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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Hollie Richardson, Ali Catterall, Graeme Virtue and Simon Wardell

TV tonight: Russell Kane’s hit podcast Evil Genius comes to our screens

Charlie Higson, Judi Love and Geoff Norcott and Russell Kane to decide if Churchill is evil or genius.
Charlie Higson, Judi Love and Geoff Norcott (left to right) join Russell Kane (front) in Russell Kane: Evil Genius. Photograph: AETN/A&E Television Networks 1996-2023. All rights reserved.

Evil Genius With Russell Kane

9pm, Sky History

Evil or genius? Adapted from the comedian’s popular BBC podcast of the same name, this is the question Kane asks about history’s most polarising figures. First up: Winston Churchill. Discussing the man once voted the Greatest Briton, he is joined by fellow funny folk Charlie Higson, Judi Love and Geoff Norcott. Hollie Richardson

Between the Covers

7pm, BBC Two

Sandi Toksvig is a first-time guest on the books programme this week and while she would love to talk about Zachary Auburn’s How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety, she instead chooses to focus on The Complete Poems by Emily Dickinson. Meanwhile, Alex Jones picks a “sexy, high-energy romp through Tudor times”. HR

Dad’s Army: The Animations

8pm, Gold

Another beautifully animated “lost” gem from the BBC archives. “I pride myself that I’m a good judge of character,” preens Captain Mainwaring. So, naturally, he promotes Private Frazer to lance corporal. When Frazer almost immediately court martials everyone on trumped-up charges, Wilson wryly suggests that, “perhaps you could give them a good talking to” instead. Ali Catterall

Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius

9pm, BBC Two

Daniel Boyarsky as the bard in the final episode of Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius.
Daniel Boyarsky as the bard in the final episode of Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius. Photograph: Tomi Gacas/BBC/72 Films

In the final part of this Shakespeare biography, it’s 1603, when the bard is almost 40, the equivalent of a millionaire and near the end of his career. But some of his darkest, most personal works are yet to come, including King Lear and The Tempest. Jessie Buckley helps to tell the last chapters of his story. HR

The Gilded Age

9pm, Sky Atlantic

Series two of Julian Fellowes’s drama about snobs and social snubs in 1880s New York continues. The visiting Duke of Buckingham is caught in a literal culture war between old money and new: can he be persuaded to patronise the upstart Met over the Academy of Music? Elsewhere, the forthright Peggy heads south to Alabama. Graeme Virtue

Grime Kids

10.05pm, BBC Three

Rocks screenwriter Theresa Ikoko’s fictionalised take on DJ Target’s titular memoir continues to be an energetic tale full of ice-cold grime, UK garage classics and early 00s period style. The musical segments are the standouts as the teen crew prepare to enter a talent contest – even if scenes where the leads stumble across iconic moments of grime history do feel almost comical in their forced nostalgia. Alexi Duggins

Film choice

Mike Myers and Dana Carvey in Wayne’s World.
Still a keeper … Mike Myers and Dana Carvey in Wayne’s World. Photograph: Album/Alamy

Wayne’s World (Penelope Spheeris, 1992), 9am, Sky Cinema 80s Icons
It can be a poisoned chalice when you revisit comedies from the late 20th century, as changing attitudes often make them unwatchable. Thankfully, Penelope Spheeris’s excellent 1992 film is still a keeper. The tale of public access TV presenters Wayne and Garth has its puerile moments (“schwing” etc), but leads Mike Myers and Dana Carvey remain likable as they lust after “babes”, crack jokes at the expense of corporate types and rock out to Bohemian Rhapsody. Simon Wardell

Stamped From the Beginning (Roger Ross Williams, 2023), Netflix
Based on the book by Prof Ibram X Kendi, this is a powerful and sickening history lesson about racism in the US from Roger Ross Williams. Ideas such as the invention of “blackness” (and “whiteness”) and the myths of assimilation, Black hypersexuality and the Black criminal are exposed via a rich tapestry of images, music and words from academics and activists. From the first Portuguese slave ship to Black Lives Matter, it’s a sometimes controversial take on how African Americans got to where they are today. SW

Live sport

International football: North Macedonia v England 7pm, Channel 4. The final Euro 2024 Group C qualifier in Skopje.

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