Dispatches: Britain’s Forgotten Pensioners
10pm, Channel 4
Pensioners – especially the one in five living in poverty – are too often on the fringes in the cost-of-living discourse. Beyond financial limitations, their mental health can be hugely affected. This powerful Dispatches follows four people, including Harry, 82, who can no longer afford to do the one thing he enjoys – making pots – and Doreen, 68, who has had only two visitors in 38 years. And yet their strength of character and humour shines through. Hollie Richardson
The Repair Shop
8pm, BBC One
The poet laureate, Simon Armitage, brings into the workshop a harmonium that is tied to memories of his father. Other items to be revived include a pair of children’s leather clogs, a silver charm bracelet and a broken sculpture of its owner’s mother. HR
The Great British Sewing Bee
9pm, BBC One
It’s west Africa week in what is surely the only reality competition to wring drama from “complex pockets”. The hotshot needlers are watched by guest judge Banke Kuku as she sets sewing challenges that include a Ghanaian batakari, a man’s tunic, and working with traditional Yoruba àdìre fabric. Alexi Duggins
Perry Mason
9pm, Sky Atlantic
It’s always magic hour in this good-looking LA noir, which bathes its characters’ shady dealings in an attractive golden glow. Downtrodden defence attorney Perry Mason (Matthew Rhys) could do with some assistance – magical or otherwise – as his case drags on. Maybe that’s what crooked cop Holcomb (Eric Lange) is offering? He is certainly an unlikely ally. Ellen E Jones
The Gallows Pole
9pm, BBC Two
Shane Meadows’ first period drama continues with David Hartley (Michael Socha) giving an accidentally hilarious monologue about his spiritual “vision of stag-men”. He tells a roomful of blank-faced friends and family that he knows what he thinks he should do to protect their futures in a changing world: coin-clipping. HR
Extraordinary Escapes With Sandi Toksvig
9pm, Channel 4
More walks’n’talks with Toksvig as she leads holiday companions through the British Isles. In the first of the new series, she and Eddie Izzard venture to Ireland, exploring County Clare, County Kerry and Cork, while they bond over fishing (a first for Izzard) and homemade apple crumble. Ali Catterall
Film choice
Avatar: The Way of Water (James Cameron, 2022), Disney+
Not a man to do things by halves, world-builder Cameron is back with the first of four sequels to his 2009 fantasy behemoth. Sam Worthington returns as the former human soldier Jake, now a Na’vi clan chief on the eco-friendly moon Pandora, alongside Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), with whom he has two children. However, Earth sends another military expedition, forcing the family to flee to a coastal tribe. The subsequent coming-of-age tale involving the kids is by the book, but it is in the oceanic scenes that Cameron’s bravura imagination and technical genius come to the fore. From the undersea wildlife to the deep-dive set-pieces, it is an impressively immersive experience. Simon Wardell
Living (Oliver Hermanus, 2022), Prime Video
As a British adaptation of the 1952 Kurosawa classic Ikiru, from a screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro, Hermanus’s drama has its work cut out to emulate the original. That it succeeds is largely down to Bill Nighy’s finely graded performance. His 1950s civil servant, Mr Williams, finds a glimmer of redemption and joy in a staid, empty life when he is diagnosed with terminal cancer. As he abandons his nine-to-five job to deal with the news, Williams is brought out of his morose state by a young colleague (Aimee Lou Wood) and a writer (Tom Burke). A touching tale about the ways we give meaning to existence. SW
Live sport
Uefa Europa Conference League: Fiorentina v West Ham, 6.30pm, BT Sport 1 Declan Rice leads the London team in the final at Eden Arena in Prague.
