TV tonight: one woman’s search for the female orgasm
Former Love Islander and biochemist Yewande Biala gets personal in a new documentary. Plus: the story behind the film noir classic The Third Man. Here’s what to watch this evening
Apparently as many as one in eight women have never experienced an orgasm. Biochemist (and former Love Island contestant) Yewande Biala is one of them and this very personal documentary follows her as she explores this intimate problem. Masturbation has never worked for her and nor do sex toys, let alone sexual partners. Biala is likable and frank and it is easy to imagine her struggles making others feel more comfortable with theirs. Phil Harrison
The historian throws her arms wide to welcome another sextet of brainboxes – this time from Leeds, Pontypool, Norfolk, Belfast, Derbyshire and London – as they play brain games that just about scratch that Only Connect/University Challenge itch. Jack Seale
It is now considered a great film noir but The Third Man started life as an idea scribbled on the back of an envelope by Graham Greene. Film writer Ian Nathan heads to Vienna to find out how a movie “created out of convenience”, as one of his fellow critics describes it here, became a classic. Katie Rosseinsky
Documentary-makers can’t seem to stop dwelling on the professional misogynist Andrew Tate as a subject. This latest profile offers a potted history of the former kickboxer while attempting to explain why his pseudo-motivational bro-gibberish seems irresistible to so many. PH
Full of archive footage and searing honesty from the man himself, this film is a stark insight into a complex personality. The life of boxer Ricky Hatton has encompassed extremes of triumph and disaster; this documentary is made essential by his willingness to reveal himself, warts and all. PH
When reports of an attempted coup against Vladimir Putin emerged in June, it may or may not have been a surprise that its architect was not a rival but a former ally, the Wagner group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in a plane crash last week. Michael Kirk’s investigation highlights a wannabe strongman’s domestic clashes and weakened leadership. Ali Catterall
Choose Love (Stuart McDonald, 2023), NetflixThis “interactive romcom” is a cross between Sliding Doors and Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, though hopefully without the deaths. Laura Marano’s Cami is a recording engineer with a steady boyfriend, Paul (Scott Michael Foster). But there is something missing in her life and it is up to you, dear subscriber, to fix it for her. Will old flame Jack (Jordi Webber) or rock star Rex (Avan Jogia) make it all right? There are multiple routes to the end, but don’t expect the unexpected – it is a romcom after all. Simon Wardell
Song of the Sea (Tomm Moore, 2014), 12.50pm, Film4A delightful children’s animation right up there with the best of Studio Ghibli, Tomm Moore’s film is yet another quality work from Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon stable. It is based on the Celtic myth of the selkie, a seal that can take human form, and follows the two children of widowed lighthouse keeper Conor: Ben, 10, and his six-year-old sister, Saoirse, who is mute and has something otherworldly about her. Amid beautiful watercolour landscapes, a fantastical tale of fairy folk, witches and baleful enchantment unfolds, as Ben goes on a perilous quest to save his sister’s life. SW
Jackie (Pablo Larraín, 2016), 1.55am, Film4Before he delved into Diana, Princess of Wales’s fraught 1991 Christmas in Spencer, Pablo Larraín explored a similarly epochal point in the life of Jackie Kennedy. His drama is set in the week after her husband’s assassination in 1963, and flips from an interview with a journalist to the events in Dallas, their aftermath and the 1962 TV special in which she guided viewers around the White House. Natalie Portman masters the first lady’s breathy voice and single-mindedness (and fashionable clothes) as she deals with grief and begins to ponder her – and the president’s – legacy. SW
Phil HarrisonJack SealeKatie RosseinskyPHPHAli CatterallChoose Love (Stuart McDonald, 2023), NetflixSimon WardellSong of the Sea (Tomm Moore, 2014), 12.50pm, Film4SWJackie (Pablo Larraín, 2016), 1.55am, Film4SW