What’s on TV tonight: Swiped: The School That Banned Smartphones, Dream Productions, and more

Wednesday 11 December

Swiped: The School That Banned Smartphones
Channel 4, 8pm
Married presenters Emma and Matt Willis, worried about the effect smartphones are having on their family life, take part in this interesting exercise with Year 8 pupils at the Stanway School in Colchester, Essex as they all give up their devices for 21 days, trading them for “brick phones” without apps or internet access. The experiment is being conducted with the University of York, whose experts oversee tests to monitor the children’s behavioural changes. We will see what this abstinence does to the brain – and how it affects pupils’ sleep patterns and their attention spans.

It’s a timely investigation, as numerous schools in the UK – from Eton College to local academies – are restricting access or even banning pupils from using smartphones during the school day. Elsewhere, the pressure group Smartphone Free Childhood is pushing for legal restrictions on children’s use of the devices. There’s rightful cause for concern: the House of Commons Education Committee said recently that there had been a 52 per cent increase in children’s screen time between 2020 and 2022. VL

Dream Productions
Disney+
Fans of Pixar’s delightful Inside Out animated films will welcome this four-part “interquel”, another imaginative foray into the mind of Riley (voiced by Kensington Tallman), whose dreams come true every night thanks to dream director Paula Persimmon (Paula Pell). Here Persimmon is teamed up with Richard Ayoade’s overly confident newcomer Xeni.

One Hundred Years of Solitude
Netflix
Netflix brings Nobel-winner Gabriel García Márquez’s sweeping magical-realist novel to life. It tells the story of seven generations of the Buendia family, whose patriarch, Jose Arcadio Buendía (Marco González), founded the fictional town of Macondo – and ruminates on how we cannot escape our past, or our fate. Shot in García Márquez’s native Colombia in subtitled Spanish. Eight episodes (of 16) drop today.

Portrait Artist of the Year 2024
Sky Arts, 8pm
Stephen Mangan hosts as the three finalists paint actor couple Andy Serkis and Lorraine Ashbourne, with the winner earning a £10,000 commission for a portrait of Lorraine Kelly. Portrait Artist of the Year 2024: Winner’s Film follows at 9pm.

Guy Martin: Arctic Warrior
Channel 4, 9pm
The likeable presenter joins Royal Marines training at Camp Viking in Norway, 200 miles above the Arctic Circle, to discover if he has what it takes to become a commando. He’s thrown in at the deep end – literally, being dunked in a frozen lake – but his reward is a ride on a helicopter gunship.

The Pelicot Rape Case: A Town on Trial
Channel 5, 9pm
A reactionary documentary looking at the shocking events in the small French town of Mazan that have disgusted the entire world; more than 70 local men stand accused of taking part in the mass rapes of Gisèle Pelicot over several years, orchestrated by her husband who regularly drugged her.

The Hunt for the Oldest DNA
BBC Four, 9pm
Scientists in this fascinating documentary chart how their research sparked a new branch of science – ancient environmental DNA – after samples were taken from the Siberian permafrost. They were able to identify now extinct creatures that roamed the earth before the last Ice Age – and thrived in warm Arctic landscapes.

Night at the Museum (2006) ★★★★
BBC Three, 7pm
Hoping to impress his son, dreamer Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) takes a job as a night watchman at the American Museum of Natural History, where he discovers that the exhibits come to life after dark. Featuring a starry cast, including Robin Williams, Ricky Gervais and Owen Wilson, this romp was panned by many critics, but it’s good, unpretentious fun – who doesn’t love a pet dinosaur skeleton? Also on Sunday (BBC One, 3.10pm).

The Impossible (2012) ★★★★
BBC Three, 9.15pm
The ordeal of a Spanish family caught up in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami has been shaped into a shattering, Spielbergian marathon by director JA Bayona. Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor take the lead roles, and they’re superb, as is Spider-Man’s Tom Holland as their eldest son. Hokier moments aside, the sense of disorientation in the aftermath is expertly handled.

Stan & Ollie (2018) ★★★★
BBC One, midnight 
An hilarious triumph for Steve Coogan and John C Reilly as comedians Laurel and Hardy in their twilight years, touring the UK in 1953, struggling to get a film made and to fill the venues already reluctant to lend them a stage. Keeping time and pace with the precise comedy of the duo is no mean feat, but Coogan and Reilly manage it with joke-packed, easy aplomb. Scottish director Jon S Baird confidently takes the reins and brings the pair to life.

Thursday 12 December

No Good Deed
Netflix
Liz Feldman follows her Emmy-winning yet oddly underrated dark comedy Dead to Me with another slice of mischief in a similar vein, a very smart conceit cleverly executed by a crack cast equally at home with drama and comedy. Lisa Kudrow and Ray Romano are at the heart of the enigmatic narrative as married couple Lydia and Paul, watching as an array of interested parties have a poke around the palatial LA villa which they have consented to put on the market after… Well, what precisely has prompted it is revealed in increments over eight episodes, but could well involve a past tragedy, debts owed to the wrong people and long-buried secrets both physical and emotional.

The house viewers include a frustrated soap-opera actor (Luke Wilson), a newlywed and mummy’s boy (O-T Fagbenle) and Linda Cardellini’s nosy neighbour, all competing for a place they hope will fix their own problems, while Denis Leary’s smirking ex-con appears to both know Lydia and Paul’s secrets and not be shy about exploiting that fact. Amid shades of Desperate Housewives in the combination of self-centred rich folks and melodramatic mystery, No Good Deed feels like no less a hit in the making. GT

Celebrity Escape to the Country
BBC One, 8pm
Bringing a daytime vibe back to primetime after last year’s successful first run, Alistair Appleton invites more famous people to buy a rural retreat. We begin with Linford Christie in the Chilterns (other featured names include Anita Rani and Alfie Boe), as the sprinting hero looks round some glorious country piles in the Home Counties with his daughter Briannah.

Inside the Tower of London
Channel 5, 8pm
Moderate entertainment as the Yeoman Warders prepare a gun salute to mark a year in the reign of Charles III, a suit of Henry VIII’s armour is readied for a loan and a new set of Beefeater uniforms must be made for a new recruit.

MasterChef: The Professionals
BBC One, 9pm
After seven weeks, Marcus Wareing, Monica Galetti and Gregg Wallace are poised to choose the 17th MasterChef: The Professionals champion. Of course, Wallace’s recent fall from grace – he has stepped back from the show over allegations of impropriety – somewhat overshadows the competition itself. But it goes on: three chefs, three courses, three hours. As someone (probably Monica, with those impossible skills challenges) once said, cooking doesn’t get any tougher than this.

Dalgliesh
Channel 5, 9pm
Star Bertie Carvel directs the latest two-part PD James adaptation, plot wisely tweaked for contemporary tastes and concluding tomorrow. Cover Her Face, the first Dalgliesh mystery James ever wrote, also features one of her most fiendish plots as tragedy strikes during a village fete held by an Essex family with some dodgy interests.

The Day of the Jackal
Sky Atlantic, 9pm
It is no spoiler to reveal that, at long last, the assassin and Bianca finally come face to face in a brilliantly mounted showdown, but with what result? A poised climax, capitalising on the chalk-and-cheese casting of Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch.

Only Child
BBC Scotland, 10pm
With its rough-hewn charm and slight cheesiness, Bryce Hart’s sitcom is at its strongest when showcasing the deft characterisation brought to life by Gregor Fisher and Greg McHugh, but it occasionally slips up on underpowered plotting. Tonight is a case in point, as Ken (Fisher) digs his heels in over a doctor’s appointment and Richard (McHugh) has an ego-boosting visit to the local am-dram group. Also on BBC One tomorrow at 9.30pm.

Mrs Brown (1997) ★★★★
BBC Four, 8pm
John Madden’s thoughtful period drama draws on salacious rumours passed down through history that Queen Victoria (played by Judi Dench) fell in love with her Scottish ghillie, John Brown (a surprisingly assured Billy Connelly), after the death of Prince Albert. Despite the schmaltzy premise, the authority of the leads carries the film. Geoffrey Palmer and Gerard Butler also star; it was the latter’s film debut.

Philomena (2013) ★★★★
BBC Four, 9.40pm
This immensely moving true story is based on the work of journalist Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), who worked with Philomena Lee (Judi Dench, acting with real grit), an Irishwoman then in her seventies, as she searched for her son whom she was forced to give up for adoption. Stephen Frears’s film delivers some savage blows, as well as harsh truths about the influence of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Baby Done (2020) ★★★
BBC Three, 10pm
Directed by Curtis Vowell and produced by Taika Waititi, this quirky and charming New Zealand comedy straddles pathos and laughs. Rose Matafeo stars as Zoe, a wannabe-adventurer whose plans for a wild and dangerous 30s are curtailed by a sudden pregnancy with her weepy long-term partner, played by Matthew Lewis. So she vows to cram as much living as she can into her remaining baby-free months.

Golf
Alfred Dunhill Championships
Sky Golf, 10am
This European Tour event comes from Leopard Creek Country Club, on the edge of South Africa’s Kruger Park. The big beasts include defending champion Louis Oosthuizen and four-time winner Charl Schwartzel. Wenyi Ding – the 20-year-old from Beijing – is also tipped for great things.

Friday 13 December

Alan Bennett: 90 Years On 
BBC Two, 9pm 
A new Arena documentary is usually something to be celebrated, but a new Arena documentary by veteran director Adam Low about one of our great literary treasures is akin to Christmas coming two weeks early. With a new book published only last month (though he’s far too polite to make any mention of it) and film projects still in the pipeline, at 90 years old Bennett is impressively active. He might be showing some hints of physical frailty but, apart from an occasional moment of drift, he seems as intellectually acute and plangently observant, as ever.

He credits much of his continuing enthusiasm for work and life to two men he met three decades ago: his partner Rupert Thomas and his chief stage and screen collaborator, Nicholas Hytner. This beautifully measured film is partly a reflection on ageing, and partly a remembrance of times and achievements past – Beyond the Fringe, Talking Heads and The Madness of King George among them. It’s followed (at a distance, at 11.05pm) by a showing of Hytner’s superb 2006 film version of what for many remains Bennett’s most significant stage play, The History Boys, featuring an exceptional cast of young stars of the future. GO

1992
Netflix 
This six-part Spanish crime drama centres on a series of murders with links to the Universal Expo held in Seville in 1992. Marian Álvarez stars as Amparo, who teams up with alcoholic ex-cop Richi (Fernando Valdivieso) to investigate when her husband is killed in an unexplained explosion.

Dexter: Original Sin
Paramount+ 
First aired in 2006, Dexter was one of the first global hits of the digital TV era. Having already made a sequel with 2020’s Dexter: New Blood, we now have the serial killer’s origin story, with Patrick Gibson as Dexter morphing from shy forensics student into an arch-avenger. Christian Slater, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Patrick Dempsey are in the starry supporting cast.

Unreported World
Channel 4, 7.30pm
A report on the homelessness crisis gripping Las Vegas, where the numbers living on the streets has almost doubled in three years. In particular, the focus is on how vagrancy laws have driven homeless people underground, with hundreds now forced to find shelter inside the city’s transport and utility tunnels.

Return to Paradise
BBC One, 8pm
The Australian spin-off of cosy crime drama Death in Paradise continues with DI Clarke (Anna Samson) investigating when an eco-activist is murdered while protesting against development of a conservation zone. With three witnesses but not a single clue, the first question that needs answering is how the death occurred at all.

Electric Light Orchestra: Discovery
Sky Arts, 8pm
With tickets for next year’s last-ever tour already sold out, Sky Arts treats fans of the enduringly popular Birmingham band, led by Jeff Lynne, to two films showcasing them in their prime. The first mixes concert footage and videos from 1978; the second ELO: Live: The Early Years is a compilation of three concerts filmed between 1973 and 1976.

White Lies
More4, 9pm & 10pm
Natalie Dormer stars in an impressive South African crime drama as an investigative journalist drawn into a murky underworld after her businessman brother is murdered at home in Cape Town. When the police declare his children to be the prime suspects, Edie Hansen (Dormer) decides she has to step in.

Elton John Never Too Late (2024) ★★★★
Disney+
The latest slick Disney+ music documentary – following others about Springsteen, The Beatles and The Beach Boys – is RJ Cutler and David Furnish’s heartfelt portrait of Elton John. Never Too Late is crammed with thrilling vintage footage of John at the height of his 1970s superstardom, but it also features him now, at 77, looking back at a career almost unprecedented in its influence and creativity.

Carry-On (2024)
Netflix
If you like your festive films with a side of thrills, a la Die Hard, this action flick from director Jaume Collet-Serra (The Shallows) might be right up your alley. Carry-On stars Rocketman’s Taron Egerton as an airport officer who is bribed by a mysterious traveller to let a dangerous package onto a packed Christmas Day flight. Jason Bateman and Danielle Deadwyler also star. It’s the first Netflix film made in collaboration with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners.

You Only Live Twice (1967) ★★★
ITV1, 10.45pm
Even by the standards of a Bond film – the franchise is not exactly famous for its progressive politics – You Only Live Twice is dodgy. Screenwritten by Roald Dahl, of all people, it sees Sean Connery go “undercover’’ as a Japanese man – a process that involved having prosthetic eyelids added and yellow-face applied and getting his chest hair waxed by half-naked girls. Fans will still love it, though. Also on Sunday at 3.20pm.

The History Boys (2006) ★★★★★
BBC Two, 11.05pm
Alan Bennett’s play about precocious grammar-school boys pushing for Oxbridge was a National Theatre smash. Then someone hit upon the brilliant stroke of reuniting the cast and director Nicholas Hytner to make this supremely entertaining film. Dominic Cooper, James Corden and Russell Tovey bring zest and charm, while Richard Griffiths is heartbreaking as their brilliant, but corrupt, teacher.

Television previewers

Stephen Kelly (SK), Veronica Lee (VL), Gerard O’Donovan (GO), Poppie Platt (PP) and Gabriel Tate (GT)