Pick of the Week
The Priests – Don’t Give Up The Day Job
Sunday, RTÉ One, 6.30pm
The Priests sounds like a cool name for a rock band, but the name has already been taken by three actual priests, Fr Martin O’Hagan, Fr Eugene O’Hagan and Fr David Delargy, three parish priests from Northern Ireland who signed up to Sony Records in 2008 and sold nearly two million copies of their debut album (it still holds the record as the fastest-selling classical debut album of all time). Now, after 17 years of recording best-selling albums, performing sell-out concerts around the world, all the time tending to their pastoral duties, The Priests are hanging up their mics and calling it a day. They have been singing together since they were schoolboys in Co Antrim 50 years ago, so this is a poignant moment for the priests and their fans, and this documentary will trace their story, telling how they found their vocations and vocal talent, and how they inadvertently became the public face of the Catholic Church when the scandals of clerical abuse broke.
Highlights
Our Changing Planet: Restoring Our Rivers
Sunday, BBC One, 7pm
The world’s rivers are in serious peril from pollution, water extraction and extreme dam-building, and this ambitious series looks at efforts to restore rivers that have been depleted, with freshwater species dying off, and safe drinking water becoming scarce, making life more difficult for the millions of people who rely on rivers for their food and water needs. Liz Bonnin and Ade Adepitan visit two big river restoration projects to see how they are coming along. Bonnin heads to Northern California, where the world’s largest dam-removal project is under way, while Adepitan is in Paris, where the Seine is undergoing a mega detox programme. Now, when are the powers-that-be in Dublin going to start giving our own lovely Liffey a big clean-up?
Dragon Hearts
Monday, RTÉ One, 6.30pm
Dragon boat racing is one of the world’s fastest-growing sports, and no surprise to learn it originated in China. Dragon boats look like large canoes, and teams paddle furiously to be first past the finishing line. This documentary follows a unique Dragon boat club, in which every member has been affected in some way by cancer. Research in Canada shows that the sport is good for people who have survived breast cancer, as it helps build upper body strength, but also boosts positivity and wellbeing as they all pull together to win that race. We learn about Ireland’s first-ever dragon boat club, the Plurabelle Paddlers, set up in Dublin in 2010, and this beautifully shot documentary also showcases clubs with such mythical names as Medb’s Dragon Warriors and the Gráinne Mhaol Boat Club as they train hard for the season.
Super Garden
Tuesday, RTÉ One, 7pm
It’ll soon be time for the ever-popular Bloom festival, and the race is on to find stunning gardens to showcase at this year’s festival in the Phoenix Park. Super Garden returns with another group of hopeful garden designers, who will be tasked with creating gardens in Baker Hall, Glenveagh’s development of affordable homes in Navan, Co Meath. Their designs will not only have to impress the homeowners, but also the judges: Brian Burke from Woodies, Monica Alvarez from Dulux Exteriors and Carol Marks from Bord Bia. First gardener to step up to the challenge in this 16th series is Jorge Aragon Cano, who has come up with a multicultural marvel called the Fáilte Fiesta garden.
Joe Lycett’s United States of Birmingham
Tuesday, Sky Showcase & Now, 9pm
How far would comedian and presenter Joe Lycett go for his beloved Birmingham? All around North America, as it happens. In this series, Lycett wants to prove that there’s no place like Birmingham, and to do that he travels across the US and Canada visiting places that share a name with his hometown. It’s a bit of a jaunt, as there are no fewer than 18 Birminghams along his route, which takes him from Saskatchewan to the Deep South. Do the people living in these Birminghams have anything in common with their English midlands counterparts? Lycett is determined to find some connections, and he has the blessing of Birmingham’s lord mayor to form friendship agreements with each namesake town. At the end of the series, Lycett will invite Brummies from around the world to come to the UK for the first annual International Day of Birmingham. Sounds absolutely bostin’.
Who Do You Think You Are?
Tuesday, BBC One, 9pm
Amazing how celebrities seem to know almost nothing about their own family history. They didn’t just come down from heaven, but have actual ancestors and stuff. This new series of the genealogy show features a new batch of big names who are looking to unlock the past and find out where they got all their looks and talent from. This series will take viewers through 800 years of history, uncovering family stories from Ireland, the UK, Jamaica, Morocco, India, Poland and Germany, and unearthing incredible stories of war, slavery and doomed romance. Among the celebrities searching for truths about their origins are actor Ross Kemp, comedian/actor/writers Diane Morgan and Aisling Bea and pop star Will Young. First up, though, is Oscar-nominated actor Andrew Garfield, who takes an emotional journey that brings him to pre-war Poland and from Treblinka death camp to Hollywood glamour.
Race Across the World
Wednesday, BBC One, 9pm
Imagine having to cross the vastness of China, Nepal and India without a smartphone or a bank card, just whatever cash you have in your wallet and whatever wits you have about you. Welcome to series five of the travel challenge, which begins at the Great Wall of China, and sees five teams of two pushed to their limits as they try to be first over the finish line 14,000km away on the southernmost tip of India. Their cash stash equates to the cost of flying this distance, but they’ll have to find other ways of getting to their destination and bagging the £20,000 prize. The five teams include a pair of sisters, a pair of brothers, a mother and son and a former married couple.
RTÉ Investigates: The Christian Brothers – the Assets, the Abusers
Wednesday, RTÉ One, 9.35pm
They were one of the most powerful institutions in the land, with an iron grip on our education system, but their influence has waned as they came to the forefront of historic child sex abuse allegations. The Christian Brothers still, however, remain one of Ireland’s wealthiest religious orders, and this RTÉ Investigates documentary delves into the vast property portfolio owned by the order, some of it previously managed by people who were later convicted of child abuse, and asks why victims of clerical abuse are still having to fight to get redress. Last year’s scoping inquiry uncovered a wider scale of historic abuse, and a new wave of victims is expected to seek justice – what exactly do the Christian Brothers own and will they make reparations for members’ past crimes?
Streaming
Andor
From Tuesday, April 22nd, Disney+
Disney and Lucasfilm have had mixed fortunes with their Star Wars live-action spin-offs. The Mandalorian was a success, but most of their other efforts failed to light up a galaxy far, far away: Obi-Wan Kenobi crashed and burned; The Book of Boba Fett fell flat. But Andor has turned out to be a dark horse, and series one has become a huge fan favourite, described as Star Wars’ own Sopranos or Breaking Bad. The series, which takes place in the five years leading up to the events in the first Star Wars film, is not your typical lightsabre-and-spacecraft kids’ adventure but something altogether more gritty and grown-up. Diego Luna returns as thief turned rebel Cassian Andor, who is ready to play his role in the birth of the Rebellion. But time is running out, as the empire prepares to unveil its deadliest weapon, the Death Star.
You
From Thursday, April 24th, Netflix
Bookseller and serial killer Joe Goldberg is back for more romance and murder in the fifth and final series of the psychological drama. Joe has returned to New York having terrorised London society, but this time he’s not able to stay under the radar, as his new wife, Kate, is now chief executive of the Lockwood Corporation, and Joe has to get used to being half of a celebrity couple. Now that he has lost his anonymity, Joe finds his past crimes beginning to catch up with him, and when he encounters an all-too familiar face it’s his turn to feel the fear.
