The Royal Variety Performance 2015
7.30pm, ITV
The annual variety extravaganza sashays into the schedules once again, with Jack Whitehall hosting. It’s a smart move: he’s cheeky but just about polite enough to appeal to the RVP’s older audience. Of course, the latest dancing dog from Britain’s Got Talent, Matisse, will be performing, along with more well-established names. Elton John, Kylie Minogue, One Direction and Little Mix are on the bill along with Cirque du Soleil and Jeff Lynne’s ELO. Hannah Verdier
Capital
9pm, BBC1
Last in the series of John Lanchester’s state-of-the-nation piece, adapted for TV by Peter Bowker. Shahid is questioned by the anti-terrorist squad while his family campaign for his release. Roger and Arabella’s bourgeois bubble takes another nick when his career hits the skids, and Matya considers her future as things get romantic with Bogdan. And, of course, the “budget Banksy mystery” reaches its conclusion. A moral of sorts is drawn but you can’t help feeling the story is unfinished. Julia Raeside
Imagine: Carlos Acosta – Cuba Calls
10.35pm, BBC1
A profile of the much-garlanded Cuban ballet star and author Carlos Acosta. The film has a split focus, between Acosta’s recent production of Bizet’s Carmen for the Royal Ballet, which a review in this newspaper described as “expansive in all the wrong ways”, and his plans to establish his own dance school in Havana. The proposed site is a magnificent ruin commissioned in a fit of revolutionary zeal by Fidel Castro; the original architect, Vittorio Garatti, has been unenthusiastic about the project. Andrew Mueller
Tripped
10pm, E4
Cheerful stoner Milo (George Webster) and Danny (Blake Harrison) are best chums, but Danny is moving on, with a job in pet insurance and wedding to plan with fiancee Kate (Georgina Campbell). Fortuitously, the pair are thrown back together when another Danny from a parallel universe turns up dressed in futuristic leathers in Milo’s living room, followed by a sword-wielding psychopath bent on murdering them both. It’s complicated. But clever, funny and poignant, too. Think Highlander meets Spaced meets Doctor Who. Ben Arnold
Meet the Psychopaths
9pm, Channel 5
What makes a psychopath become a psycho killer? That’s the quasi-medical pretext for this true-crime show. Sure enough, there’s some interesting stuff about US physician Dr Hervey Cleckley, who first mapped the 21 “traits of psychopathy” in 1941, but for the most part this recaps the story of one Joanna Dennehy, who murdered three men in the Peterborough area in 2013. While Dennehy’s crimes are reconstructed via CCTV footage and eyewitnesses, professor Tony Maden explains how her personality exemplified psychopathic traits. John Robinson
That’s So Last Century
10pm, Channel 4
In an age when technology can squeeze our music, book and film collections into a small oblong that also makes phone calls and records video, it’s easy to forget how we got here. In this first of a new series, famous faces introduce their families to the foibles of pre-millennial technology. What will a generation raised on 3D printers make of the Sony Walkman, VHS recorder or BBC Micro? Warning: prepare to feel old on discovering text messaging is now officially “nostalgia”. Mark Gibbings-Jones
Empire
9pm, E4
As the second run of Fox’s hammed-up hip-hop drama reaches its mid-season finale, Lucious goes all 2015 and makes a bid for a streaming service. However, it’s soon revealed to be the magnate’s riskiest move yet. Cookie, meanwhile, confronts her past by returning to prison to play a gig, and Anika stoops to new lows as she continues to hassle Hakeem. Finally, in a move that’s both totally ridiculous and wonderfully Empire, a minute-long Pepsi commercial starring Jamal is woven into the plot, too. Hannah J Davies
Film choice
The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008) 9pm, ITV2
No offence, Bane, but the Joker is Batman’s true nemesis in Christopher Nolan’s stygian Dark Knight trilogy. As played by the late Heath Ledger, he’s an off-the-wall, sadistic, psychotic agent of chaos threatening all that Christian Bale’s caped crusader stands for. It’s a mesmerising contest. Paul Howlett
Lore (Cate Shortland, 2012) 1.20am, Film4
Based on Rachel Seiffert’s first novel, Shortland’s drama is set in Germany at the end of the second world war, where plucky teenager Lore (Saskia Rosendahl) tries to lead her younger sister and brothers to the safety of her grandmother’s home in Hamburg. Combining lyrical imagery with an unsparing depiction of the hunger and terror of the defeated, it’s an impressive portrait of a devastated, guilt-ridden country. Paul Howlett
Today’s best live sport
International Premier Tennis League: Singapore Slammers v UAE Royals Day three from Manila. 8am, Sky Sports 2
World League Hockey: Australia v Great Britain Women’s hockey from Rosario, Argentina. 5.15pm, BT Sport 1
Champions League Football: Wolfsburg v Manchester United Final group B encounter for both sides. 6.30pm, BT Sport Europe
Mosconi Cup Pool: USA v Europe Day two action from the Tropicana Las Vegas hotel. 7pm, Sky Sports 1
