Mr. Loverman

Monday

BBC One, 9.00pm

Meet Barrington Jedidiah Walker (Lennie James, The Walking Dead). You can call him Barry.

Barry is a familiar face on Hackney high street, renowned for his flare and taste in suits. Things at home aren’t so easy-going, though. His wife Carmel (Sharon D. Clarke, Holby City) suspects Barry has been unfaithful. She’s right, but not in the way she thinks.

Barry has been having an affair with Morris De La Roux (Ariyon Bakare, His Dark Materials), his male best friend, for decades. In the final stage of his life, Barry has to choose between honesty and keeping his family intact.

Shrinking

Wednesday

Apple TV+

Jason Segel (How I Met Your Mother) and Harrison Ford (Blade Runner 2049) return for a second series of the comedy-drama about a therapist who decides rules are meant to be broken.

Jimmy Laird (Segel) is a therapist who grieves for his dead wife by telling his patients exactly what he’s thinking. With professional ethics out the window, he’s free to give them the tough-love advice he’d previously been holding in.

This series, things are looking up for Jimmy’s relationship with his daughter (Lukita Maxwell), albeit far from perfect. Paul (Ford) is there as always to narrate Jimmy’s professional highs and lows, like a very grumpy Greek chorus.

So Long, Marianne

Thursday

ITVX

With a Leonard Cohen song named after her, Marianne Ihlen was – scientifically speaking – one of the coolest people to walk the Earth. Now, her romance with the singer is dramatised in a show that borrows its name from the same tune. 

Alex Wolff (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) plays Cohen, who first sets eyes on Marianne (Thea Sofie Loch Næss, The Last Kingdom) on the Greek island of Hydra. What follows is a complicated romance during a formative period in both their lives.

Everyone Else Burns

Thursday

Channel 4, 10.00pm

The apocalypse meets bowl cuts in the second series of the sitcom following a family devoted to a doomsday cult.

Armageddon may be on the way, but until they go up in flames, the suburbs of Manchester are still full of problems. Daughter Rachel (Amy James-Kelly, Three Families) has an arranged marriage to dodge. Meanwhile, dad David (Simon Bird, The Inbetweeners) gets caught up in attempts to modernise. All the while, Maude (Sian Clifford, Fleabag) is the intimidating new kid on the church block.

Rivals

Friday

Disney+

It’s the 1980s, and David Tennant (Good Omens) is ready to make it everyone’s problem.

This star-studded adaptation of the Jilly Cooper novel sees TV industry titan Lord Tony Baddingham (Tennant) face off against the equally rakish Rupert Campbell-Black (The Boys). Caught in the crossfire are Aidan Turner (Poldark), Victoria Smurfit (Bloodlands), Bella Maclean (Sex Education) and Danny Dyer (Human Traffic).

The only thing that excites these well-dressed chaps and chapesses more than sex and drugs is revenge. What could go wrong?