Weekend View: Top TV for the weekend

If you're going no further than the sofa, here are some tips on what's worth watching on the box over the weekend. It's a busy one!

Pick of the weekend

The Last Post, 9.00pm, Sunday, BBC One

The Beeb have long been purveyors of superior period drama and here's their latest offering, set in the dying days of the British Empire.

Landing in the deep heat of Aden, Royal Military Police Captain Joe Martin (Jeremy Neumark Jones) and his wife Honor (Jessie Buckley) are new to both army and married life.

Joe will replace the outgoing and much loved Captain Page, whose farewell party the men are currently planning.

Page makes his own emotional goodbyes to his lover Alison Laithwaite (Jessica Raine), the troubled wife of Lieutenant Ed Laithwaite (Stephen Campbell Moore).

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New and returning shows

The Graham Norton Show, 10.35pm, Friday, BBC One & 9.30pm, Saturday, TV3

The most entertaining showbiz chat show returns and – as usual – Graham Norton has an excellent line-up for his opening night.

Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling will be talking about their new film, Blade Runner 2049, Reese Witherspoon has a new comedy called Home Again, while Margot Robbie will be discussing Goodbye Christopher Robin.

Bananarama will be in studio, performing one of their classic hits, Cruel Summer.

Here's Morgan Freeman from last season, re-enacting The Shawshank Redemption:

The Jonathan Ross Show, 9.00pm, Sunday, 3e

The man who indirectly gave Graham Norton his big break, Jonathan Ross returns with his ITV chat show.

For starters he's got singer Demi Lovato, TV presenter Holly Willoughby, Doc Martin star Martin Clunes and X Factor winner James Arthur.

The Last Leg, 10.00pm, 10..00pm, Friday, Channel 4

Adam Hills, Alex Brooker and Josh Widdicombe return for more topical chat, this time with Joanna Lumley and Russell Howard.

Unreported World, 7.30pm, Friday, Channel 4

Marcel Theroux explores China's up-and-coming pop stars.

The Last Pirates: Britain's Rebel DJs, 9.00pm, Friday, BBC Four

In the 1980s a new generation of pirate radio stations popped up on Britain's airwaves. This is their story.

Stop All the Clocks: WH Auden in an Age of Anxiety, 9.00pm, Saturday, BBC Two

Thirty years after his BBC film The Auden Landscape, director Adam Low returns to the poet and his work.

Following surges of popularity - from featuring in Four Weddings And A Funeral to being the poet New Yorkers turned to after 9/11 - Low reveals how Auden’s poetry helps people to better understand the 21st century and the tumultuous political climate in which we now live.

Writers Alan Bennett, Polly Clark, Alexander McCall Smith and Richard Curtis and poets James Fenton and Paul Muldoon share their passion for Auden, and celebrate the potent, moving impact of his work.

Kate Tempest Presents . . ., 10.00pm, Saturday, BBC Two

Acclaimed poet Kate Tempest introduces a night of poetry and performance from the BBC’s Contains Strong Language festival.

Tempest performs her own work and introduces some of the best spoken word poets in Britain. The evening showcases a wide variety of voices, styles and emerging talent, from Kate Fox’s brassy humour to the extraordinary 19 year-old, Isaiah Hull.

Boris Johnson: Blond Ambition, 10.05pm, Sunday, Channel 4

Gary Gibbons charts 14 months of controversial Conservative politician Boris Johnson's time as the UK's Foreign Secretary as he makes his latest play to realise his ambition to become Britain's next Prime Minister.

Ending this weekend

Mammon, 9.30pm, Friday, RTÉ2

The Norwegian drama concludes with a double-bill, and it's bad news for Peter as someone close to him gets killed while another is badly injured.

He then becomes the prime suspect in both crimes and Norway's most-hunted individual, with only his former boss remaining on his side.

Astronauts: Do You Have what it Takes?, Sunday, BBC Two

The remaining candidates are on Florida’s Space Coast to face the toughest tests of the entire selection process. The question astronaut Chris Hadfield wants answered is: would I want this person in the seat next to me waiting for launch?

New to Download

Criminal Minds: Seasons 1-12, Sky Box Sets and NOW TV, from Sunday

With season 13 of the hugely popular procedural coming to Sky Living in October, seasons 1-12 are becoming available through Sky.

In each action-packed episode, an elite team of FBI profilers attempts to hunt down an unhinged criminal by using a host of astute behavioural profiling techniques.

Big Mouth: Season 1, Netflix

This is a surreal animated comedy series from real-life best friends Nick Kroll and Andrew Goldberg that explores teenage adventures in puberty.

Don't Miss

The Late Late Show, 9.35pm, RTÉ One

Star Wars' Domhnall Gleeson, TV presenter Vogue Williams, comedian Dara Ó Briain and model-turned-foodie Roz Purcell join Hillary Clinton on the line-up for Friday's Late Late Show on RTÉ One.

In an Irish television exclusive, Hillary Clinton talks about everything from the blame she attaches to herself for her failure to defeat Donald Trump in last year's US presidential race, to the double standard applied to women in politics - and what she intends to do now that she has stepped away from electoral politics.

Weekend movies

Muppets Most Wanted, 6.35pm, Saturday, RTÉ One

Although the recent return of the TV show was a massive error – it was just awful – this is The Muppets at close to their best, with a superb cast in tow.

Kermit and the gang are back together, but some bad guys, including Ricky Gervais and an evil Kermit doppelganger, plan a series of heists around Europe, implicating the touring Muppets.

Tina Fey and Ty Burrell are both great, there are some super comic moments – and even a nod to the legendary mirror gag performed by Groucho and Harpo Marx in Duck Soup.

Also:

The Edge of Love, 11.35pm, BBC Two

This 2008 romantic drama stars Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Cillian Murphy and Matthew Rhys from a script by Sharman Macdonald, Knightley's mother.

It's the fictional story concerns the famous Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (played by Rhys), his wife Caitlin Macnamara (Miller) and their married friends, the Killicks (Knightley and Murphy).

It's a bit hit and miss, but worth recording for future viewing.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, 12.40am, Friday, RTÉ One

The original and the best, this shouldn't be confused with the recent and pointless remake starring John Travolta and Denzel Washington.

Here you've got Robert Shaw and Walter Matthau playing the baddie and the street-wise dispatcher in a hostage situation on a New York subway train. It's easily one of the great films from the 1970s.

Weekend Box Set

Inside Amy Schumer: Seasons 1-4, Sky Box Sets & NOW TV, from Sunday

Stand-up superstar Amy Schumer’s Emmy Award-winning series explores sex, relationships and the tribulations of everyday life with sketches, stand-up comedy and wildly inappropriate woman-on-the-street interviews.

Weekend View: Top TV for the weekend

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