland’s most iconic anthems, N17. The song captured that aching for home experienced by many an emigrant, and it’s no surprise the song travelled well, becoming one of the band’s best-known hits. Band members Davy Carton and Leo Moran tell the story of how the song came about, and reflect on its huge cultural impact and astonishing longevity.

Ultimate Wedding Planner

Tuesday, BBC2, 9pm

It’s the grand finale of the series as two wedding planners go head to head to create the ultimate nuptials from scratch in just three days – no pressure. It’s not just about booking a hotel and a wedding band, and having beef or salmon on the menu. Judges Fred Sirieix, Sara Davies and Raj Somaiya will be watching closely as the two finalists set out to deliver an unforgettable experience for a lucky couple, or an unmitigated disaster for the poor bride- and groom-to-be. They get only one shot at the big day, so they better get it right, and they need to bring it to the next level to be crowned ultimate wedding planner.

Celebrity Race Across the World

Wednesday, BBC1, 9pm

The race is on in this ultimate test of endurance and ingenuity, as four celebrities set off on a 10,000km trek from Africa to the Arctic, beginning in Marrakesh in Morocco and crossing 24 countries along the way to finish up in Tromso in Norway. Easy-peasy – where’s my private jet? But there’s a catch: the celebs are on a tight budget and have to complete the journey without using smartphones, internet or credit cards. But they will have a family member in tow, which could either be a help or a hindrance. McFly drummer Harry Judd and his mum, Emma; Melanie Blatt from All Saints and her mum, Helene; weatherman Alex Beresford and his dad, Noel; and racing driver and pundit Billy Monger and his sister, Bonny, are the eight contestants.

Domina

Wednesday, Sky Atlantic & Now, 9pm

Series two of Sky’s Roman Empire epic continues to tell the story from a women’s perspective, focusing on one of Rome’s most powerful women, Livia Drusilla. Having returned from exile to regain her position as the Claudii family’s golden girl in series one, Livia is now sitting pretty at the pinnacle of power, but the empire is riven by conflict (what’s new?), Rome has descended into misrule and famine, and her husband Gaius’s authority as ruler is coming under constant challenge. Livia has her work cut out keeping her marriage to Gaius on track as she sets out to get one of her sons on the succession ladder.

Welcome to Wrexham

From Wednesday, Disney+

Series two of Welcome to Wrexham tracks the continued adventures of Hollywood stars Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds as they try to turn one of the world’s oldest professional football clubs in to one of the world’s most celebrated. But McElhenney and Reynolds soon learn that the road to Premier League immortality is not so smooth, and running a real-life football club is not quite like an episode of Ted Lasso.

As series two begins, the Red Dragons are battling to return to the English Football League after an ignoble relegation to the National League, and Rob and Ryan are working hard to prove they can lead this working-class Welsh town’s totemic club to greater glory.

Ghosts of Baggottonia

Thursday, RTÉ1, 11.25pm

So where is this strange, haunted spot known as Baggotonia? I must avoid it lest I be accosted by apparitions. It’s the sobriquet for the bohemian quarter that sprang around the Baggot Street area around the middle of the last century, populated by a coterie of artists, writers and intellectuals, including Patrick Kavanagh, Samuel Beckett and Brendan Behan, who were disillusioned with the drabness and lack of imagination that marked Catholic, conservative Ireland under Archbishop John McQuaid. But it’s also an “imagined space”, says film-maker Alan Gilsenan, filled with benign ghosts whose ideas still echo in modern Irish culture. Gilsenan takes a journey into this mythical place, shooting the film in evocative monochrome, and reawakening a spirit that still resonates.

Richie Sadlier: Let’s Talk About Sex

Thursday, RTÉ2, 9.30pm

Footballer-turned-psychologist Richie Sadlier is on a mission to overhaul Ireland’s woefully inadequate sex education curriculum, and in this new series he argues for a more progressive approach to sex ed in schools, and talks to transition year students and gets their opinions on the topic. “They all know what porn is or what arousal feels like or what it is to fancy someone. What I wanted to do was provide a place where they can speak openly.”

Sadlier also talks to parents, experts and policymakers about how the curriculum could be reshaped to make it more relevant to young people, among them child psychologist Dr Colman Noctor, Women’s Aid chief executive Sarah Benson and HIV activist Robbie Lawlor.

Wilderness

From Friday, Prime Video

Jenna Coleman and Oliver Jackson-Cohen play a British couple living the American dream in this psychological thriller set in the great outdoors and based on the novel by BE Jones.

Liv and Will seem to have a rock-solid marriage, that is until Liv finds out Will has been having an affair. So she does what any reasonable person would do: organises a trip of a lifetime around the US, visiting such vertiginous landmarks as the Grand Canyon, where there are lots of opportunities to push her cheating partner off a great height and make it look like an accident. But her road trip to revenge hits an obstacle when the couple bump in to Will’s work colleague Cara (Ashley Benson) and her lovestruck boyfriend Garth (Eric Balfour), who join them on a hiking trip and get caught up in the unfolding psychodrama.

Coco Chanel Unbuttoned

Friday, BBC2, 9pm

Coco Chanel with a group of models in the Chanel studio. Photograph: Douglas Kirkland/ Getty Images

Who was Coco Chanel, the French designer who revolutionised women’s fashion, and whose name became a byword for elegance and classiness? Little is known about her early life, but this documentary film pieces together the details to paint a portrait of a woman who grew up a peasant in the 19th century, but aspired to greater things – for herself and for women in the years following the first World War. She lifted women out of their restrictive corsets and created a new casual yet chic style of dressing, which was epitomised by her famous little black dress and her chain handbag. The film tracks her journey from an orphanage run by nuns to the catwalks of Paris and untold wealth and influence.

The Late Late Show

Friday, RTÉ1, 9.35pm

Ladies and gentlemen, to whom it concerns, here is your new host, Patrick Kielty, taking the reins for the first Late Late Show of the post-Tubridy era (it’s like the Anthropocene, only even more seismic). Will Kielty bring something new to the Late Late table?

We know the show will be shorter, zipping along at a 90-minute clip, and we know Kielty will be paid a quarter of a million a year for his presenting services. Will he have the chops to succeed Tubs and even give Graham Norton a run for his red chair? He’s got form, he’s got talent, and he’s got that extra comedic edge that could put a firework up RTÉ’s Friday night schedule.

To address one viewer’s worry, RTÉ has assured us that it’s not getting rid of the owl, but will be putting a “new shine to his feathers”.