Time to say goodbye to Saturday Night Takeaway!
This week's best telly includes a two-hour celebration of hit sitcom Bottom, a two-hour highlights show of this year's Olivier Awards, hosted by Hannah Waddingham and Ant & Dec bid a fond farewell to Saturday Night Takeaway in a spectacular two-hour live finale!
Elsewhere, Alison Hammond takes over from the late Paul O'Grady on For the Love Dogs, Blue Lights is back for a second series and there are new comedies Changing Ends and Mammoth to enjoy.
Here are 7 TV shows you can't miss this week...
1. Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway
Saturday 13th April at 7pm on ITV1
FINAL EPISODE
All good things must come to an end and this week that's true for Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, which is ending after 22 years and 20 series, and it's going out in style as the boys take over Television Centre for an extended two-hour live finale.
Throughout the live extravaganza, Girls Aloud will be the final Star Guest Announcers, there'll be a supersized Singalong Live with S Club, Tony Hadley and Kaiser Chiefs, the final part of Ant & Dec’s comeuppance in Get Out Of Me Ear: The Revenge and Ring My Bell returns for its final outing.
Ant vs Dec will be ending how it started, with a football penalty shootout, the very first game they played in series 5 in 2005, with Stephen Mulhern being joined by Kirsty Gallacher and Ashley Roberts, bringing all three Ant vs Dec hosts together for the first time.
Joining Ant & Dec live in the studio will be Simon Cowell, Davina McCall, Rylan, Oti Mabuse, Amanda Holden, Dermot O'Leary, Craig David and Alison Hammond and Jordan North, Josie Gibson and Scarlett Moffatt will be bringing joy for unsuspecting members of the public.
Elsewhere, there's the happiest minute of all time, a special montage of some of the show's best bits from the past 20 series, Win the Ads will have the biggest prize pot in the show's history and Andi Peters will present his final Saturday Night Takeaway competition plus more live surprises and an amazing End of the Show Show!
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2. The Olivier Awards 2024
Sunday 14th April at 10.10pm on ITV1
RETURNING AWARDS
It's the biggest night in British theatre and West End Superstar Hannah Waddingham returns to host this year's Olivier Awards from the Royal Albert Hall as we find out who has won the 26 coveted awards including Best Actress, Best Actor, the Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director and Best New Musical.
Highlights airing on ITV1 will include a spectacular performance from Guys & Dolls, which is up for nine nominations, as well as a very special star-studded performance celebrating the National Theatre’s 60th anniversary.
Those hoping to win on the night, include Sheridan Smith, David Tennant, Sarah Jessica Parker, Joseph Fiennes, James Norton, Sarah Snook, Sophie Okonedo, Sam Mendes, Nicole Scherzinger and Marisha Wallace.
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3. Blue Lights
Monday 15th April at 9pm on BBC One
RETURNING DRAMA
It launched to more than 7 million viewers was in the top 10 new drama series across all broadcasters and streamers in 2023, and now BBC One's Blue Lights is back for a second series, with a further two series already confirmed.
One year on from series one, Belfast city centre is awash with drugs and beset by street crime and response officers Grace, Annie and Tommy are no longer wide-eyed rookies. And they begin to feel the personal and psychological effects of relentless and punishing police work.
A year into the job, the team are faced with a drug-fuelled crime wave that leads them into a loyalist estate and a violent clash puts Stevie and Grace’s working relationship at risk.
1/6 Continues weekly. All episodes available from 6am on BBC iPlayer
4. For the Love of Dogs with Alison Hammond
Tuesday 16th April at 8pm on ITV1
RETURNING FACTUAL
Following the sad passing of much-loved presenter Paul O’Grady last spring, For The Love of Dogs is returning to ITV1 with Alison Hammond heading to Battersea Dogs & Cats Home to help the animals in their care look for a new place to live.
With more abandoned and stray dogs in need of care than ever, Alison tells the stories of some of the latest arrivals at Battersea before rolling up her sleeves and helping the expert staff and volunteers to take care of the animals and get them ready for their potential new owners.
1/6 Continues weekly
5. Changing Ends
Tuesday 16th April at 8.30pm on ITV1
NEW COMEDY
With a second series due to air later this summer, Alan Carr's I Talk Telly Award winning sitcom Changing Ends, makes its ITV1 premiere this week having aired on ITVX last year.
Based on Alan Carr's life growing up in Northampton in the 1980s as the son of a Fourth Division football manager, Changing Ends sees Alan star as himself in the present day, with Oliver Savell playing young Alan.
Co-written by Alan Carr and Simon Carlyle, the six-part comedy is more than just a trip down memory lane, it’s a love letter to a time and a town where things weren’t always so inclusive. Told with warmth and wit, it follows Alan’s journey through puberty, adolescence, and finally self-discovery, all against the backdrop of Thatcher’s Britain.
As showcased in many of Alan’s stand-up shows, his experience as a gay teenager in the East Midlands is a veritable treasure trove with a rich comedic seam, whether it’s his sexual awakenings, his daily battle with bullies or navigating the highs and lows of Fourth Division football. It’s about school and family, Kevin Keegan and George Michael, and figuring out who you are when your family are Match of the Day and you’re a bit Miss Marple.
Changing Ends also stars Shaun Dooley and Nancy Sullivan as Alan’s parents Graham and Christine and Taylor Fay as his younger brother Gary.
1/6 Continues weekly. All episodes available now on ITVX
6. Mammoth
Wednesday 17th April at 10pm on BBC Two
NEW COMEDY
Cceated by Mike Bubbins and co-written with Paul Doolan, BBC Two's new comedy Mammoth, follows Tony Mammoth who in 1979 is presumed killed in an Alpine avalanche, but discovered and brought back to life in the present day.
In the first episode, PE teacher Tony Mammoth comes back from the dead and with his old job back, is determined to approach it the same way as the 70s, including parents evening.
Along the way, he finds out he has a lot more in common with a pupil’s mum than he thought. Mel, played by Sian Gibson, is a single parent and working mother to her teenage son, Theo who she will do anything for.
1/3 Continues weekly. All episodes available from 6am on BBC iPlayer
7. Bottom: Exposed
Thursday 18th April at 9pm on GOLD
NEW DOCUMENTARY
This week, GOLD are celebrating the much-loved sitcom Bottom, which spanned eighteen episodes across three series from 1991 to 1995, as well as five sell-out stage shows.
Co-creator and star Adrian Edmondson gives a first-hand personal account of makingthe hit show with the late, great Rik Mayall, alongside contributions from a host of the show’s cast, crew, and famous fans, plus narration from Stephen Fry.
Brimming with classic clips and rarely seen deleted scenes and out-takes feature throughout, Bottom: Exposed reminds us of the funniest moments and the brilliance of the show’s creators and stars.
More than thirty years since the perennially sex-starved duo, Richard Richard and Eddie Hitler, first graced our screens with their deranged mix of immature perving and extreme violence, we’ll find out how Rik and Ade’s friendship was born, how the show was devised and we’ll hear the previously untold story of how the most chaotic, rude and coarse sitcom actually snuck its way onto our screens … and how it stayed there.
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