ITV

Before we readjust to life at the Villa, let’s get to know the contestants.

Samantha Kenny

The launch on Monday 3 June will see 10 contestants (often nicknamed ‘the OGs’) enter the villa and pair off. At the end of the episode, a bombshell will enter to shake these couples up, and anyone left single at the next ‘re-coupling’ will be dumped from the island. Over eight weeks plenty more bombshells will enter, with the cast usually totalling over 30.

Only four couples will make it to the final, and then it’s up to the public to vote for their favourite, who will split £50,000 between them.

ITVX Presents: Edinburgh Fringe Live will see the ITV platform stream four showcase gigs live from the Festival. Each showcase will feature material from 2024’s best and most exciting comedians, produced by NextUp Comedy, known to comedy fans as a leader in British stand-up streaming.

Changing Ends will return for a second series to follow a young Alan Carr (Oliver Savell) doing his best to survive 1980s Northampton. The sitcom draws from the comedian’s upbringing as the son of a fourth division football manager.

The free service allows its users to stream live channels through smart TVs, without the need for an aerial or dish. Viewers are also able to watch on-demand content from the UK’s biggest broadcasters.

As was previously announced, Hisense will be the first smart TV partner for the service, and begins selling Freely smart TVs today (30^th April).

Freely represents the first collaboration between Britain’s four public service broadcasters, in an effort to futureproof live TV in the age of streaming.

Mr Bates vs the Post Office belongs to that handful of British TV dramas – think Cathy Come Home or Queer as Folk – that changed the world we live in, but the shocking truth is that it almost didn’t get made.

This was one of several remarkable insights shared with the RTS into the four-part ITV series that finally drew the public’s attention to what may be our broken nation’s gravest miscarriage of justice ever.

The show will select players based on both their brains and social intelligence. Those looking to get ahead in the programme’s all-new game formats will need to use their heads in more ways than one.

As well as mental acuity, contestants will need to use the dark art of manipulation to cheat each other out of the cash prize.

Yesterday, ITV tweeted out a brain teaser hinting that Tennant was the host.

In the sleepy northern town of Chadder Vale, Katie Wells goes missing. Then, she comes back. Most of the villagers are content all’s well that ends well, except one.

Police officer Riya Ajunwa is relatively new in town, having been here for five years after a decade-long stint in the Met. Bored of investigating bins, she smells something fishy in Wells’s disappearance. As a series of devastating and unnatural crimes begin to be committed, her suspicions are confirmed. However, several questions remain unanswered.

The four-part drama stars Lucy Boynton (Murder on the Orient Express) as the real-life 1950s London club manager, then the youngest in the capital.

Ellis later found an entirely different kind of fame, becoming the last woman in Britain to be hanged, after shooting her partner David Blakely. The drama is based on A Fine Day for Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story, the biography by Carol Ann Lee.

A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story follows the impresario’s story through clubland and the abusive relationship she had with Blakely.

From Love Island’s Chloe Burrows, to Wagatha Christie victim Rebekah Vardy, to Reggae Reggae sauce creator Levi Roots, there are many rumours floating around social media as to who will be the next household names turned housemates. But fans will have to wait a little longer to lay these rumours to rest.  

ITV revealed via X (formerly Twitter) that the cast will only be announced live in the launch show – a major shake up from the 2023 civilian series, where the cast were pre-announced, and the show was pre-recorded.