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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Hollie Richardson, Ali Catterall, Henry Wong, Graeme Virtue and Simon Wardell

TV tonight: Jack Rooke’s Big Boys is really beautiful television

Jon Pointing and Dylan Llewellyn in Big Boys.
Wonderful drama … Jon Pointing and Dylan Llewellyn in Big Boys. Photograph: Channel 4/ Kevin Baker

Big Boys

10pm, Channel 4

Based on creator Jack Rooke’s coming-of-age years, this wonderful six-part comedy-drama will have you laughing then bawling in the opening two minutes. It follows Jack (a superbly cast Dylan Llewellyn as “a closeted mummy’s boy with a newly dead dad and a crap perm”). Despite not wanting to leave his mum, he takes the leap to university, where he shares accommodation with Danny (Jon Pointing) – a mature student who wants a wingman for pulling “fit birds”. Cue an unexpected friendship between the two as they support each other while navigating grief, sexuality and mental health issues. With Rooke narrating, this is really beautiful television. Hollie Richardson

The Flight Attendant

9pm, Sky Max

Kaley Cuoco returns as trouble-prone Cassie for a second season of this black comedy-drama. Cassie is now sober and in a good place as she continues to serve the skies. She is also casually moonlighting as a CIA agent in Berlin. Kicking off with a double bill tonight, she soon becomes entangled in another murder – and the strain of it all could cause her to lapse back into drinking. HR

The Prince’s Trust Awards

8.30pm, ITV

Last year, this ceremony – celebrating the extraordinary achievements of young people – was so emotional it drew tears from celebrity ambassadors such as Hugh Dennis, Richard E Grant and Kate Garraway. Expect similarly moving tales from this year’s event – televised for the first time in its 17 years and hosted by Ant and Dec. HR

Art That Made Us

9pm, BBC Two

Amma Asante and Charlie Phillips in Art That Made Us.
Film-maker Amma Asante and photographer Charlie Phillips in Art That Made Us. Photograph: Duane McClunie/BBC/ClearStory/Menace

In the final part, lesser-sung British pop artist Pauline Boty features among the profiled post-second world war creatives, who shook up the old order. Lesley Sharp reads from A Taste of Honey, Liv Wynter hails Tracey Emin, and we meet photographer Charlie Phillips, who documented the changing community of 60s Notting Hill. Ali Catterall

The Staircase

9pm, Sky Atlantic

We return to 2001, and Thanksgiving has made ill-fated Kathleen anxious. Five tumultuous years later, film editor Sophie (a brilliant late-season entry by Juliette Binoche) begins following her own lead. If you’ve kept up with this true crime’s multilayered structure, the narrative richness is really starting to pay off. Henry Wong

PRU

10pm, BBC Three

After last year’s pilot, this fractious sitcom, set in a pupil referral unit, returns for a four-episode run. Volatile fashionista Belle (Pia Somersby) and restless Halil (Jaye Ersavas) are among the excluded kids being schooled by harried teachers. The result is plausibly in-your-face, but with real sweetness beneath the classroom aggro. Graeme Virtue

Film choice

Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine in Suspicion.
Between bliss and fear … Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine in Suspicion. Photograph: Rko/Allstar

Suspicion, (Alfred Hitchcock, 1941), 9pm, BBC Four
Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller was the first of four fruitful collaborations with Cary Grant, though it’s the only one where his leading man plays a bit of a wrong ’un. Grant’s Johnnie is an eligible bachelor, though a bit “wild” – but for general’s daughter Lina (Joan Fontaine) he represents the excitement she can’t find in her comfortable, rural life. However, after they elope, she realises he is an inveterate gambler and liar, heavily in debt and, she suspects, capable of murder – for financial gain. Fontaine won an Oscar for her role, seesawing convincingly between bliss and fear. Simon Wardell

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