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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Phil Harrison, Jack Seale, Hollie Richardson, Graeme Virtue and Simon Wardell

TV tonight: comedians’ moving tribute to Dame Deborah James

Munya Chawawa for Stand Up to Cancer.
For the cause … Munya Chawawa for Stand Up to Cancer. Photograph: Channel 4

Stand Up to Cancer: The Takeover

7pm, Channel 4

It’s the usual mixture of light entertainment levity and telethon seriousness as Davina McCall, Adam Hills, Joe Lycett and Munya Chawawa host an evening of special events in aid of Stand Up to Cancer. They’ll be taking over the Francis Crick Institute (a hub of biomedical research) and paying tribute to the late Dame Deborah James. Phil Harrison

Ghosts

8.30pm, BBC One

There’s a lightly drawn but unmistakable sense of melancholy in Button House this week as the end draws near. Alison and Mike have a spontaneous night out that only serves to emphasise how much they’ve changed. And the ghosts are pondering existential conundrums of their own. PH

Unwanted

9pm, Sky Atlantic

Unwanted.
Unwanted. Photograph: Sky UK/Sky

This new drama with a very timely theme takes place on a cruise ship that becomes the setting for an uncomfortable meeting of worlds. The boat takes 28 shipwrecked refugees on board but when they learn that the captain has been ordered to return them to Libya, they hijack the vessel and hold the passengers and crew hostage. PH

Breeders

10pm, Sky Comedy

Genteel chaos reigns as Paul and Ally’s (Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard) plans for a romantic-ish night out fall foul of a calendar mix-up and the sitcom staple that is a front doorbell constantly ringing. Grainne Keenan comfortably steals the episode as Darren’s fearsome new girlfriend, Siobhan. Jack Seale

The Graham Norton Show

10.40pm, BBC One

Ahead of her one-woman take on The Picture of Dorian Gray in the West End, Succession star Sarah Snook takes a seat on Norton’s famous couch. Boy George and outspoken show favourite Miriam Margolyes, who have both just released memoirs, will also join the fun. Hollie Richardson

Warrior

11pm, Sky Max

This Bruce Lee-inspired gang drama offers a potent mix of political double-dealing and brutal punch-ups in 1870s San Francisco. Season three’s finale makes sure it goes out on a bloody high, with besieged hatchet man Ah Sahm reaching for the nunchucks to get out of a tight spot. Graeme Virtue

Film choice

Nyad (Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, 2023), Netflix

Jodie Foster (left) as Bonnie Stoll with Annette Bening as Diana Nyad in Nyad
Jodie Foster (left) as Bonnie Stoll with Annette Bening as Diana Nyad in Nyad. Photograph: Kimberley French/AP

Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, who made the exhilarating climbing documentary Free Solo, have produced another tale of extreme single-mindedness. Veteran LA sportscaster Diana Nyad was known in her youth for her long-distance swims, including a failed attempt to cross from Cuba to Key West when she was 28. Now, having just turned 60, she takes it upon herself to try the 103-mile Straits of Florida swim again. This absorbing fact-based drama centres on a magnetic Annette Bening as Diana. Obstinate and self-assured, she is an almost comically driven character, with even the likes of best friend Bonnie (a nicely underplaying Jodie Foster) mere collateral in her need to succeed. Simon Wardell

The Nest (Sean Durkin, 2020), 11.05pm, BBC Two

The long-awaited latest from Martha Marcy May Marlene’s Sean Durkin is an 80s-set drama of hubris, with a similar focus on a familial set-up that proves to be anything but homely. Jude Law is superbly greasy as cocky commodities broker Rory, who returns to the UK with his American wife Allison (Carrie Coon) and two kids. He sells her his dream of a country house, her own riding school and his inevitable success in the City – but he’s a self-made man for whom elaboration and fabrication come far too easily. A sly exposé of the emptiness of Thatcherite aspiration. SW

Mean Streets (Martin Scorsese, 1973), 11.10pm, Film4

It is difficult to believe Martin Scorsese’s breakthrough film is 50 years old. It was the New York director’s first foray into the mafia world, which he has been mining fruitfully ever since, and is set in the Little Italy of his childhood, giving it a lived-in authenticity. Harvey Keitel is low-level criminal Charlie, while Robert De Niro burns up the screen as his feckless, volatile childhood friend Johnny Boy. Charlie tries to look out for Johnny, inspired by residual loyalty, but there’s no helping some people. A vivid, heartfelt portrayal of urban life. SW

Live sport

Championship Football: Leicester City v Leeds United, 7.00pm, Sky Sports Main Event The league leaders host one of the chasers at King Power Stadium.

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