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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Phil Harrison, Graeme Virtue, Hollie Richardson, Nicole Vassell and Simon Wardell

TV tonight: the surprising personal tapes of Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes on Sky Documentaries.
Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes on Sky Documentaries. Photograph: HBO

Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes

9pm, Sky Documentaries

Nanette Burstein’s fascinating film uses recently discovered audio tapes from 1964 to offer a new perspective on the film star. She frequently seems a surprisingly vulnerable figure, insecure about her art and her often volatile personal life. But she’s also very entertaining, perceptive and self-aware, talking candidly about her treatment by male directors and the line she drew between her flesh-and-blood life and the “cellophane” unreality of her public persona. Phil Harrison

Olympics: Paris 2024

5.50pm, BBC One

Gold rush: it is the climax of the athletics at the Stade de France, with eight finals including the men’s 800m, the women’s 100m hurdles and both 4x400m relays. Elsewhere, Team GB will be hoping to get medals in the boxing, pentathlon and taekwondo. A packed night, then, but Clare Balding and Gabby Logan will be across all the action. Graeme Virtue

WW2: Women on the Frontline

7pm, Channel 4

More tales of heroism from the unseen female heroes of the second world war. This week, the astonishing Night Witches, a Russian air battalion led by Marina Raskova whose modus operandi involved turning off their plane engines and gliding silently towards their targets to avoid detection. PH

Britain’s Most Beautiful Road

8pm, Channel 4

At Dunnet Bay Distillery on the northern section of Scotland’s North Coast 500, the team are expanding their vodka range with a plant that ancient druids used as a flavouring. Elsewhere on route, caber tossing is the main event at the Assynt Highland Games. HR

Changing Ends

9.45pm, ITV1

As the lovable comedy based on Alan Carr’s childhood wraps up its second series, we find young Alan at a tough time. With shock changes at school and his football manager dad (Shaun Dooley) bringing his stress home, Alan – played by a wonderful Oliver Savell – seeks a much-needed escape. Nicole Vassell

Love & Death

10.35pm, ITV1

The gripping true story of a brutal murder in Texas suburbia continues. A shocked and dazed Candy (Elizabeth Olsen) attempts to maintain a veneer of normality as events begin to escalate out of her control. However, she can’t hold back the nightmare of police involvement for ever. PH

Film choice

Taxi Driver, 11.35pm, Great! Movies

It may be a blast from the past in its depiction of New York as incorrigibly dirty, sleazy and crime-ridden, but Martin Scorsese’s 1976 urban drama endures as a compelling study of social alienation and skewed morality. In Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle it has the ideal, endlessly quotable antihero – a “man who would not take it any more” but whose rage and incoherence lead him to extreme measures. Bernard Herrmann’s jagged, jazzy score ups the ante while the neon-lit city comes across as thrilling and dangerous in equal measure. Simon Wardell

Live sport

Olympics 2024, 6.45am, BBC One The men’s marathon, plus finals of diving and eight athletics events.

Racing: Ascot, 1.10pm, ITV4 The Shergar Cup, plus racing from Haydock Park and Newmarket.

The Hundred Men’s Cricket: Southern Brave v Trent Rockets, 2.15pm, BBC Two The women’s match is at 10.30am on Sky Sports Cricket. Welsh Fire Men v Birmingham Phoenix Men is on Sky Sports Cricket at 5.30pm.

A Community Shield Football: Man United v Man City, 2.15pm, ITV1 The season curtain-raiser at Wembley, with City manager Pep Guardiola hoping for a different result from when the sides met in May’s FA Cup final.

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