Ade Adepitan stays a week in a “whites only” town, Kristen Wiig and Laura Dern team up in Palm Royale, and DI Humphrey Goodman tackles fatherhood and murder in Beyond Paradise.
Coma
Monday
Channel 5, 9.00pm
Jason Watkins (Nativity!) leads the drama as Simon, a good-natured man pushed to the brink by a gang of local youths. When the torments get more frequent, Simon makes an out-of-character rash decision that threatens everything when it lands the gang’s leader, Jordan, in hospital.
As 17-year-old Jordan (played by Joe Barber in his debut) lies in a coma, Simon is lorded as a hero who discovered the boy and saved him. Only Simon’s wife, played by Claire Skinner (Outnumbered) and a random passer-by (David Bradley, Harry Potter) know the truth – a secret that could upend Simon’s life.
Whites Only: Ade's Extremist Adventure
Monday
Channel 4, 10.00pm
Whilst the 2020s sees politicians urge for closed boarders and for literal walls to be built, RTS Award-winning sports pundit Ade Adepitan “sets aside his own prejudices” to discover how a closed culture town works and operates.
Ade opts to spend a week in the lion’s den - the “whites only” town of Orania, South Africa. Whilst residents maintain they are aiming to protect their Afrikaner culture, Ade examines its sinister roots, and tries to find mutual understanding.
Palm Royale
Wednesday
Apple TV +
Kristen Wiig (Bridesmaids) stars as Maxine Simmons, a woman prepared to claw her way to the top of Palm Beach high society. Her journey to the upper echelons begins with a climb over a garden wall, and into 1960s Floridian glitz and glam central – The Palm Royale.
Whilst making the infamous club her home, Maxine is met with distrust and disgust in equal measures, and learns that “in Palm Beach, a secret is like a loaded gun.”
Kristen Wiig will be livin’ la vida loca alongside Ricky Martin, Laura Dern (Big Little Lies), Carol Burnett (Annie), Kaia Gerber (Bottoms) and many more, in a star-studded cast.
Travel Man: 48 Hours In...
Friday
Channel 4, 8.30pm
Joe Lycett is back to take a host of his comedian friends on a whistlestop tour of the world’s greatest cities.
This year’s line-up includes Prague, where Lycett and Adam Buxton enjoy some sausages served in a skull, Trieste, where a wind museum takes Alan Davies by storm, and a trip to the Artic Circle with Too Hot To Handle narrator Desiree Burch.
Beyond Paradise
Friday
BBC One, 9.00pm
A string of murders in a picturesque English village? Well, that’s out of the ordinary! Thankfully, tight-knit Shipton Abbott has its own local detective DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall, Love Actually) on hand to solve the weekly cases.
The Death in Paradise spin-off is back for a second series, and this time The Shipton Abbott Players are staging a murder mystery play on an old-timey steam train…what could possibly go wrong?
DI Goodman is called to attention when the play sticks a little too closely to its source material, and the victim is backstabbed (quite literally, stabbed in the back).
Alongside the murders, Goodman and soon-to-be wife Martha (Sally Bretton, Not Going Out) are on their foster parent journey, putting the stress of series one’s IVF firmly behind them.
