TV guide: 25 of the best shows to watch this week

Ceol Ó Kylemore: Ceiliúradh na mBan
Sunday, TG4, 9.30pm
Connemara's Kylemore Abbey in is the spectacular setting for this hour-long special, which was recorded at the end of 2020 and features some of Ireland's best-known female traditional musicians and singers. Moya Brennan of Clannad will be joined by many of TG4's acclaimed Gradam Ceoil award winners, including Mary Bergin on whistle, Laoise Kelly on Harp, Josephine Marsh on accordion, and Sharon Howley on cello, along with singers Cathy Jordan, Pauline Scanlon with Nicola Joyce and Noriana Kennedy of The Whileaways and up and coming Sibéal.

Brighid
Sunday, TG4, 6.10pm

The common image of Brighid is one of a one-dimensional saint of quaint crosses and rural customs. This programme shows a completely different Brighid: a god, a female trinity who pre-dates Christianity and will survive it, a bountiful and generous god who loved life and lived it to the full.

Stacey Dooley: Back on the Psych Ward
Sunday, BBC2, 10.30pm
Last year the investigative reporter spent time at Springfield Hospital, one of the oldest mental health units in the UK, to find out what life was like for those being treated there. She also worked alongside staff as they dealt with patients and made incredibly tough decisions about their treatment. Now Dooley is heading back to the institution to find out how the team and the people in their care have been getting on. As lockdown has impacted on many folks' state of mind over the past year, she also meets some new faces, including Sharif and Jordan, who are dealing with psychosis. Ali, meanwhile, is struggling with the rituals that rule and ruin her life, and Vakare is in a desperate situation.

Euphoria: The show that makes teenage self-destruction look weightless and beautiful

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We’ve had decades of poverty, stifled dreams and lives unlived. But look on the bright side

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Claire Byrne’s inconvenient facts burst Stephen Donnelly’s bubble

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10 Years Younger: Quick Tricks
Sunday, Channel 5, 10pm
Cherry Healey and her team of specialist beauty experts deliver more beauty and fashion tips and tricks on how to roll back the years. They offer solutions to the most common ageing complaints, from dark circles and puffy eyes to saggy skin, and being afraid of getting it wrong in the style stakes. In this episode, Healey & co give us 10 brilliant solutions to the most common ageing complaints. Plus, the host investigates how clothes and colour can transform how old we look, and uncovers the truth about vanity labelling.

Davy's Toughest Team
Monday, RTÉ One, 9.35pm

Spare a thought for the hard-working bainisteoir trying to get his team in top condition and lead them to All-Ireland glory. It’s an even tougher task when your team comprises lads battling various problems, including drug addiction, mental health issues, unemployment and isolation, and the goal is to get them not to Croke Park but to Everest base camp. And all this during a global pandemic?

Back in January 2020, when Wexford GAA manager Davy Fitzgerald took on the task of motivating seven troubled young men to chase their dreams, he could never have predicted that a global pandemic would throw his plans into uncertainty. Fitzgerald is famous for his inspirational style of management and his ability to bring teams back from the brink of defeat. In the first of this four-part series, he brings his new proteges to a remote part of Wicklow . Here he and his fellow mentors (performance coach Mattie Rice and wilderness expert Dane Gilligan) put them through two days of boot camp to get them ready for their trip to Nepal. But with the base-camp challenge scheduled for March, they are soon to face what could be an insurmountable obstacle: the arrival of Covid-19.

Fleabag
Monday, RTÉ2, 9pm

Is this a good time to revisit the world of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s now iconic character? Be careful: this outrageously inventive and transgressively funny series crosses so many boundaries, your sensitivities may need to seek asylum. Fleabag is the ultimate in damaged goods, and this series follows her as she weaves a path of casual cruelty and self-destruction through contemporary London, making all the wrong choices, saying all the wrong things, sleeping with all the wrong people, and cheekily breaking the fourth wall at regular intervals. The show itself also cruelly toys with your emotions: one minute you’ll be laughing at some perverted sexual gag; next minute you’ll be knocked into shocked silence by a heartbreakingly tragic revelation. Hold your nerve and have another look at a comedy-drama genius at work.

Boxing and the Mob – Panorama
Monday, BBC1, 9pm
A boxing trainer shot and badly wounded. A former boxer executed in broad daylight. And a gangland killing at a weigh-in for a European title fight. Is organised crime infiltrated professional boxing? Reporter Darragh MacIntyre investigates the murky world behind the glamour of the big fights. Daniel Kinahan has been named in the courts as the head of one of Europe's biggest drug cartels. So how did he become involved in setting up Britain's biggest ever bout between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua?

The Drowning
Monday-Thursday, Channel, 9pm

Has Channel 5 finally found a hit drama to rival the BBC and ITV? Time will tell this week as this new four-part thriller is broadcast across consecutive nights. Jill Halfpenny plays fraught mum Jodie, whose son has been missing for eight years. She has been rebuilding her life since his disappearance and suspected drowning – until she sees teenager (Cody Molko), and becomes convinced he is her missing child. Whether she is right or not, Jodie’s spark of hope is ignited and she commits to a dangerous path.

Interior Design Masters with Alan Carr
Tuesday, BBC2, 8pm
We're in a telly age where every craft or hobby can be turned into a nail-biting contest filled with tears, tantrums and trauma. Whether it's extreme embroidery or cut-throat crochet, home economics is the new martial arts, as people choose their weapons (spatulas, knitting needles, Lego) and battle to the death for the entertainment of the masses. In this latest iteration, 10 up-and-coming interior designers take on a series of challenges that could bring them to the next level in their industry. They have to impress former editor-in-chief of Elle Decoration magazine Michell Ogundehin with their design ideas, along with an array of top design figures including Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen. Keeping everything light and chatty is host Alan Carr. The ultimate prize is a contract to do the interior design for a top hotel in Cumbria's Lake District. The first challenge is to redesign a room in a showhouse to help seal the deal for prospective buyers. Okay, designers, swatches at the ready . . .

Joanna Lumley's Home Sweet Home – Travels in My Own Land
Tuesday, ITV, 8pm

Joanna Lumley was preparing to travel the spice route when Covid-19 hit. So she turned her attention turned to places closer to home in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Lumley begins in Essex by exploring Tilbury docks, the principal port for London, before heading north to Manchester, where she makes a nostalgic return to Coronation Street (she appeared in eight episodes in 1973). From there she travels to Whitby, to which she also has a tenuous connection: early in her career she starred in The Satanic Rites of Dracula, and the Yorkshire seaside town is where the vampire washes up in Bram Stoker’s novel.

54 Days: America and the Pandemic
Tuesday, BBC2, 9pm
After the pomp and ceremony of his inauguration, US president Joe Biden set to work immediately. Sitting behind the Oval Office desk, he signed 15 executive orders. Many were designed to undo some of the policies adopted by his predecessor, but the first involved boosting the federal response to Covid-19. But are his measures too little too late? The virus has claimed more than 420,000 American lives, and the concluding part of this eye-opening documentary explores the initial outbreak in the country, asking if more could have been done earlier to prevent its spread.

Scéalta Grá na hÉireann: Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill and Art Ó Laoghaire
Wednesday, TG4, 8.30pm
This is the tragic tale of the greatest poem ever composed in the Irish oral tradition. Caoineadh Art Uí Laoghaire is a lament composed by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, the aunt of the Liberator, Daniel O'Connell, which outlines the life and murder of the great love of her life, Art Ó Laoghaire, an Irish Catholic who fought with the Hungarian Huzzars and returned home to stand up to the Protestant Penal Laws in Ireland.

Rhod Gilbert: Stand Up to Infertility
Wednesday, BBC2, 9pm
Comedian Rhod Gilbert and his wife, Sian, have been trying for a baby. But while she deals with the complications of endometriosis, he's discovered his sperm is lazy and languid – "like their owner". In this heartfelt documentary, the Gilberts allow us into their lives as they share the emotional turmoil surrounding the issue of infertility. Rhod also meets others who have suffered similar experiences, including poet Benjamin Zephaniah, who speaks openly about the pain felt by childless men, and investigates why sperm counts in the western world have dropped by 60 per cent in the past 40 years.

Junk Kouture Grand Final
Thursday, RTÉ2, 7pm

Lockdown put the kibosh on the January sales, and now you’ve nothing to wear. Don’t fret – you can put together a fabulous wardrobe just by rummaging through your recycling bin. Not convinced? Then watch the grand final of Junk Kouture, the annual contest where students put their creativity to work knocking up amazing outfits from the everyday junk we usually toss away. The grand finale is usually held at Dublin’s 3Arena, but Covid restrictions mean the organisers have had to get creative and come up with a different way of presenting the finalists’ creations.

The solution they’ve come up is the first televised final to celebrate Junk Kouture’s 10th year, filmed in a series of impressive locations around the country, and featuring students modelling their creations, made from everything from old tyres, used toothbrushes to burnt toast, in a safe and socially distanced way. Casting their expert eye over the creations will be X Factor judge Louis Walsh and RuPaul’s Drag Race judge Michelle Visage. Musical entertainment will be provided by rising Irish star Aimee.

Your Garden Made Perfect
Thursday, BBC2, 8pm
Some people can take one look at a scrappy backyard and see lush greenery, rich colours, clever paving and eye-catching features – and then make it real. Many of us, however, have a hard time visualising how our garden could look with just a little love and a lot of digging and lifting. Angela Scanlon presents this new series giving homeowners a chance to see how their garden can be transformed into a glorious space of Wordsworth. With some help from VR technology, a pair of competing design experts will present their vision of how a neglected outdoor space could be remade. The homeowners must then decide which design to turn into a reality.

ZeroZeroZero
Thursday,Sky Atlantic/Now TV, 9pm

After Narcos and El Chapo, we may think we've had our fill of drug-cartel dramas. Not a bit of it. Here's a fast-paced Italian series whose directors count Gomorrah and True Detective among their recent works, tracking the journey of a shipment of cocaine from Mexico to Italy, and following the action as Mexican drug lords, Italian crime bosses and New Orleans mobsters fight for control of their territories. In New Orleans, a family headed by Gabriel Byrne brokers the big drug deals, while in Calabria Don Minu La Piana is trying to bring all the bosses of the notorious 'Ndrangeta together and secure the future of the organisation. Meanwhile, in Mexico, Manuel Quinteras leads a handful of soldiers in pursuit of the Leyra cartel bosses. Dane DeHaan and Andrea Riseborough also star.

An Cumann
Thursday, TG4, 8pm
As coronavirus continues all over Ireland, the Government is taking unprecedented steps to protect our communities. This has huge implications for sports clubs, including Conamara Boxing Club, Corca Dhuibhne Rugby Club, Cumann Liathróid Láimhe Mícheál Breathnach and Gaoth Dobhair United. With the whole country isolating at home and all club activities postponed, what is life be like for club members with?

Adrian Dunbar's Coastal Ireland
Thursday, Channel 5, 8pm

Fermanagh-born Adrian Dunbar has become famous for his portrayal of Supt Ted Hastings in Line of Duty. Here’s he goes back to his roots for a two-part travelogue in which he travels along the wild and rugged west and north coasts of Ireland, making a stop at the Mizen bridge, suspended 45 metres above sea level. He also joins an old friend (who also happens to be one of Ireland’s finest chefs) for lunch, and fulfils a lifelong ambition to make the treacherous sea crossing to Skellig Islands.

The Directors
Thursday, Sky Arts, 8pm

This week’s episode looks at the life and career of Kathryn Bigelow, who remains the only woman to have won a best director Oscar for the 2008 war drama The Hurt Locker. A talented artist, Bigelow spent her teenage years painting at the San Francisco Art Institute and later at the Whitney Museum. Her first theatrical film was a post-postmodern biker flick called The Loveless. This was followwed by, among others, vampire western Near Dark, surf heist picture Point Break, feminist police thriller Blue Steel, claustrophobic Soviet submarine story K-19: The Widowmaker, post-9/11 drama Zero Dark Thirty, and brutal ’60s racial ’60s drama Detroit.

The Gadget Show
Friday, Channel 5, 7pm
The team is back for a new series and joined by some new recruits, including members of the public, who will get a chance to try out the latest gadgets before they buy. There will also be appearances from the YouTuber Dad V Girls, whose kids will be trying to get to grips with retro tech. In the first episode, Jon Bentley puts fitness trackers to the test, while Craig Charles and Ortis Deley pit Apple's recently released iPhone 12 against its three-year-old cousin the iPhone X to see if it's worth upgrading.

ON DEMAND

Kid Cosmic
From Tuesday, Netflix

Superhero adventures are 10 a penny these days. The DC Extended Universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe lead the way, but for those looking for something a little less dramatic and more fun, Kid Cosmic could be the show for you. It’s the brainchild of Emmy-winning animation expert Craig McCracken, who claims his latest project deals with a moment in a child’s life when they believe that anything can happen. At the centre of the story is a little boy who lives with his free-spirited Grandpa in a desert town. The youngster longs to become a hero, and thinks he’s found a way of making it happen when he finds some magical stones in a wrecked spaceship. He and his friends set out to use them against an alien invasion, but matters don’t go to plan.

Firefly Lane
From Wednesday, Netflix

Kristin Hannah has written 24 books several of which are about to be turned into movies. But heading our way first is this TV 10-part adaptation of her 2008 novel Firefly Lane, which examines the ups and downs of the relationship between two lifelong best friends. Tully Hart and Kate Mullarkey first meet as teenagers in the 1970s. Kate is a nerdy girl who is astonished when the supercool and hugely popular Tully decides they should hang out together. For the next 30 years they are inseparable, despite Tully’s determination to find fame and fortune and Kate achieving her more down-to-earth dream of falling in love and having a family. Then betrayal threatens to tear them apart forever... Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke star.

Strip Down, Rise Up
From Friday, Netflix
Is pole dancing really be a restorative act, or merely performed to titillate? Michele Ohayon, the Oscar-nominated documentary-maker behind Colors Straight Up, believes the former is true. "It's not about feeling pretty, it's about feeling powerful," says one participant in a most extraordinary class. Women of all ages, shapes, sizes, experiences and backgrounds gather for six months of training, which is designed to help them explore their sexuality, get in touch with their sensuality, and find themselves again after years of body shame, fear, loss, trauma and heartbreak. "Some people come in just to learn how to pole dance, and their minds are blown open that it touches a part of themselves that they didn't know they had," says the instructor.

Deliver Us
From Friday, All 4

The first episode of this award-winning Danish psychological thriller is set to debut on Channel 4 on Sunday, but the entire eight episode are available. The story takes place in a small town that looks like any other – but it has one very unruly resident indeed. Mike loves nothing better than terrorising his neighbours. They do little about his bad behaviour until it appears he’s literally got away with murder, inspiring the locals to take action. They form a vigilante group determined to sort out this psycho once and for all by giving him a taste of his own medicine. They plot what they think will be the perfect crime, little realising that by stooping to his level, they’re about to become the very thing they hate the most.

Greenland
From Friday, Amazon Prime

Perennial hard man Gerard Butler again battles forces beyond his control in this CGI-laden disaster movie. He plays John Garrity who, along with his estranged wife Allison (Morena Baccarat) and their son Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd) search for sanctuary after a planet-killing comet has devastated Earth. The Garritys experience the best and worst of humanity during their perilous journey as panic and lawlessness begins to take hold around the world. It’s clear that a global apocalypse is on the horizon – can the family find somewhere to wait out the encroaching tragedy? Scott Glenn and Hope Davis costar.

Contributing: PA