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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Hollie Richardson, Jack Seale, Alexi Duggins, Graeme Virtue and Simon Wardell

TV tonight: a gripping documentary about Dublin’s first narco in the 80s

Dublin Narcos on Sky Documentaries.
Dublin Narcos on Sky Documentaries. Photograph: Blast Films/©Sky UK Ltd

Dublin Narcos

9pm, Sky Documentaries

“In the 80s, drugs changed the fabric of the city.” Ex-heroin addict Paul Tracey kicks off this brilliant three-part documentary which looks at how people in Dublin “took so readily to heroin” because of “high disenfranchised youth, high unemployment and the beginning of the rejection of the Catholic church”. Using dramatisations and interviews, this opening episode also introduces the Irish capital’s first narco – Larry Dunne. Hollie Richardson

Bettany Hughes’ Treasures of the World

5.30pm, Channel 4

Bodrum is the historian’s next stop on her tour of archaeological sites with anthropological secrets. Hughes first heads for the tomb of a dynasty from the fourth century BC. On her way to Troy, she digs up some unexpected new information about Father Christmas. Jack Seale

Pointless Celebrities

7.50pm, BBC One

You’d expect the famous contestants to ace the questions this week, given they’re all renowned news reporters. But will the likes of the BBC’s Mike Bushell, ITV’s Lucrezia Millarini and Channel 4’s Cathy Newman put the show’s normal punters to shame? Not as much as you might think. Alexi Duggins

Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over

8.40pm, BBC Two

In this celebratory 2021 documentary, Alicia Keys, Snoop Dogg and the late Burt Bacharach are just some of the names who wax lyrical about the Grammy-winning Walk on By singer and Black and LGBTQ+ activist, who also shares her fascinating story in her own words. HR

Paris Police 1905

9pm, BBC Four

You don’t have to be the hawk-like Inspector Jouin (Jérémie Laheurte) to deduce that this enjoyably grungy sequel is set five years after Paris Police 1900. The City of Light still brims with darkness, though; gloomy Jouin catches a knotty Christmas murder case just as his prefecture instigates a vice crackdown. Graeme Virtue

The Jonathan Ross Show

9.40pm, ITV1

Podcasting power-couple Peter Crouch and Abbey Clancy lead the chat this week, along with funnyman turned interiors expert Alan Carr, comedian Babatunde Aléshé and star of the new Luther film, Andy Serkis. HR

Film choice

No Country for Old Men, 8pm, Sky Cinema Oscars

Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men.
Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men. Photograph: Maximum Film/Alamy

Joel and Ethan Coen’s neo-western, adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s novel, is surreptitiously profound. Josh Brolin plays a Texas welder who comes across a bag of cash from a drug deal gone wrong and decides to keep it. This error brings down on him the implacable wrath of Javier Bardem’s hitman, while Tommy Lee Jones’s tired old sheriff picks up the pieces. What starts as a crime thriller drifts into a meditation on the persistence of violence in America – and in men – from the wild west to the cross-border cartels of today. Simon Wardell

Live sport

Athletics Indoor Championships, 6am, BBC Two Day three includes finals in the men’s 60m and women’s 1500m, which should feature Britain’s Laura Muir.

Premier League Football: Man City v Newcastle, 11.30am, BT Sport 1 At Etihad Stadium. Followed by Southampton v Leicester at 5pm on Sky Sports Main Event.

Premiership Rugby Union: Harlequins v Exeter Chiefs, 4.45pm, BT Sport 2 At the Twickenham Stoop. Sale Sharks v Saracens is on Sunday at 2.30pm on ITV1.

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