Barry Ward and Anna Bederke star in That They May Face The Rising Sun, there's What Happened at Hiroshima, Why I Joined a Riot, Vincent Van Gogh on the BBC, and the grand final of Love Island . . .
Pick of the Day
That They May Face The Rising Sun, 9.30pm, RTÉ One
Tonight’s Bank holiday movie is a drama based on the great John McGahern's final novel, starring Barry Ward and Anna Bederke.
Joe and Kate Ruttledge, an Irish couple living in London in the early 1980s, decide to return to the lakeside community where Joe grew up.
They embrace a simpler form of life and a greater sense of community as sweeping social and technological changes occur across the world.
New or Returning Shows
What Happened at Hiroshima, 8.30pm, BBC One
On the 80th anniversary of the shameful bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Jordan Dunbar hears from the only people who have ever experienced and survived a nuclear explosion.
They discuss how they see echoes of the past in the many high stakes conflicts the world faces today, where, once again, there is very real discussion of nuclear weapons being used in conflict.
Don’t Miss
Panorama, 10.40pm, BBC One
This looks interesting.
A year on from the riots that swept across towns and cities in England and Northern Ireland following the Southport attack of July 2024, Darragh MacIntyre speaks to three people who took part to find out how they account for their actions.
He also visits Ibrahim Hussein, Imam of the Southport Mosque, which was attacked by a mob, to hear how he has both increased security and forgiven rioters who have written to him to apologise.
Lady Bird, 9.30pm, TG4
Saoirse Ronan (below), Laurie Metcalf and Tracy Letts star in this Golden Globe-winning comic drama, written and directed by Greta Gerwig.
Ronan is great here – as ever! -as artistic California teenager Lady Bird, a young lady who expects much from life.
But the strained relationship with her mother – an even more impressive Laurie Metcalf - and failing family finances keep clipping her wings, while early romance leads to heartache.
Fake or Fortune? 9.00pm, BBC One
Fiona Bruce (below) and art expert Philip Mould investigate a potential missing work by trailblazing New Zealand-born modernist artist Frances Hodgkins that was bought for just £35 at an auction.
The current owner believes it was painted for a post-war scheme called Pictures for Schools, that was intended to place works of art in classrooms to inspire pupils - which may have led to it being mistaken for a student's work.
Human, 9.00pm, BBC Two
It’s the penultimate episode of this fascinating series about us lot.
During the height of the Ice Age, one of the coldest times humanity has ever known, Homo sapiens steps into the last habitable continents on the planet: the Americas.
Ella Al-Shamahi discovers how humans were confronted by ferocious ten-foot-tall prehistoric bears in this new land and explores the daredevil hunting techniques used to take them down.
Deeper into the interior of the continent, Ella traces fossilised footprints, possibly of a mother and her child, who were among the first to set foot in North America.
She learns how the humans who lived here hunted vast herds of Ice Age mammoths and giant sloths, until a changing climate and innovative hunting techniques combined to push them to extinction.
Forced to adapt, humanity's ancestors pioneered new ways to control nature as farming emerged to shape the world.
Days That Shook the World, 9.30pm, BBC Four
An examination of the 1941 Japanese bombing on the US Pacific fleet from the perspective of naval personnel involved in the battle.
Historians reveal the story of the Washington codebreakers who intercepted details of the attack, and discuss how it shaped the course of history, as the devastating use of aircraft carriers by the Japanese changed the face of marine warfare.
Art on the BBC, 11.35pm, BBC Four
Kate Bryan constructs a visual history of Vincent Van Gogh from the BBC archives, exploring the artist's mental health struggles and fraught relationship with Paul Gauguin.
Drawing on programmes ranging from The Power of Art to Doctor Who, it also features contributions from experts and enthusiasts including Jeremy Paxman and Andrew Graham-Dixon.
James May at the Edge of Space, 8.30pm, BBC Four
Here’s a cracker from 2009 tied into the 40th anniversary of the first Moon landing.
James May (above) undergoes rigorous training at a US Air Force base in California before boarding a U-2 spy plane for a flight that will take him 70,000ft above Earth.
Along the way he has to learn how to eject from his cockpit in an emergency, how to survive the 13-mile fall back to terra firma and how to wear a space suit worth $250,000.
Ending Today
Love Island, 9.00pm, Virgin Media Two
The Live Final of the twelfth season of the relationship-based reality show where people come to look for love – and money.
Join Maya Jama to find out who will walk off with the £50,000 prize and potentially a lifetime of C-list celebrity.
