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The Guardian - UK

Mark Gibbings-Jones, Andrew Mueller, John Robinson, Graeme Virtue, Hannah Verdier, Phil Harrison, David Stubbs and Paul Howlett

Friday’s best TV: Deepcut: The Army’s Shame; Fraud – How They Steal Your ID

An infuriating pimpernel … ‘Mr Posh’ in Fraud – How They Steal Your ID. Photograph: ITV

Deepcut: The Army’s Shame

9pm, BBC2

Continuing the examination of the events surrounding the death of young soldier Cheryl James at Surrey’s Deepcut barracks in 1995, as the inquest prepares to deliver its verdict. This film explores what life was like for new recruits via testimony from other former soldiers who served alongside Pte James. With sexual abuse alleged to have taken place at the location (amid a culture of habitual bullying), whatever the outcome of the inquest, this remains a damning portrayal of barracks life. Mark Gibbings-Jones

Fraud – How They Steal Your ID
9pm, ITV

Documentary chronicling the efforts of the Card & Payment Crime Unit of the City of London and Metropolitan police to collar a prolific fraudster known as “Mr Posh”. This infuriating pimpernel cold-calls victims posing as a bank official, and deftly extracts the information that enables him to empty their accounts. The thousands he has stolen are but a fraction of the £14m looted in such fashion from British bank accounts in the first half of 2015 alone. Andrew Mueller

UK’s Best Part-time Band

9pm, BBC4

Yes, a music-based talent show but with a difference. In this four-part series, Rhod Gilbert travels down an interesting wormhole: real people who have proper jobs but are still in bands; amateurs in the best sense of the word, doing it because they love it. The setup (Rhod in transit van, with Peter Hook, Jazzie B and Midge Ure) is amiable enough, but the language of mainstream reality shows (“You’re looking for that something …”) is never far away. John Robinson

Dicte – Crime Reporter

9pm, More4

This Danish import features High Fidelity star Iben Hjejle as Dicte Svendsen, a journalist relocating from Copenhagen to her childhood home of Aarhus after a messy breakup. It’s on the brighter end of the Scandi noir spectrum, with Hjejle playing the Saab-driving, scarf-loving, wine-guzzling hack as fierce but fallible. Each double bill is also a self-contained story, beginning with Dicte discovering a dead body after an ill-advised alfresco pee. Graeme Virtue

Drugs Inc
9pm, National Geographic

Business is booming in the global drugs trade and it doesn’t stop when a dealer is caught and put in prison. This one-off doc looks at the criminals continuing their trade behind bars and the police who try to shut them down. Even in a maximum security prison in the US, drugs are bought and sold as the cartels use complicated methods to deliver the goods, such as dissolving crystal meth in water and spraying it on a birthday card. Hannah Verdier

Artsnight: Paul Mason
11.35pm BBC2

Guardian columnist Paul Mason has emerged as one of the left’s most distinctive media voices. This edition of BBC2’s arts and culture strand comes from the Hay festival, where Mason will be talking to writers including Simon Sebag Montefiore, Margaret Boden, Gaia Vince and Richard Shirreff about the day’s burning issues. With matters under discussion ranging from Syria to artificial intelligence, this is set to be illuminating viewing. Phil Harrison

Gareth Bale: Euro Star
11.25pm BBC1

A profile of the ex-Spurs player once considered a flop, now regarded as among the very best players in the world. It’s thanks largely to him that Wales have qualified for their first major tournament since 1958. The film looks at how he is coping with the expectations heaped on his shoulders for Euro 2016, although these pale beside the ongoing pressures and demands, with which he’s coping admirably, of playing for Real Madrid. David Stubbs

FILM CHOICE

Spy, (Paul Feig, 2015), 4pm, 8pm, Sky Movies Premiere

Melissa McCarthy is lowly but brilliant CIA operative Susan Cooper, efficiently directing Bond-like agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law); but when he comes to a very unBondlike end, she steps up to take over. Jokes abound in Feig’s spy spoof, having fun with the chauvinist thinking behind the agency, and the wider world. Miranda Hart makes an enjoyable big-screen debut as Cooper’s chum Nancy. Paul Howlett

Withnail & I, (Bruce Robinson, 1987), 2.05am, Channel 4

A sordid, supremely funny trudge through the pathetic lives of two destitute actors – Paul McGann’s Marwood and the languidly furious Withnail (Richard E Grant) – who survive on drugs and drink in grotty Camden Town, then head unwisely for the rural idyll of Uncle Monty’s (Richard Griffiths) freezing country cottage. A glory of British cinematic comedy. Paul Howlett