Tony Spittles preview what’s on television

Sheridan Smith plays a Leeds city police officer after the killer of her undercover policeman husband in the crime thriller Black Work on ITV1.Sheridan Smith plays a Leeds city police officer after the killer of her undercover policeman husband in the crime thriller Black Work on ITV1.
Sheridan Smith plays a Leeds city police officer after the killer of her undercover policeman husband in the crime thriller Black Work on ITV1.
The capital of Yorkshire (plus location work in and around Goole) is the backdrop for the new, three-part thriller Black Work (starting this Sunday on ITV1) starring the ever-busy Sheridan Smith.

She plays city police officer Jo Gillespie, whose world is thrown into turmoil when her undercover policeman husband, Det Sgt Ryan Gillespie (Kenny Doughty), is shot dead in mysterious circumstances.

However, rather than leave it to fellow officers to find the killer she starts her own unofficial investigation, putting her own life in danger as she uncovers some dangerous secrets about Ryan that test her own beliefs and her faith in work colleagues.

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Similar attributes of working together are embedded in BBC1’s new game show Prized Apart, which really didn’t set the Saturday evening schedules alight as 10 couples competed in a series of stunts and tasks to win the top prize of £100,000.

All that long-suffering licence payers could do was sit at home and watch as one from each pair jetted off to Morocco to take part in a series of challenges with Reggie Yates on hand to support them while Emma Willis was in charge of the other contestants answering questions back at base in Farnborough.

Goodness knows how many air miles will be racked up over the next five weeks as each of the jet-setting pair who fail their challenges are sent back to the studio until their other half gets enough questions right to send them back out again.

It all seemed a lot of frenetic froth and made me nostalgic for Saturday Night Takeaway and even The Generation Game.

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That yearning for the “good, old days” was more than slaked by C4’s timely tribute TFI Friday (last Friday) which saw Chris Evans host a one-off edition of the trend-setting programme that played a big role in late-90s youth culture.

Whether you were the right age at the time, or younger or older, this 90-minute special lived up to its promise of delivering a “contemporary feel with a hint of nostalgia” whether it was seeing Ewan McGregor trying to interview film star Amanda Siegfried or reliving hits of yesteryear as Liam Gallagher joined Roger Daltrey to belt out The Who’s classic show-stopper Talking About My Generation.

Back in the real world, Chad readers will already know that two local branches of the NatWest Bank are to close within the next couple of months -- Mansfield Woodhouse on 29th July and the Shirebrook branch on 18th August.

So, next Tuesday’s documentary The Bank: A Story of Life and Debt on BBC2 should prove interesting with its behind-the-scenes look at the Huddersfield branch where staff have plenty to deal with, whether it savings or insurance, mortgages or business loans.

The first episode in this three-part series sees deputy manager Claire and her team out to boost customer trust after the 2008 financial crisis, but it’s not all plain sailing.

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