Rentaghost<\/p>\n
BBC4, 7.15pm
Have you ever come across a programme title more mouthwatering than this? A chance to remember that classic pantomimic children\u2019s show from the 1970s and 1980s featuring spooks and ghouls and freaks and fools \u2026 and the occasional visit to the cellar. Perhaps best known for Michael Staniforth\u2019s jester Timothy Claypole, it also starred Christopher Biggins as the handyman Adam Painting and the great man\u2019s reminiscences at 7pm tee up a repeat of an episode from series seven. BD<\/p>\n
Space Shuttle Challenger: Days That Shocked the World<\/p>\n
Channel 4, 8pm
Hopes for the Challenger mission were high when it took off on January 28, 1986. Four of the seven-strong crew were space debutants and they included the likeable teacher Christa McAuliffe. But the craft disintegrated 73 seconds into the flight. This documentary explores the tragedy through the testimony of the crew\u2019s families and colleagues, and the engineers working behind the scenes. BD<\/p>\n
What to watch on streamingStreaming choiceDaddy Issues<\/p>\n
BBC iPlayer
Thanks to Sex Education and The White Lotus, it comes as no surprise that Aimee Lou Wood was made for sitcoms. The big surprise here is how wonderful David Morrissey is playing opposite her. Wood is Gemma, a pregnant Stockport hairdresser, who is forced to share her flat with her recently divorced deadbeat dad (Morrissey). The \u201csit\u201d might be contrived and the \u201ccom\u201d a little clich\u00e9d, but from the third episode onwards this transforms into a crudely charming and moving comedy that exhibits real intelligence behind the daft pratfalls and bum gags. Andrew Male<\/p>\n
\u2022 The best films to watch at home this week<\/a><\/p>\n Film choiceThe Eagle Has Landed (15, 1976)<\/p>\n BBC2, 3.20pm Escape to Athena (PG, 1978)<\/p>\n BBC4, 10.20pm \u2022 The 23 best films of 2025 \u2014 that you can watch now<\/a><\/p>\n Radio choiceWorld Book Club<\/p>\n BBC World Service, noon \u2022 The best podcasts and radio shows of the week<\/a><\/p>\n The 14 new contestants get ready to take part in the latest series of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins<\/p>\n PETE DADDS\/CHANNEL 4\/PA<\/p>\n SundayCritics\u2019 choiceCelebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins<\/p>\n Channel 4, 9pm The Floor<\/p>\n ITV1, 8pm The Night Manager<\/p>\n BBC1, 9pm \u2022 Hayley Squires \u2014 The Night Manager has more heart than Bond<\/a><\/p>\n The Million Pound Shaman Scam<\/p>\n BBC2, 9pm Streaming choiceLittle Women<\/p>\n ITVX
As decent a Second World War movie as they come, this one features Michael Caine as a disgraced Nazi officer on an undercover mission to snatch Winston Churchill from sleepy East Anglia. There is also Donald Sutherland, wandering about as a charming Irish patriot spying for the Germans. Based on Jack Higgins\u2019s novel, it is hardly plausible, but it\u2019s fun to see so many acting favourites (also included in the cast are Robert Duvall, Larry Hagman, Jenny Agutter and Donald Pleasence as Himmler) among the watermills and blooms of Norfolk. (131min) James Jackson<\/p>\n
During the peak of Roger Moore\u2019s James Bond commitments he played a suave, art-loving Austrian camp commandant on a Nazi-occupied Greek island in George P Cosmatos\u2019s kitsch Second World War prison-break movie. Telly Savalas, Elliott Gould, David Niven and Richard Roundtree star as the inmates who hatch a plan to break out of captivity and pull off an audacious art robbery. The loot is hidden in a monastery at the top of the island\u2019s mountain. Moore\u2019s German accent is one of the many tongue-in-cheek elements of the film, which is best enjoyed if you don\u2019t take it too seriously. (114min) Joe Clay<\/p>\n
Harriett Gilbert welcomes the bestselling author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni into the studio to discuss her internationally acclaimed 2008 novel, The Palace of Illusions, a reimagining of the Sanskrit epic The Mahabharata. It traces the life of Princess Panchaali (aka Draupadi) from her miraculous birth in fire to her destiny as the wife of five brothers cheated of their father\u2019s kingdom. Clair Woodward<\/p>\n![\"Celebrity](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/\/7ebe7cfd-1869-4abc-89b6-bcbbf40b9e8d.jpg\")
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\u201cInstagram can\u2019t save you now,\u201d Jason \u201cFoxy\u201d Fox warns the celebrities about to embark on this endurance show. The indomitable instructor is right. As this season\u2019s punishing opening sequence proves, there\u2019s no space for vanity in the Celebrity SAS backpack. There is room for a twist: the 14 contestants about to be broken down by the \u201cstaff\u201d are drawn equally from Britain and Australia, adding an extra competitive edge. On the British side are Danny Dyer\u2019s daughter Dani, the former cricketer Graeme Swann and the rugby player Ben Cohen, while their Antipodean adversaries include the Olympic swimmer Mack Horton and Ryan Moloney, the actor best known as Toadfish from Neighbours. Uniting them all, though, is the terror of \u201cthe dunk\u201d \u2014 30 seconds of breath-holding in a submerged fuselage. Victoria Segal<\/p>\n
Ronnie Corbett, Michael Caine, Tom Jones \u2014 Rob Brydon is famous for his impersonations. However, for this format the Would I Lie to You? master of comic ceremonies seamlessly assumes the mantle of a more conventionally smiling game show host. In keeping with The Wheel, Bridge of Lies and Impossible!, his quiz unfolds on a black-and-neon set reminiscent of a small-town disco. At its centre is a grid where the 81 contenders \u2014 each armed with a specialist subject \u2014 wait to challenge others to an elimination \u201cduel\u201d about rom-coms, airport codes or chocolate. The winner seizes their opponent\u2019s \u201csquare\u201d and the player with the most territory by the end will win the \u00a350,000 prize. Brydon still allows himself a flash of outrage when somebody fails to identify Richard Burton, but this is a slick new product from the TV industrial game show complex. VS<\/p>\n
The classy espionage thriller with the Bond-esque title sequence returned with a bang on New Year\u2019s Day. The British intelligence officer Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) has a new adversary, the Colombian gun runner Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva), aka \u201cRichard Roper\u2019s true disciple\u201d. After the explosive opener, Pine is on the run and using yet another new identity as he tries to infiltrate Dos Santos\u2019s operation with the help of the glamorous businesswoman Roxana Bola\u00f1os (Camila Morrone). JC<\/p>\n
If this real-life tale, told in a two-part documentary, was a drama it would be dismissed for being too far-fetched. In 2008 the Sunday Times journalist Tim Rayment was tipped off about an elite London community that had become caught up in a dark web of \u201cspiritual manipulation, South American shamanism and millions of pounds in sacrificial offerings\u201d. At the centre of it all was a charming healer, a secretive woman and a man named \u201cPapa Freddie\u201d. The deeper Rayment digs, the weirder it gets. JC<\/p>\n
In 2017, Louisa May Alcott\u2019s beloved Civil War-era novel got the Call the Midwife treatment in a three-part adaptation from Heidi Thomas. Emma Watson plays Marmee to the four girls \u2014 Meg, Amy, Jo and Beth (Willa Fitzgerald, Kathryn Newton, Maya Hawke and Annes Elwy) \u2014 with Michael Gambon as the crotchety but kind Mr Laurence and Angela Lansbury as the crabby Aunt March. It is a faithful adaptation and one filled with joy, rather than gritty realism; everyone is handsome, the girls are pure and kind, the consumption is decorative. It is immensely watchable. Chris Bennion<\/p>\n