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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Phil Harrison, Ali Catterall, Graeme Virtue, Ellen E Jones and Simon Wardell

TV tonight: Snoop Dogg, Tom Cruise and Billie Eilish close the Olympics

Snoop Dogg will perform at the Olympics closing ceremony
Snoop Dogg will perform at the Olympics closing ceremony Photograph: Carl Recine/Getty Images

Olympics: Paris 2024 – Closing Ceremony

7pm, BBC One

The closing ceremony promises Tom Cruise rappelling off the Stade de France, along with performances by Billie Eilish, Snoop Dogg and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Before all that, though, Clare Balding revisits the defining stories and images from this year’s games, then hands over to Hazel Irvine and Andrew Cotter. After the entirely absurd furore over the opening ceremony, which elements of the night’s festivities will fragile rightwing types decide to be offended by this time? Phil Harrison

Eisteddfod 2024 With Huw Stephens

7pm, BBC Four

The annual Welsh festival of the performing arts gets under way in Pontypridd. In two back-to-back programmes, Stephens meets the new Archdruid, poet Mererid Hopwood, checks out an adaptation of rock opera Nia Ben Aur and attends a candlelit concert paying tribute to singer, pianist and composer Morfydd Llwyn Owen, who died in 1918. PH

Titanic in Colour

8pm, Channel 4

Now we get to see how accurate James Cameron’s vision was: thanks to newly colourised footage (admittedly from the Titanic’s sister ship, Olympic), here’s a modernised glimpse into what life on board the doomed behemoth must have been like. In this second episode, relatives of the passengers explore the tragedy’s lasting impact on their families. Ali Catterall

NYO Plays Mahler’s First at the Proms

8pm, BBC Four

Good news for fans of Gustav Mahler’s early work: the National Youth Orchestra tackle his bright Symphony No 1 as the centrepiece of this Prom. The programme also includes Wagner’s Flying Dutchman overture, Missy Mazzoli’s dramatic Orpheus Undone and a world premiere from NYO artist-in-residence Dani Howard. Graeme Virtue

Vienna Blood

9pm, BBC Two

All those risky rooftop chases and fin-de-siècle fisticuffs have finally waylaid the detective-doctor duo in this closing episode, with Max (Matthew Beard) in hospital and Oskar (Juergen Maurer) holding himself responsible. Meanwhile, Mephisto, the mysterious traitor, is still at large, with a dark influence that reaches into all areas of Austro-Hungarian society. Ellen E Jones

The Body Next Door

9pm, Sky Documentaries

A true-crime series exploring a disturbing 2015 case. The village of Beddau in south Wales was shaken by a macabre discovery: a medical skeleton used in a prank was revealed to be an actual dead body. But who was the victim? And who was responsible ? PH

Film choice

Close Encounters of the Third Kind 4.05pm, Film4

Steven Spielberg’s greatest film built on the blockbuster format he invented in Jaws, with epic sci-fi set pieces and state-of-the-art effects that still pass muster. But hidden in there – and possibly only noticeable to grownups – is a dark tale of family disintegration. Roy Neary’s obsession with extraterrestrials (captured superbly by a sweaty, manic Richard Dreyfuss) creates a distance between him and his wife and kids – which can’t be resolved by the revelation that aliens exist. It’s an exhilarating adventure, but an absent father on a spaceship is still an absent father … Simon Wardell

Dial M for Murder, 4.15pm, BBC Two

Shot in 3D, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller is a minor entry in his illustrious body of work – and it does betray its stage origins – but it zips along effortlessly. Ray Milland, as a man plotting the killing of his unfaithful wife (Grace Kelly), is clearly enjoying playing a would-be criminal mastermind. There’s also a smart cameo from John Williams, who had already won a Tony as the sly chief inspector who calls on him. Of course, the most notable appearance is the giant puppet finger dialing a giant prop phone, created at that scale to show up in focus in the hefty 3D camera. SW

Three Thousand Years of Longing, 9pm, Film4

In between Mad Max outings, George Miller let his imagination run riot with AS Byatt’s short story, a seductive riff on the world of the Arabian Nights. Tilda Swinton is a narratologist who tells her own “once upon a time” tale about an antique glass bottle and the giant djinn (Idris Elba) it contained. She’s wary of the three wishes he offers but is captivated by his long, magical life, involving the likes of Sheba and Solomon, enslaved girls and sultans, and repressed female creativity. SW

I Am Not Your Negro, 11.55pm, BBC Four

African-American writer James Baldwin was such an eloquent, incisive thinker that it is rewarding to listen to him opine on any topic. Raoul Peck’s documentary gives us plenty of him, either in archive footage or via Samuel L Jackson’s readings, but is based on Baldwin’s own, unfinished, book about three men he knew – Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Medgar Evers – all civil rights activists, all murdered. His recollections of them, added to his own experience, make him a valuable witness to the history of Black people in America – which, he asserted, is the history of America. Thought-provoking stuff. SW

Live sport

Olympics 2024, 6.50am, BBC One The concluding day of the games, with the women’s marathon, plus finals in track cycling and the modern pentathlon.

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