Have I Got News for You
9pm, BBC1
As HIGNFY returns for its 54th series, it’s hard to know how to feel about this telly institution. It has undoubtedly lost something of its bite with Ian Hislop and Paul Merton having long since adopted roles they could play in their sleep. Plus, the show is probably marginally to blame for the ascent of Boris Johnson. But, still, in these absurd times, someone’s got to take the mickey. The urbane Alexander Armstrong hosts. Phil Harrison
Unreported World
7.30pm, Channel 4
The Irish Republic voted in favour of same-sex marriage. Now its liberalism is to be tested again with a referendum on abortion, presently illegal and carrying a potential 14-year prison sentence. Shaunagh Connaire meets representatives from both camps, along the way highlighting the anomalies of the present arrangement. For example, at the moment, expectant mothers must wait for medically unviable foetuses to die inside the womb. John Robinson
Cold Feet
9pm, ITV
This 90s throwback is ageing gracefully, with midlife crises, perfect kitchens and teenage pregnancies thrown into the mix. Adam (James Nesbitt) is off on a team building exercise and his eyebrows have been flirting with a cheeky colleague for weeks. What will happen when he spends the night away from Tina? Elsewhere, Karen (Hermione Norris) is buckling under the pressure of her complicated work and home life, despite hapless ex David’s offer of help. Hannah Verdier
Nile Rodgers: How to Make It in the Music Business
9pm, BBC4
Strictly speaking, this series should be called How Nile Rodgers Made It in the Music Business as the Chic guitarist’s unique talent and rise to fame, as celebrated here, are unlikely to be replicated. Still, we learn about how he got together with the late Bernard Edwards and the inspiration behind songs such as Le Freak and Lost in Music, while producer Mark Ronson and Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes dissect his style and complex chord patterns. David Stubbs
Porridge
9.30pm, BBC1
After last year’s special, the reboot from Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais gets a full series. Kevin Bishop, eerily channelling Ronnie Barker’s mannerisms, stars as hacker Nigel Fletcher, Norman Stanley’s grandson. In an episode that makes you cautiously optimistic this may just work, we find Fletch, for a price, dispensing legal advice and writing letters on behalf of fellow inmates – which gets complicated when Fletch agrees to mediate in person with naive Barry’s girlfriend. Jonathan Wright
Film choice
T2: Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 2017) Friday, 10pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
Twenty-one years on, Edinburgh’s favourite heroin addicts are grappling with the calamity that is middle age. Ewan McGregor’s Renton is comfortably set up in Amsterdam, but decides it’s time to make amends for betraying his friends all those years ago. Jonny Lee Miller’s Sick Boy is running a dodgy escort business to fund his cocaine habit; Ewen Bremner’s poor Spud is on the verge of suicide; and Robert Carlyle’s Begbie is still, terrifyingly, Begbie.
Berlin Express (Jacques Tourneur, 1948) Friday, 6am, Movies4Men
Set amid the wreckage of postwar Germany, Tourneur’s tense little drama has representatives of the four occupying powers searching for their colleague, German statesman Dr Bernhardt (Paul Lukas), who has been kidnapped by a gang of Nazis. Merle Oberon is Bernhardt’s loyal French secretary and Robert Ryan an American scientist. It’s top-and-tailed by action aboard the titular train, but more gripping is the sinister backdrop of ruined Frankfurt and Berlin – a grim portrait of a devastated nation, in which cynicism and idealism still contend.
Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979) 11.10pm, Film4
Ridley Scott’s gothic sci-fi horror, with its terrifying alien stalking the crew of the old spaceship Nostromo, remains a nerve-shredding classic. Sigourney Weaver’s space-heroine Ripley became a screen icon, while HR Giger’s gloomy, visceral sets and the chest-busting alien are a Freudian’s dream (or nightmare). Brilliantly edited, too: something nasty seems to lurk in every corner.
Live sport
Test Cricket: South Africa v Bangladesh 9am, Sky Sports Main Event. The first day of the second Test.
Premiership Rugby Union: Harlequins v Sale Sharks 7pm, BT Sport 2. Coverage from The Stoop.
Under 21s European Championship Football: England U21 v Scotland U21 7.30pm, BT Sport 1. A qualifier from the Riverside Stadium in Middlesborough.
