What’s on TV and radio this weekend — Saturday, March 8 and Sunday, March 9

Live Six Nations
ITV, from 1.25pm
Last week’s fallow fixture list will only heighten anticipation for the big tie of the championship, Ireland v France. The men in green are hoping for a third consecutive title, and while playing brilliantly of late, they are slightly vulnerable in some areas. France, smarting from a narrow loss to England, dispatched Italy in style recently and know they can make proper amends (ITV, 1.25pm, kick-off 2.15pm). Later on it’s Scotland v Wales, with the Scots also smarting from a slender loss to England. The out-of-form Welsh will be hoping to capitalise on the fighting spirit they showed in their last (lost) match against the Irish (BBC1, 4pm, kick-off 4.45pm). Tomorrow sees England at home to Italy (kick-off 3pm).

Bob Dylan: No Direction Home — Part 1/Part 2
BBC2, 9pm/10.55pm
Another chance to see Martin Scorsese’s pitch-perfect documentary following Bob Dylan’s early career from 1961 to 1966. While it presents an eye-opening close-up view of this Nobel prizewinner and his music, and contains interviews with the man himself, he manages to remain frustratingly elusive. That is probably how he wanted it to be, although interviews with collaborators such as Joan Baez and others flesh the story out nicely and allow these heady, changin’ times to be expertly chronicled.

• At 83, what drives Bob Dylan? We ask the people who know him best

Meghan & Harry: American Nightmare
Channel 5, 9.15pm
“Are they grifters? Are they bullies? Will they sell anyone out for a dollar? Are they only out for themselves?” You probably already have in your head firm answers to the questions asked by Channel 5 before their latest royal rehash. Coming a few days after the scheduled broadcast of Meghan’s latest Netflix simper, this takes a less PR-friendly view, focusing on their role as “disaster tourists” in the wake of the LA fires and the mounting hostility towards them.

• Inside Montecito, Harry and Meghan’s super-rich home town

Streaming choice, by Andrew Male

Walter Presents: Evilside
Channel 4
In a bleak, isolated fishing village in northern Finland, a group of bored teenagers kill time by listening to death metal and pretending to be Satanists. Then matters turn deadly when their leader turns up dead, his eyes gouged from their sockets. Looks like a job for Detective Ulla Penttinen (Amira Khalifa). So far, so Nordic. Rather than follow Ulla in her investigations, the writer-director team of Jussi Hiltunen and Aleksi Puranen focus their attentions on the chief suspect, Johanna (Olivia Ainali), a bullied outcast. The result is a slow-burn procedural and a study in teen loneliness that hits hard.

Film choice, by Wendy Ide

The Ipcress File (PG, 1965)
BBC2, 1.05pm
Michael Caine is Harry Palmer, a mid-ranking Ministry of Defence official and the ultimate anti-007. While James Bond is bereft without his props, Palmer relies on his Cockney smarts. He is assigned the case of a missing doctor who has some files that could prove problematic in the wrong hands. However, while Palmer is out in the field, his immediate superior, Dalby (Nigel Green), is busy double-dealing with the enemy. And it turns out that Palmer is a pawn in the game. (107min)

Funeral In Berlin (PG, 1966)
BBC2, 2.50pm
The second in Michael Caine’s trilogy as the East End’s very own James Bond, Harry Palmer. This time Harry is in Cold War Berlin arranging the defection of a Soviet spy, Colonel Stok (Oskar Homolka), who is due to be sneaked out of the country in a coffin (while still alive, hopefully). There is, of course, skulduggery afoot and Palmer finds himself in peril that involves, to Palmer’s obvious delight, a beautiful model named Samantha Steel (Eva Renzi). Tough job, Harry, but someone has to do it. Guy Hamilton — Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever — directs. (102min) Chris Bennion

• The best films of 2025 so far, as chosen by our critics

Radio choice, by Clair Woodward

Opera On 3
Radio 3, 6pm
As part of the station’s all-day celebration of International Women’s Day, a performance of Ethel Smyth’s The Forest with John Andrews conducting a cast of British soloists with the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Orchestra. Throughout the day, artists including Joyce DiDonato, Marin Alsop and Evelyn Glennie discuss the transformative power of music.

Michelle Keegan and Faye Marsay star in Ten Pound Poms on BBC1

LISA TOMISETTI

Sunday

Viewing guide, by Joe Clay

Ten Pound Poms
BBC1, 8pm
“In England they showed us great big houses and great big gardens and told us all this could be yours,” says Terry Roberts (Warren Brown) to an Australian official. “It was just a pack of lies, wasn’t it?” The gap between dreams and reality hasn’t narrowed much as the second series of Danny Brocklehurst’s down-under drama begins; the English families lured to Australia by the “assisted passage” scheme — with the promise of a new life — are still struggling to adapt, with Terry, his wife Annie (Faye Marsay), their children and grandchild unhappy with hostel life. A fantasy sequence of 1950s domestic bliss poignantly shows their aspirations, but an unlikely new job offer promises a change of luck. Meanwhile, heightening the melodrama, Michelle Keegan’s Kate is still on a mission to keep the son who was taken away from her. No easy journeys here. Victoria Segal

Inside Classical: BBC Singers Centenary Concert
BBC4, 9pm
On October 2, 1924, the BBC Wireless Chorus gave their first performance, Rutland Boughton’s Immortal Hour. Now called the BBC Singers — and having survived the threat of disbandment in 2023 — they celebrated their 100th birthday with this concert hosted by Clive Myrie and Georgia Mann at the Barbican in London in October 2024. As well as music associated with the group such as Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, there’s a tour of musicals by Iain Farrington and a world premiere of Inform, Educate and Entertain, written by Roderick Williams, their composer in association. The highlight for our critic, Richard Morrison, in a four-star review, was “when the National Youth Voices joined the Singers for a skimming, virtuosic performance of Shruthi Rajasekar’s clever, funny little piece Numbers”.

• The best classical albums of 2025 so far: our critics pick their favourite releases

Towards Zero
BBC1, 9pm
The screenwriter Rachel Bennette had to make some key changes to the 1944 Agatha Christie novel on which this three-part series is based. Notably, the creation of the character of Inspector Leach (Matthew Rhys). She felt that the drama needed a singular detective to “crack this extremely convoluted case” rather than the trio of investigators, including Superintendent Battle, from the original novel. And the tortured Leach could maybe do with the extra help after a shocking murder at Gull’s Point.

The Great Pottery Throw Down
Channel 4, 9pm
It’s time for the final of the pottery competition, with the 12 hopefuls who started the competition chipped down to just three. As befits this stage, the challenges are even tricker than usual, with the finalists first charged with making Greek amphoras — a two-handled storage jug that was used to hold oil, wine, milk or grain. The second challenge is being kept under wraps, but it will involve “extreme throwing” — and tears from the judge Keith Brymer Jones, no doubt.

Streaming choice, by Victoria Segal

Belgravia: The Next Chapter
ITVX
The first series of Belgravia was somewhat overshadowed by Bridgerton’s flashy deepfake Georgian romance, but Julian Fellowes’s costume drama is now back for a second series, set in 1871 — and the mood of heated intrigue remains steady. At the season’s core is Frederick Trenchard (Benjamin Wainwright), the troubled lord traumatised by his brutal upbringing, and his love interest Clara Dunn (Harriet Slater), a country girl newly arrived in London after the death of her father. It’s a handsome romp, with all the corset-wearing signifiers in place: alluring vicars, heavily symbolic horse riding and men who need fixing in the Mr Darcy style.

Film choice, by Ed Potton

Get Carter (18, 1971)
BBC2, 10pm
Has Michael Caine been cooler than as the London gangster investigating his brother’s death in Newcastle? Even naked he totes a shotgun with elan. Dismissed by many on its release, Mike Hodges’s film was championed in the Nineties by Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie, who filled their films with stylish brutality and pithy psychos. While the violence won’t raise eyebrows in 2024, the treatment of women may. Stripped, slapped, subjected to awkward phone sex, drowned in a submerged car — Britt Ekland, Geraldine Moffat and their fellow actresses don’t fare well. (112min)

Jack Reacher (15, 2012)
ITV1, 10.15pm
When Jack Reacher walks into a bar, the punters turn instinctively, like dogs that have just caught the scent of a sausage on a barbecue. The men nod their approval, acknowledging the alpha male in their midst; the women gaze at him covetously. Casting Tom Cruise as the former military policeman Reacher is far-fetched to say the least. That said, this is enjoyably boisterous. The director Christopher McQuarrie brings little that is new to the formula, but what he does, he does well. The opening car chase, which sets up the crime at the centre of the story, is efficiently mounted. (130min) Wendy Ide

Radio choice, by Clair Woodward

Drama on 3
Radio 3, 8pm
The Defectors is a cleverly constructed drama-documentary inspired by the defection of Thae Yong-ho, North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the UK, in 2016. Presented by the Asia expert Paul French, with drama by Al Smith, the piece is also interwoven with the astonishing stories of those who escaped the country to find a home in the UK. The ludicrousness of life in the North Korean embassy — a suburban house in Ealing — is portrayed, with an insane story of escorting Kim Jong-un’s half-brother to an Eric Clapton gig, but the fear of the terrible consequences of stepping out of line isn’t so funny. Stars Andrew Leung as Thae Yong-ho.

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