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TV tonight: jazz club crooning, dad dancing and Simply Red hits

TV tonight features Simply Red's 40th anniversary, live sport and more. Catch the best shows and matches on BBC, Channel 4, and Sky Sports.

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Editorial Team
May 9, 2026
4 min read
40 Years of Simply Red: Holding Back the Years 10.15pm, BBC Two Jazz club crooning and dad dancing ahoy as Mick Hucknall and pals take an adoring audience at Santiago’s Movistar Arena in Chile through four decades of slick blue-eyed soul hits. The passing of time doesn’t seem to have wearied Hucknall’s pipes to any degree so expect pitch-perfect takes on tunes ranging from early banger Money’s Too Tight (to Mention) to eternal midlife crisis anthem Holding Back the Years. Phil Harrison World’s Most Secret Hotels 8pm, Channel 4 This travel-cum-interiors show continues, featuring a Swiss mountain retreat, a reimagined lighthouse with a wood-fitted luxury hotel pod at the top, a spooky inn in Rye and a brutalist classic in Mexico. The wow factor is high and makes your average Airbnb look a bit shabby. Priya Elan Angela Rippon’s River Cruises 8pm, Channel 5 Future episodes will see her navigate the Mekong in south-east Asia but national treasure Rippon begins her new travelogue in Europe with a deluxe trip on the Danube. Highlights include a waltz masterclass at a dance school in Vienna and apricot jam-making at the gorgeous Göttweig Abbey near Krems. Graeme Virtue Horsing around ... Great River Cruises with Angela Rippon on Channel 5. Photograph: 5 Broadcasting Limited/JetSetTV Ltd Casualty 8.45pm, BBC One After the army turns up to the site of an explosion on a housing estate, it looks likely that the source is linked to patients with breathing difficulties and, more troublingly, a number of premature, sick babies. Elsewhere, Stevie’s habit of freestyling her pain medication is affecting her bedside manner. PE The Count of Monte Cristo 9pm, BBC Four Between spindly, historically correct moustaches, some very expensive-looking hats and much impassioned chest beating, this Pathé adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ morality tale has been melodrama with a capital M. As we approach the finish line, can Edmond hold his nerve, or will his conscience get the better of him? PE Saturday Night Live UK 9pm, Sky One The penultimate episode of this generally cheerful surprise of a series is hosted by the magnetic Hannah Waddingham, who is getting out and about ahead of the fourth season of Ted Lasso. There’s also music from Brit award-winning Myles Smith. PH Film choice Remarkably Bright Creatures, out now, Netflix High-five ... Sally Field befriends an octopus in Remarkably Bright Creatures on Netflix. Photograph: Courtesy of Netflix Based on the bestselling novel by Shelby Van Pelt, Olivia Newman’s drama is full of hugs and learning. That the hugs come from a Giant Pacific octopus is the main quirk in an otherwise reassuring yarn touching on old age and family, grief and regret. Sally Field is the film’s strong centre as Tova, a no-nonsense cleaner at the aquarium where Marcellus – the cephalopod who narrates the story – lives. But the perceptive Marcellus has spied a hole in the widow’s heart. Can he help heal it, by way of rootless young musician Cameron (Lewis Pullman)? Simon Wardell Field of Dreams, 6pm, ITV4 “If you build it, he will come.” This is merely the first of several ghostly commands Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner in solid everyman form) hears that inspire him to build a baseball ground in his cornfield, then go on a series of barely comprehended quests across the country. These involve a disgraced baseball star (Ray Liotta), James Earl Jones’s disillusioned radical writer and a small-town doctor (Burt Lancaster). Phil Alden Robinson’s delightful film uses fantasy elements to explore missed opportunities and faded hopes – and how we go about fixing them. S W The Hitcher, 9pm, 1.10am, Legend Xtra Rutger Hauer brings his devil-may-care charm to Robert Harmon’s supremely efficient thriller about a teenager who picks up a serial killer on a desert highway. “My mother told me never to do this,” says C Thomas Howell’s Jim Halsey when he pulls over for Hauer’s hitch-hiker John Ryder one stormy night. Clearly you should always listen to your mother, as John proceeds to butcher anyone the kid comes into contact with. A gripping cat-and-mouse game played out across gas stations, motels, diners and miles of empty road. SW Live sport Cycling, Giro d’Italia, 9.30am, TNT Sports 3 Stage 2 in Bulgaria. Premier League Football: Liverpool v Chelsea, 11am, TNT Sports 1 Man City v Brentford is at 5pm on Sky Sports Main Event. Championship Football: Middlesbrough v Southampton, noon, Sky Sports Main Event The playoff semi-final, first leg. The second leg is on Tue at 7pm. Millwall v Hull second leg is on Mon at 7.30pm on Sky Sports Football. Women’s Six Nations Rugby : Italy v England, 1.30pm, BBC Two Scotland v France follows at 4pm. Challenge Cup Rugby League:St Helens v Wigan, 2pm, BBC One Warrington v Hull KR is on Sun at 3.45pm on BBC Two. Prem Rugby Union, Leicester v Northampton, 3pm, TNT Sports 1 Bristol v Saracens is at 5.15pm. Women’s One-Day Cricket: England v New Zealand, 10.30am, Sky Sports Cricket Nat Sciver-Brunt captains England in the first ODI. The second match is on Wed at 12.30pm on Sky Sports Main Event.

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