The next seven days on TV
What to watch over the next seven days
Time Out's critics steer you through the TV listings guide with reviews of the best shows over the next seven days, from big dramas and reality shows to cult comedies and documentaries. National talking point or hidden gem – we've got it covered.
Saturday 25 May
Live Uefa Champions League Final
Bayern Munich v Borussia Dortmund. At Wembley. It may be a tabloid editor’s worst nightmare,
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Sat 25
7-10.15pm
ITV
Radio 1’s Big Weekend
It’s all kicking off in Derry this weekend. In a massively turbo-charged version of the Radio
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Sat 25
7-11pm
BBC3
The Aristocrats: the Rothschilds
- Rated as: 3/5
Rich toffs don’t really get any more aristocratic than the bogglingly wealthy and legendarily
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Sat 25
8-9pm
More4
Five Years: David Bowie – the Making of an Icon
- Rated as: 4/5
No ‘Laughing Gnome’? No ‘Labyrinth’? No Tin Machine? Disgraceful. The debate will rage over
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Sat 25
9.20-10.50pm
BBC2
Sunday 26 May
Case Histories
- Rated as: 4/5
Tighter and better realised than the baggy two-part Kate Atkinson adaptations of series one,
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Sun 26
8.30-10pm
BBC1
Clare Balding’s Secrets of a Suffragette
- Rated as: 3/5
The footage still astonishes: a slight woman steps out in front of the king’s horse at the
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Sun 26
8-9pm
C4
Australia with Simon Reeve
- Rated as: 3/5
From a British point of view, Australia feels pretty well mapped out. So if, like Simon Reeve,
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Sun 26
9.30-10.30pm
BBC2
Jo
- Rated as: 2/5
‘Jo’s’ bewildering journey into French clichés, sledgehammer exposition and generic police
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Sun 26
9-10pm
Fox
Monday 27 May
Kick Ass Kung Fu
- Rated as: 2/5
David Cameron got it all wrong. Instead of hugging hoodies, we should be shaving their heads
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Mon 27
8-9pm
Sky1
The Queen: A Passion for Horses
It was only a matter of time before Clare Balding and the Queen got together. They’ve got so
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Mon 27
9-10pm
BBC1
The Fall
- Rated as: 4/5
‘The Fall’s’ impressive ratings are a heartening sign that TV audiences still have an appetite
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Mon 27
9-10pm
BBC2
The Story of Now That’s What I Call Music
- Rated as: 3/5
It’s probably one of 2013’s lesser-noted anniversaries. But the ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’
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Mon 27
10-11pm
ITV
Tuesday 28 May
Edward VIII: the Lion King
- Rated as: 3/5
C4’s curious obsession with royals and aristocrats continues with this mild rehabilitation of
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Tue 28
9-10pm
C4
Shameless
- Rated as: 2/5
It’s appropriate that David Threlfall, the one constant of this unfeasibly durable show, steps
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Tue 28
10-11.05pm
C4
Words of Everest
- Rated as: 4/5
It’s easy to see why this occasional series, using the words of journals and letters to tell a
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Tue 28
10.35-11.35pm
ITV
The Apprentice
- Rated as: 4/5
Five episodes in, and the fur is really beginning to fly. This week, it’s the classic treasure
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Tue 28
9-10pm
BBC1
Wednesday 29 May
Frankie
- Rated as: 3/5
It’s surely impossible to truly take against this gentle drama, even if it does err on the
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Wed 29
9-10pm
BC1
The Iraq War
- Rated as: 4/5
‘Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.’ This sentence, spoken by George W
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Wed 29
9-10pm
BBC2
Mothers, Murderers and Mistresses: Empresses of Ancient Rome
- Rated as: 3/5
Unless you have a keen interest in ancient Rome, two things will fog your mind as Catharine
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Wed 29
9-10pm
BBC4
Confessions of a Male Stripper: First Cut
- Rated as: 3/5
Work out for a few years. Acquire a sense of rhythm and nerves of steel. Oh, and apply a penis
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Wed 29
11pm-12.05am
C4
Thursday 30 May
Up the Women
- Rated as: 3/5
Jessica Hynes’s first full-series sitcom since ‘Spaced’ could hardly be more different:
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Thu 30
8.30-9pm
BBC4
The Human Swarm
- Rated as: 2/5
‘As a farmer,’ says Jimmy Doherty every few minutes in this doc, as if to remind us (and maybe
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Thu 30
9-10pm
C4
Playhouse Presents: Psychobitches
- Rated as: 3/5
This ‘Playhouse Presents…’ production from last year returns for a series, boasting the same
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Thu 30
9-9.30pm
Sky Arts 1
Playhouse Presents: Cargese
- Rated as: 4/5
This dreamily disturbing directorial debut from big-faced Time Lord Matt Smith is also a rare
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Thu 30
9.30-10pm
Sky Arts 1
Friday 31 May
The Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England
- Rated as: 4/5
Next time you’re grumbling that the tube’s delayed, be bloody grateful you weren’t born in
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Fri 31
9-10pm
BBC2
Otis Redding: Soul Ambassador
- Rated as: 4/5
Otis Redding’s career is one of the great what-might-have-beens of music history. He was
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Fri 31
9-10pm
BBC4
Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States
- Rated as: 4/5
The sixth American President John Quincy Adams once said, ‘a nation should not go abroad in
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Fri 31
9-10.20pm
Sky Atlantic
Sarah Millican: Thoroughly Modern Millican
The latest comedian to try their hand at hosting a chat show with mixed success, Millican is
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Fri 31
9-10pm
C4
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