An Evening with Take That

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9pm Saturday, BBC1

There’s no escape from Take That on TV at the moment. They’ve spent weeks searching for five performers for the touring musical The Band through BBC1’s Let It Shine, helped James Corden with a spot of Carpool Karaoke (brilliantly funny), allowed Ant and Dec to sing with the band for an evening in Saturday Night Takeaway and even graced the front cover of Radio Times for Comic Relief.

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What next, world domination? Well no. Instead, Gary, Howard and Mark are inviting us to join them in Wonderland for this special concert, which hadn’t been recorded when RT went to press. Intriguingly, they promise a magical show “set in a unique world where all is not what it seems” and have asked fans to come dressed in creative costumes.

As the outlandish outfits Take That wore on Takeaway came in for some flak from viewers, who thought they looked like PJs made from old carpets, we should be prepared for something eccentric.

ITV Racing Live

2pm Saturday (big race 5.15pm), ITV

Ed Chamberlin presents live coverage from Aintree of four races at 2.25, 3.00, 3.40 and 4.20 - ahead of the Randox Health Grand National itself. With analysis from AP McCoy, Mick Fitzgerald, Luke Harvey and Brian Gleeson, commentary by Richard Hoiles and reports from Brough Scott, Matt Chapman, Oli Bell and Alice Plunkett.

Line of Duty

Sunday 9pm, BBC1

Edgar Allan Poe wrote a short story, The Tell-Tale Heart, where a murderer became convinced he could hear the heartbeat of his victim. Detective Chief Inspector Roz Huntley doesn’t have a tell-tale heart, but she has a tell-tale wrist, a constant, harrowing reminder of a wicked, wicked deed.

That deep, bloody, defensive wound is clearly becoming increasingly troublesome and painful the more she tries to hide it. She sneaks into the bathroom to change her inadequate plasters and frets at the gory scratches as she walks into her office.

Though Roz (Thandie Newton) is coming under heavy pressure from dogged Detective Sergeant Steve Arnott, she isn’t about to run. If anything, she’s more audacious the closer Steve comes to ruffling her calm. It’s an outrageous episode from writer Jed Mercurio that will leave you winded. You’ve been warned.

Vera

8pm Sunday, ITV

A geological survey team is digging on top of the moors when, of course, they find a body. It’s Mia Hinkin, an 18-year-old girl missing for six weeks.

The discovery hurls DCI Vera Stanhope into the unfamiliar territory of social networking and rock gigs. There are some terrifically pedestrian pretend band names on posters plastered to Mia’s walls – Miniature Squirrel, Daughters of Fate, Oblivious Petal. They are so awful it’s rather sweet.

As her sidekick Joe explains to Vera (Brenda Blethyn) what a “retweet” is, the pair are unlikely additions to central Newcastle’s heaving nightlife as they trace the victim’s last movements. As witnesses are interviewed a picture of an unhappy girl trapped by a drab life on a remote farm emerges. And someone says, “It’s probably nothing.” But it’s always something.

The Boxtrolls

4.45pm, C4

Those with a soft spot for chaotic critters will delight in this fun, aesthetically appealing adaptation of Alan Snow's illustrated novelHere Be Monsters!. Produced by the stop-motion animation studio behind ParaNorman and Coraline, the film is set in Cheesebridge, a towering town whose populace live in fear of the eponymous beasties.

Isaac Hempstead-Wright provides the voice for the boy raised by these misunderstood nocturnal creatures, with Elle Fanning as the lonely girl he befriends. However, the young leads are a touch wan so it's up to the adult cast (including Richard Ayoade, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) to get their teeth into their larger-than-life characters.

Although the film suffers from a simplistic, sometimes rushed, plot, the right-on script scatters moral messages among the anarchy by taking a pop at wasteful aristocrats and the ruthlessly aspirational (epitomised by Ben Kingsley's dastardly troll-exterminator), while cheeringly championing the demonised little guys.

Indeed, the blue-skinned, miscellaneously misshapen boxtrolls are a triumph of design and painstaking execution, with their glow-in-the-dark eyes providing ample wow factor.

Rio Ferdinand: Being Mum and Dad

iPlayer

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Rio Ferdinand lost his wife, Rebecca, to breast cancer two years ago. In this heartbreaking documentary he explores the ways bereaved parents cope with grief and shape new lives for themselves and their children.

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