Sport Relief
Having traded barbs across the floor of Dragons’ Den, Peter Jones and Duncan Bannatyne take their rivalry one step further in a Strictly Come Dancing dance-off for Sport Relief.
‘I’ve been asked to do Strictly each year but I’ve been a bit frightened,’ admits Peter, 43. ‘Then they said Duncan was going to have a dance-off with me and that it was all for Sport Relief, so I said yes, and apparently they said the same thing to him. Very clever!’
Missing
Big-hearted detective Mary Jane Croft is back in a new series of the BBC daytime drama Missing — and Pauline Quirke returns to play the gentle cop heading a busy missing persons unit.
‘MJ isn’t one of those hard-nosed detectives,’ says Pauline. ‘She’s got warmth — and it’s her human side that attracted her to the Missing Persons Unit.’
In the new series, Pauline is joined by veteran actor Roy Hudd, who plays her estranged father, Jack. Other famous faces appearing include Paul Nicholas, Brooke Kinsella, Gary Lucy, Kate Ford, Gillian Taylforth, Kim Medcalf, James Alexandrou, Gaby Roslin, Susannah York and Sylvia Syms.
Coronation Street
Tina McIntyre isn’t shy of letting her emotions show, as her frequent showdowns on Corrie reveal, but the day of her father Joe’s funeral finds her unnaturally calm.
‘She’s in a state of shock,’ reveals Michelle Keegan, who plays Tina. ‘She just can’t believe that her dad’s dead.’
Life Of Riley
Caroline Quentin is back on our screens this week in a new series of Life Of Riley, and she couldn’t be happier.
‘I’m a bit thrilled, actually, because I think we’ve cracked it with this second series,’ says the star, who plays title character Maddy Riley.
The series follows Maddy as she struggles to cope with her second marriage to Jim (Neil Dudgeon). She’s also doing her best to raise her disapproving stepchildren Katy (Lucinda Dryzek) and Danny (Taylor Fawcett), not to mention her son Ted (Patrick Nolan) from her first marriage, and baby Rosie from her second.
Richard Hammond's Invisible Worlds
The human eye possesses amazing powers, able to transmit images to our brains in a fraction of a second. Yet there are many things we are still unable to see. And in the new three-part Richard Hammond's Invisible Worlds, special computer imaging shows us what we’re missing.
‘It’s an interesting way of learning about how we look at things. One episode is about wavelengths, the light we can actually see, and the amount of electromagnetic stuff going on in the world,’ says Richard, 40.
Museum Of Life
To tie in with National Science and Engineering Week, the Natural History Museum in London is throwing open its doors and inviting the BBC to explore its hallowed halls, with help from Jimmy Doherty and others.
For Jimmy, it’s something of a homecoming, as he used to volunteer at the museum between finishing his degree in zoology and beginning his PhD in entomology — the study of insects.
The Business Inspector
Award-winning businesswoman Hilary Devey struck a chord with viewers when she appeared on Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire in 2008. In the show, she left the comfort of her Staffordshire mansion to help the residents of a run-down housing estate in Rochdale, Lancashire, who were touched by her generosity.
Now as The Business Inspector she is criss-crossing the UK, giving out no-nonsense advice to small business owners whose passions don’t always match their business sense.
Come Dine With Me
If they gave out Michelin stars for cooking up controversy, Darren Day would be more highly decorated than Gordon Ramsay, Gary Rhodes and Marco Pierre White put together. Despite more than two decades as an all-round entertainer, West End star, actor and TV host, the 41-year-old arguably remains best known for his colourful love life.
This week, he appears in a special edition of Come Dine With Me and not only does fellow contestant, queen of clean Kim Woodburn, take a fancy to the Essex charmer — trying to woo him with her toilet cleaning tales — but there is also the small matter of Soupgate!
Comedy Exchange
British comic and Never Mind The Buzzcocks regular Phill Jupitus swaps places with US stand-up and Flight Of The Conchords star Eugene Mirman as the duo set out to discover if they can make it on each other’s turf in this one-off comedy special. While Eugene plays gigs in London and Edinburgh, Phill is hoping to score big laughs in the Big Apple.