What’s on TV tonight: Yo-Yo Ma at the Proms, Romesh Ranganathan, Grace and more
Sunday 1 September
Grace
ITV1, 8pm
John Simm returns for another run of two-hour adaptations of Peter James’s crime novels featuring Britain’s most sensitive murder detective, Roy Grace. Dead Man’s Time gets off to a typically grisly start with the torture and murder of an elderly woman in her home – although for once, thankfully, we only get to hear of the horrors inflicted rather than having them splattered – or in this case burnt – all over the screen. It’s not long before DCI Grace and his genial sidekick DI Branson (Richie Campbell) are under pressure for a result from the woman’s grieving antiques-dealer brother (Robert Glenister) who reveals that the burglars’ real target was an item of enormous monetary and sentimental value kept in the family safe.
Cue a convoluted investigation that has the Brighton murder squad reaching all the way back to the East End mobs of the 1960s for a present-day link to the murder. As ever, the toll the job takes on Grace’s romantic relationship with his forensic pathologist lover Cleo Morey (Zoë Tapper) and Branson’s up-and-down marriage all get folded into the mix – along with the appearance of Grace’s no-longer-missing wife Sandy (Clare Calbraith). GO
Songs of Praise
BBC One, 1.15pm
The BBC marks 100 years of religious broadcasting with a service at St Martin-in-the-Fields, from where the first church service was broadcast in 1924. Pam Rhodes also looks back at how on-air faith has changed across a century of TV and radio.
Proms: Beethoven for Three
BBC Four, 8pm
A recording of a recent concert at the Royal Albert Hall, with three titans of chamber music – pianist Emanuel Ax, violinist Leonidas Kavakos and cellist Yo-Yo Ma – doing unusual things with Beethoven, especially his much-loved Pastoral Symphony.
Sherwood
BBC One, 9pm
“This ends before it begins,” demands Nottingham’s Chief Constable in response to last week’s horrifying events. But, clearly, that’s not going to happen. Writer James Graham brilliantly cranks up tension and wrings emotion – so much so, half an hour in, you’ll be battening down alongside acting-DCI St Clair (David Morrissey) in anticipation of a ferocious coming storm. Continues tomorrow.
The Mis-Investigations of Romesh Ranganathan
BBC Two, 9pm
Ranganathan’s retread of the 1978 murder of 20-year-old Nancy Spungen in New York’s Chelsea Hotel, seemingly at the hand of her Sex Pistols-bassist boyfriend Sid Vicious (who died a week later of a heroin overdose), is as much a potted history of punk as anything. It gives nothing away to say that there are no big surprises, but the journey has interesting moments.
Mission to Burnley
Sky Documentaries, 9pm
It doesn’t have the “against-all-odds” magic of Welcome to Wrexham. But, back for a second season that charts the team’s re-relegation to the Championship after the high of their Premier League promotion last year, the series following Burnley FC’s rollercoaster ride captures football’s familiar high ambition and deep pain.
Dame Maureen Lipman Remembers: The Evacuees
BBC Four, 10pm
Dame Maureen recalls making, in 1975, her late husband Jack Rosenthal’s first drama for the BBC, The Evacuees (the first episode follows at 10.15pm), in which she had the unusual job of playing her own mother-in-law. Winning both a Bafta and an Emmy, it was directed by Alan Parker – just before he made Bugsy Malone.
Football
Manchester United v Liverpool
Sky Main Event, 3.30pm (kick-off 4pm)
New Liverpool boss Arne Slot gets his first taste of the Premier League’s biggest grudge match, as his side face Manchester United at Old Trafford. After guiding his post-Jürgen Klopp team to back-to-back victories in their first two games, the Dutchman’s future is bright. Earlier on Sunday, Newcastle take on Tottenham Hotspur (Sky Premier League, 12.30pm), while Celtic face Rangers (Sky Football, 11.30am). On Saturday, Arsenal host Brighton (TNT Sports 1, 11am), before Manchester City play West Ham (Sky Main Event, 5pm). The Nations League begins on Thursday as Scotland face Poland (Premier Sports, 7.45pm) and Northern Ireland play Luxembourg (Premier Sports, 7.45pm).
Formula 1
Italian Grand Prix
Sky F1, 12.30pm (start 2pm)
The Autodromo Nazionale Monza hosts, with McLaren’s Lando Norris and championship leader Max Verstappen the favourites to clinch the top spot. Highlights are on Channel 4 at 5.30pm.
Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) ★★★
BBC Two, noon
Franklin J Schaffner’s historical epic tells the story of the last ruling Russian monarch, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (Michael Jayston), and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra (Janet Suzman), from 1904 until their deaths in 1918. The opulent sets and period costumes are sumptuous, while the ensemble cast is a positive “who’s who” of acting greats: Tom Baker, Laurence Olivier, Brian Cox and Fiona Fullerton all star.
Lovely, Dark, and Deep (2023) ★★★
Sky Cinema Premiere, 6.25pm
Fans of American poet Robert Frost will feel a jolt of recognition at the title of Teresa Sutherland’s psychological horror: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep,” he wrote in Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. The film – Sutherland’s first – follows an inexperienced, troubled park ranger (played by Barbarian’s Georgina Campbell) deep into the wild to track the shadowy forces haunting her.
Get Carter (1971) ★★★★★
BBC Two, 10pm
This revenge thriller stars a superb Michael Caine as Jack Carter, a London mobster who moves back to the North East to attend his brother’s funeral. Suspecting foul play, he discovers a trail of misdeeds leading to a local loan-thug, played with real menace by Terence Rigby. Brutal and gripping, this was one of the last great British films before the 1970s slump hit the industry. Also showing on Thursday (BBC Four, 10.45pm).
The Old Man & the Gun (2018) ★★★
Channel 4, 12.30am
Robert Redford saunters through a twinkly eyed nostalgia trip in David Lowery’s true-crime drama. Forrest Tucker (Redford) escaped from San Quentin prison at the age of 70 and proceeded to commit a string of heists that bamboozled both authorities and the public, leaving detective John Hunt (Casey Affleck) obsessed with catching him out. Sissy Spacek is typically scene-stealing in support.