Entertainment
What’s on? Top 10 TV and streaming tips for Saturday
There’s a first look at the results of Elections 2024, a Tom Jones night on BBC Two, Doctor Who goes a bit Bridgerton, Kilkenny face Dublin in the Leinster Hurling Final, and Audrey Hepburn is an afternoon delight in My Fair Lady . . .
Pick of the Day
Elections 2024, 12 noon, RTÉ One
Streaming on RTÉ Player
Following yesterday’s voting, here’s live coverage of the early results and indications from the local and European elections and from the mayoral election in Limerick.
David McCullagh (below) hosts the studio discussion and reaction from commentators and those involved, with reports from various count centres across the country.
New or Returning Shows
Jana: Marked for Life, 9.00pm, BBC Four
The Scandi Saturdays return to BBC Four with this subtitled (unlike the trailer) crime drama from Sweden, starring Madeleine Martin.
On her first day at the prosecutor’s office, Jana works on the murder of a senior member of the migration board.
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Then she hides the truth that she knows the victim and is seeking to uncover the secrets of her past through the investigation.
Episode two follows at 9.50pm. When the killer is found dead with a mysterious scar, Jana gets a shock as she has a similar scar herself.
This link drives her to pursue the case relentlessly, clashing with colleagues and putting her in harm’s way.
Don’t Miss
Tom Jones: Later . . . with Jools Holland, 8.30pm, BBC Two
A Tom Jones night – he plays tomorrow in Dublin’s St Anne’s Park Raheny – opens with a selection of the Welsh warbler’s appearances on Later . . . over the years.
They include Tom sharing his love of Jerry Lee Lewis with Jools at the piano in 2001 to performing with his band on songs such as Black Betty in 2002, Give a Little Love in 2008 and Elvis Presley Blues in 2015.
There are also appearances on Jools’s Hootenanny, performing with Solomon Burke, Robert Plant, Jeff Beck, Rhiannon Giddens and Celeste, while Jools looks back at his most recent appearance in 2021, performing I’m Growing Old.
Followed at 9.30pm by Tom Jones at the BBC, a celebration of the singer’s performances, from the start of his career in the 1960s to his appearance on Later . . . just before he celebrated his 70th birthday in 2010.
The programme includes archive footage of the Welshman’s appearances on The Dusty Springfield Show and Top of the Pops.
Later at 11.10pm there’s Tom Jones: In Concert 1971, a performance by the singer, featuring appearances by the Treorchy Male Choir and the Blossoms.
Tom Jones – What Good Am I? follows at 12.05am, where Alan Yentob meets Tom. It also includes contributions by fellow musicians Jools Holland, Sandie Shaw, Robbie Williams, Cerys Matthews and Kelly Jones. First shown in 2010.
Finally, at 2.05am, there’s Tom Jones’ 1950s: The Decade That Made Me, where Tom fronts the first of a series of four retrospective documentaries in which celebrated musicians look back at the decades that defined them.
Doctor Who, 6.45pm, BBC One
There’s a bit of a period drama – Bridgerton even – look to this week’s episode as the Doctor and Ruby land in 1813, where guests at a duchess’s party are being murdered, and a mysterious bounty hunter called Rogue is about to change the Doctor’s life forever.
Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson star in the sci-fi adventure, with appearances from Indira Varma and US stage star Jonathan Groff.
Rebus, 9.15pm, BBC One
As the murky detective series continues, Cafferty receives unwanted help from two UDA hitmen as his suppliers seek vengeance for the drug theft – and he must act quickly maintain control.
Though the police investigation secures a key witness, Rebus finds reason to distance himself from Siobhan, while Rhona seeks to build bridges between her first and second husbands by inviting Rebus to supper.
New to Stream
The Royal Hotel, Sky Cinema & NOW
The trailer does a good job here. Well worth a look.
Jessica Henwick, Julia Garner (who was great in Inventing Anna), Hugo Weaving, James Frecheville and Toby Wallace star in director Kitty Green’s thriller.
The story revolves around Americans Hanna and Liv, best friends backpacking in Australia.
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After they run out of money, Liv, looking for an adventure, convinces Hanna to take a temporary live-in job behind the bar of a pub called The Royal Hotel in a remote Outback mining town.
Bar owner Billy and a host of locals give the girls a riotous introduction to Down Under drinking culture but soon Hanna and Liv find themselves trapped in an unnerving situation that grows rapidly out of their control.
Saturday Cinema
My Fair Lady, 2.35pm, RTÉ One
Delightful, multiple Oscar-winning musical, based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, starring Audrey Hepburn (great!), Rex Harrison (greater!) and Stanley Holloway (greatest!).
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Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, bets his friend Colonel Pickering that he can teach guttural cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle to speak like a marble-mouthed duchess.
Songs include I Could Have Danced All Night and Wouldn’t It Be Loverly – and sung by the legendary Marni Nixon rather than Audrey Hepburn.
Then there’s Stanley Holloway’s majestically unambitious – and utterly raucous – I’m Getting Married in the Morning.
But hats off to Bill Shirley, dubbing for actor Jeremy Brett. who sang the show’s most poignant song, On the Street Where You Live. You’d have to be made of stone not to be moved.
Many musicals are great, but Lerner and Lowe must take a bow for their tunes here. Magnificent from start to finish. Lazy afternoons were made for this.
Dunkirk, 9.45pm, RTÉ One
Christopher Nolan’s wartime drama, which he wrote, directed and produced, starring Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance and Fionn Whitehead.
Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Empire and France are surrounded by the German army, and face a tense wait for evacuation, during a fierce battle in northern France during the Second World War.
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Family Flick
Trolls World Tour, 7.00pm, RTÉ One
Animated adventure, with the voices of Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake and Rachel Bloom.
Poppy and Branch discover there are different troll tribes scattered over six different lands. Each tribe is also devoted to different kinds of music – funk, country, techno, classical, pop and rock.
When rockers Queen Barb and King Thrash decide to destroy the other music, Poppy and Branch embark on a mission to unite the trolls and save the diverse melodies from becoming extinct.
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Sport
The Saturday Game Live, 3.00pm, RTÉ2
Streaming on RTÉ Player
There’s a double header of action from GAA HQ as Laois meet Offaly and Kilkenny face Dublin (Throw-ins 3.30pm and 6.00pm).
Joanne Cantwell presents coverage of the Joe McDonagh Cup final followed by the Leinster Senior Hurling Championship final, both held at Croke Park.
Laois claimed victory when the teams met in the opening round of the group stage, but Offaly will be determined to go one better than last year, when they were runners-up to Carlow.
As for the headline contest, Kilkenny have won the Leinster title in each of the last four seasons, while Dublin’s last triumph came in 2013.