The Mash Report
10pm, BBC Two
A new run for the news spoof based on the Onion-style website, the Daily Mash. Last time around, it struggled to find a tone. Avoiding the ruthless deadpan delivery of this genre’s looming talisman, The Day Today, was understandable, but the material didn’t benefit from a roaring studio audience and the excited corpsing of host Nish Kumar. Topical comedy is, however, immensely hard to get right first time, so another chance for The Mash Report and its hoststo bed in is to be cautiously welcomed.
Jack Seale
A House Through Time
9pm, BBC Two
David Olusoga continues to trace the domestic and social history of a single Liverpool townhouse. Tonight’s episode, which spans the Great Depression and the start of the second world war, sees the building transformed into a shabby lodging house for low-income tenants, such as docker Jack Greenall, who is keeping a secret from his employers; and Robert and Sarah Ann Duffy, whose fortunes will eventually turn for the better. Ali Catterall
Transformation Street
9pm, ITV
This documentary about patients undergoing life-changing surgery is sensitively handled and does not shy away from the struggles they go through as they realign their gender. Former firefighter Stephanie, who was until 18 months ago known as Mark, shares the story of how her decision to live as a woman led to breaking contact with her two sons. Elsewhere, Emma, who is in her 50s, prepares for breast augmentation, while Lucas prepares to lose his. Hannah Verdier
Derry Girls
10pm, Channel 4
Apart from a slightly improbable precocity about the performances of the schoolgirls of its title, Lisa McGee’s sitcom, set in Ireland in the mid-90s at the tail end of the Troubles, is highly engaging, bristlingly funny stuff. This week, they are particularly on edge having been up all night studying for an exam. However, a dubious case of an “apparition” affords them the chance to get out of the exam and spend quality theological time with the dishy Father Peter. David Stubbs
Great Art
10.45pm, ITV
This series profiling much-profiled artists reaches possibly the most profiled of all. Michelangelo’s sculptures and paintings have served as key items of our cultural furniture for so long that it has become easy to forget how astonishing they are, and how incredible it seems that one person could have wrought them. This episode recalls what is known of Michelangelo’s life, and attempts the daunting task of calculating a legacy that has spanned five centuries. Andrew Mueller
Britannia
9pm, Sky Atlantic
Mackenzie Crook is a long way from Detectorists here. But this loopy Jez Butterworth drama series also burrows away at British identity, tapping into something thatis arguably more telling than literal history: a hideous, beautiful, berserk Albion that underpins our sense of self to this day. It is AD43, and Britain is a land of filth and visions; arcane rituals and earthy ultraviolence. The invading Romans have no idea what they are getting themselves into. Brilliantly demented. Phil Harrison
Lusitania: 18 Minutes That Changed World War One
10.15pm, PBS America
May 1915 saw the US retain a diplomatic distance from the war raging through Europe. That is, until a commercial cruise liner travelling from New York to Liverpool approached Irish waters, and into the range of a German U-boat. A single torpedo would sink the liner, taking the lives of 1,198 men, women and children. This doc explores how that incident altered the course of the first world war. Mark Gibbings-Jones
TV films
Burn After Reading (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, 2008)
9pm, Sony Movie Channel
This twist on the screwball comedy from the Coens offers a gleefully vicious view of human foibles. Itis a Washington-set farce, in which a misplaced CD containing the incendiary memoirs of a bitter ex-CIA man, played by John Malkovich, sets off a chain of ludicrous, bloody events involving his icy wife (Tilda Swinton), George Clooney’s philandering marshal, frustrated internet dater Frances McDormand and dozy gym bunny Brad Pitt.
Live sport
Tennis: The Australian Open 6am, Eurosport 2. The second-round singles matches continue at Melbourne Park.
Snooker: The Masters 1pm, BBC Two. The opening quarter-final, played over the best of 11 frames at Alexandra Palace.
ODI Cricket: Australia v England 3am, BT Sport 1. The second game of the series from the Gabba in Brisbane.
