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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Hollie Richardson, Graeme Virtue and Simon Wardell

TV tonight: the nation’s favourite telly of the year is revealed

Joel Dommett hosts the National Television Awards, broadcast live from the O2.
Joel Dommett hosts the National Television Awards, broadcast live from the O2. Photograph: ITV

The National Television Awards 2023

8pm, ITV1

Is Blue Lights the nation’s favourite new drama? Is Race Across the World more worthy of “best reality competition” than The Traitors? How many more awards will Ant and Dec take home to add to their collections? All the answers will be revealed as the TV awards voted for by the UK public are back, with Joel Dommett hosting the ceremony at London’s O2 Arena. Hollie Richardson

Celebrity MasterChef

8pm, BBC One

Another lively series enters the endgame and while telly favourites Sam Fox and Dave Benson Phillips crashed out early, there are still five famous faces in the running. By Friday’s final, only three will remain – the first hurdle is to rustle up a Scouts feast over an open flame. Graeme Virtue

Bake Off: The Professionals – The Final

8pm, Channel 4

The roaring 20s-themed finale sees the three remaining teams face two days of challenges, including creating a dessert trolley loaded with a chiffon pie, decadence jelly and baked alaska. Then they put together a beautiful banquet display for 80 people. HR

The Following Events are Based on a Pack of Lies

9pm, BBC One

The oddball comedy thriller about two women conned by the same man continues. Alice hatches a plan to befriend Cheryl as a way to get close to Rob, and uses her dog as a pawn. But will Rob catch her out first? HR

Henpocalypse!

10pm, BBC Two

The end-of-days hen do becomes even more chaotic. Jen (the hen with the leg injury) has recovered and run off with her Danny Dyer hallucination, bride Zara still thinks the masterplan is to reunite with her groom, Bern, the mother of the bride propositions imprisoned stripper Drew and chief bridesmaid Shelley thinks she’s pregnant … with Gary’s baby. HR

Dispatches: Sri Lanka’s Easter Bombings

11.05pm, Channel 4

In a report that reveals shocking new allegations, whistleblowers give their extraordinary testimony for the first time about the Easter attacks that killed 269 people in Sri Lanka in 2019. They put forward evidence alleging top-level complicity by Sri Lankan government officials. HR

Film choice

Olivia Colman and Peter Mullan in Tyrannosaur, directed by Paddy Considine.
Olivia Colman and Peter Mullan in Tyrannosaur, directed by Paddy Considine. Photograph: Cinematic/Alamy

Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine, 2011), 11.25pm, Film4
A double bill directed by actor Paddy Considine, starting with Tyrannosaur, his debut feature, for which he won a Bafta. Tyrannosaur is a brutal, deeply affecting tale. The first scene, in which Peter Mullan’s character Joseph kicks his dog to death, sets the tone: there is little light in this jobless, haunted man’s life until he meets charity shop worker Hannah (Olivia Colman). His (self-)loathing begins to ebb but Christian kindness masks terrors in her life. It’s a tough watch, but Mullan and Colman make these damaged souls wholly believable. It is followed by Considine’s boxing drama Journeyman (2017) at 1.25am. Simon Wardell

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