TV Weekly
TV Weekly: From Dua Lipa to Christmas dinner
Telly picks for the coming week…
The Christmas Taste Test Restaurant |
From turkey joints to Christmas pudding; roast potatoes to pigs in blankets, we love to splash out on food and pile our plates high during the festive season. But which supermarket products really deliver on flavour and value for money?
Maitre d’ Tom Read Wilson pits Britain’s best-known brands – from budget to premium – head-to-head in his restaurant with a difference. Here diners get to try before they buy, then vote on their favourites, so you know exactly which festive foods to serve to friends and loved ones for Christmas dinner this year.
Diners in the restaurant all have a festive flavour themselves: hard-working posties and busy vicars who deliver Christmas to the nation, plus a gospel choir and hand-bell ringers who ding dong merrily on high at this time of year. But it’s their honest opinions on supermarket foods that Tom needs to hear. There are plenty of laughs in the restaurant as they get stuck into tasting and voting for their favourite supermarket foods.
And in the kitchen, chef Mike Reid reveals the trade secrets that make these foods lip-smackingly good, and shares tips on how to prepare festive favourites to ensure you have a cracking Christmas dinner.
Channel 5, Wednesday, 8pm
An Evening With Dua Lipa
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Dua Lipa performs for the very first time at the Royal Albert Hall in London as she is joined by her band, the Heritage Orchestra and a choir to perform her greatest hits.
Elton John joins Dua for a special performance of their 2021 hit Cold Heart and the show also features the songs Dance the Night, Houdini, Training Season and Don’t Start Now along with interviews with Dua reflecting on her career, her childhood, family and more.
Dua Lipa, an English and Albanian singer-songwriter, has been honoured with numerous accolades, including seven Brit Awards and three Grammy Awards. In 2024, Time Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Research by the Office for National Statistics showed that the number of newborns named “Dua” in England and Wales rose from 63 in 2017, coinciding with Lipa’s first UK number one hit New Rules to 126 in 2019.
ITV1 and STV, Sunday, 8pm
Swiped: The School That Banned Smartphones |
Emma Willis and Matt Willis join forces with The Stanway School in Colchester as they challenge a group of Year 8 pupils – and themselves – to give up their smartphones for 21 days – completely.
As parents, Matt and Emma have become increasingly concerned about the impact that smartphones are having on their kids and are keen to find out if excessive smartphone use is affecting children’s mental and physical health. Online bullying, sextortion and violent pornography are just a few examples of the harmful content that children can encounter on their smartphones.
In this experiment, conducted in conjunction with The University of York, the pupils undergo a series of tests with experts, meticulously monitoring their behavioural changes over the 21 days, and the tests are repeated at the end of the three weeks to assess what effects giving up your phone really does have on your brain – including sleep and attention.
In the second of the two-part series will this experiment prove that smartphones should be banned until at least the age of 14.
Channel 4, Wednesday and Thursday, 8pm
Nutcracker: Backstage with the English National Ballet |
Sky Arts goes behind the curtain with English National Ballet and their world premiere of a brand new production of Nutcracker.
Having performed a version of the festive ballet every year since it was founded, this year sees the Company take a fresh approach, and the pressure is on to wow audiences more than ever before.
This new series, Nutcracker: Backstage with English National Ballet showcases what it takes to re-invent a globally renowned classic, seen through the eyes of all the key departments involved. Two documentaries follow the meticulous preparations and the all-important rehearsals which build to the opening night, followed by the full performance of Nutcracker, captured in all its magic at the London Coliseum.
SKY Arts, Monday, 8pm
Renaissance: The Blood And The Beauty |
The second episode in the three-part series sees against a backdrop of political upheaval in Florence, Michelangelo and Leonardo jostle for artistic supremacy.
Michelangelo secures a prestigious commission to sculpt the figure of David – while Leonardo does what he can to undermine his rival. Into this increasingly charged atmosphere of creative competition emerges Raphael: a young artistic prodigy who will spur Michelangelo and Leonardo to greater levels of ambition and rivalry.
As the stock of these three artists rises, pleasing their rival patrons becomes a complex task – made more intense by their own personal and artistic differences.
BBC Two, Sunday, 9 pm
Charles Dance as older Michelangelo / Image: Ludovic Robert / BBC
