I Am Helen and the Great British Bake Off: TV highlights

Honey (Saturday 14/11/26, BBC1, 9pm & 9.50pm)

Words by Rachael Popow

What would you get if you crossed Bridget Jones’s Diary with the spy thrillers of John le Carré? Well, maybe something a little bit like the new thriller Honey.

Lead writer Emma Moran says: “The starting point for the series really was just wanting to do a rom-com. I’m such a big rom-com fan and I wanted to do a Bridget Jones style love triangle, with a messy woman in her twenties struggling with her career and boys.”

However, the career woman in question is Martha (Ann Skelly), a deep cover agent for MI6 in 1982 Berlin, meaning the stakes of her love triangle are much higher than just ending up with the wrong man.

Irish actress Ann Skelly, whose previous credits include House of Guinness, Vikings and The Nevers, believes the mix of rom-com and espionage drama makes the series unique. She says: “It’s really surprising how the series plays with familiar romcom tropes and characters and puts them into recent history.

“It’s a series about very oppressive governments with very oppressive political ideology that try to control and infiltrate people’s relationships and lives. But the nature of people and human nature is that we can’t help but push through and Honey reflects the resilience of that effort.”

As well as the intriguing premise, Ann was also attracted to the role because Matha is someone who goes after what she wants. She says: “One of the very first lines in the character description I was sent for the audition, said that she’s convinced of her own brilliance. It tickled me. I liked the hunger of her, and the voraciousness of her desire.”

In tonight’s opening episode though, Martha fears that brilliance is being wasted as she tries to maintain her humiliating cover identity as an ordinary East German woman having an affair with British diplomat Graham Anderson (Rory Kinnear).

Unfortunately, when she does get the chance to prove she can handle more serious spy work, she botches it.

She gets the opportunity to redeem herself when she is paired with CIA officer Kurt Fischer (Nate Mann), but it turns out the Stasi’s fearsome Friedrich Baumann (Nate Mann) has been observing Martha…

It’s the set up for a tangled relationship. Ann explains: “You have Martha not wanting to work with Kurt but having to get ahead, and Kurt being saddled with a little acolyte that he doesn’t want.

“Then you have Martha’s need to please Friedrich as a civilian informant, but then also needing him to gain access to the world of the Stasi.

“Balancing what they need and want from each other at different points is interesting. I think they’ve got a lot of chemistry as a threesome; they get different things from each other.”

She adds: “The way Honey differs from your run-of-the-mill rom-com is that there is so much danger that comes with the romantic relationships. We’ve really tried to draw on both the sexiness and the danger. Them all fancying each other is maybe the worst-case scenario as a spy; to get close to someone, you are basically endangering your life, but it adds to the thrill of it.”

I’m a Celebrity – How to Survive the Jungle (Sunday 15/11/26, ITV1, 6pm)

Words by Rachael Popow

Anyone watching this year’s Celebrity Traitors, specifically the moment in the first episode where Richard E Grant cheerfully admitted that he’d been picked to be a Traitor, may wonder how much research famous faces do before signing up for a reality show.

Admittedly, The Traitors is still a relatively new TV phenomenon, but arguably anyone going into the jungle for I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! has less excuse for not knowing roughly how the show works – it’s been a TV institution since 2002.

But just in case any of the class of 2026 need a refresher before the new series begins on Monday, November 16, or want some tips on how they can follow in the footsteps of last year’s winner, content creator Angryginge, maybe they should tune into this essential guide.

Ant and Dec will be revisiting some of the most memorable moments from the past 25 series, from fire-starting fails, to the trauma and turmoil of the Bush Tucker Trials, and some of the most legendary clashes between campmates.

We’ll also find out what the new batch (who are rumoured to include Gavin & Stacey actress Joanna Page, soap star Claire Sweeney and football legend Wayne Rooney, who can always ask his wife, Coleen, who finished runner-up in 2024, for advice) can learn from previous runs.

The jungle hacks include the best ways to survive not just the basic conditions in the camp, but also the annoying habits of your fellow campers, whether it’s snoring or just not pulling their weight.

Meanwhile, some viewers and previous contestants may have already formed their own opinions on what it takes to win. Angryginge (real name Morgan Burtwistle) proved that it’s not always the biggest names who make the biggest impression on viewers, but runner-up Tom Read Wilson believes it was his performance in the trials that made him a deserving King of the Jungle.

Tom told Good Morning Britain: “I have to say, I thought Ginge had to win… because he was the titan of the trials.”

Reality star Sam Thompson, who won in 2023, told The Express that his advice to contestants would be to just throw yourself into the experience. He said: “Don’t think about where you are. Just enjoy it. You’ll never get to do it again, so don’t have any regrets, and just go and enjoy it.”

Meanwhile, 2004 winner Joe Pasquale also had some words of wisdom for the contestants last year. He told Good Morning Britain: “What you don’t want to do is perform. You can’t perform for three weeks. You’ve got to be yourself because you can’t hide who you are for three weeks, and they’ll find you out.”

He also had some more practical advice saying: “You’re only allowed two pairs of socks, two pairs of pants, I put on seven pairs of pants when I went in… They thought, ‘oh he’s just put a bit of weight around his midriff’, but I had seven pairs of pants.”

Will that make Ant and Dec’s list of hacks?

I Am Helen (Monday 16/11/2026, Channel 4, 9pm)

Richard Jones

The cast of Dominic Savage’s I Am… anthology reads like a who’s who of British and Irish acting talent.

Vicky McClure, Samantha Morton, Gemma Chan, Suranne Jones, Letitia Wright, Lesley Manville and Kate Winslet have all starred in the dramas which explore the personal experiences of women through provocative storytelling.

And now the baton is picked up by another actor whose career has gone through the stratosphere in recent times.

Derry Girls, Bridgerton and Big Mood star Nicola Coughlan plays Helen in the latest instalment, which explores how the manosphere infiltrates modern relationships, how its toxic ideas reshape men, and how women are left to navigate the emotional and physical fallout.

It’s a story of coercion, awakening, escape – and ultimately of reclaiming a life that no longer bends around someone else’s demands.

Galway-born actress Coughlan, who has previously been nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Bafta, says: “It’s an absolute honour to be part of telling the next I Am… story alongside Dominic Savage – a singular talent and a storyteller deeply committed to exploring the breadth of the female experience.

“To follow in the footsteps of the brilliant women who’ve collaborated with him on this series feels truly surreal, and I feel incredibly fortunate to be embarking on this journey.”

Appearing alongside Coughlan is Joe Cole. The London-born actor, who starred as John Shelby in Peaky Blinders before going on to appear in Sky’s Gangs of London and BBC series Nightsleeper, plays Helen’s partner Steve.

As tonight’s first part begins, it appears the pair have a loving relationship.

But as Steve begins to consume misogynistic online porn and the rhetoric of the manosphere, their sexual dynamic shifts from mutual desire to coercive aggression.

Sexual frustration bleeds into every aspect of Steve’s life. He watches porn at work, parrots toxic ideas fed to him by a colleague and pressures Helen into getting engaged.

When she asserts her independence, Steve spirals – unable to reconcile his fantasy of dominance with a partner who refuses to submit.

Desperate for clarity, Helen escapes to the coast with a friend. Away from Steve’s intensity, she finally feels that her mind is quiet enough to think and confronts a truth she has been avoiding: that love is not supposed to feel like vigilance.

It should not require shrinking, enduring or placating.

In the solitude of her hotel room, she studies the wedding ring that Steve proposed to her with – a symbol that now feels more like a warning.

In tomorrow’s concluding part, Helen discovers that she’s pregnant and turns her newfound clarity on her relationship into a storm of urgency and fear.

The days that follow become a terrifying unravelling.

When she tries to leave Steve, his façade collapses and he turns violent.

Forced to make an impossible choice, Helen terminates the pregnancy and moves out while Steve is at work.

When he returns to an empty flat, his rage erupts in a string of voice messages and a final confrontation at her workplace.

But by then, Helen is gone and the story concludes not with revenge, but with survival.

The Great British Bake Off (Tuesday 17/11/26 Channel 4, 8pm)

Words by Rachael Popow

Over the course of 17 series, The Great British Bake Off has seen a few changes to its line-up, but viewers were still intrigued when it was announced that for this run, Nigella Lawson would be taking over from Prue Leith as a judge.

How would such an established name fit into the tent? As it turns out, very well.

It helps that Nigella takes her role seriously. Speaking ahead of her debut, she said: “I always try to look for the positive, because you never want criticism to make people feel inadequate…

“But ultimately, you can’t do anything except be honest, because all you have to go on is your honest reaction. Does it help someone to say something worked if it didn’t? They’re there to get better.”

It’s an approach that she thinks has paid off. Nigella says: “What was fascinating to me was seeing, over the course of the whole series, how people learn. As we know in life generally, making mistakes is not what matters; it’s actually learning from them.”

She’s also full of admiration for the way the bakers have taken her constructive feedback on board, saying: “I don’t think you can underestimate what it takes to be in that tent. You’re offering something up for judgment. It’s a bit like taking a driving test. Sometimes you think people are waiting for you to make mistakes and you think, ‘No, I’m being paranoid.’ But when you take your driving test, you’re not being paranoid, they are waiting for you to make mistakes.

“And in a way, it takes a lot to open yourself up to that. I was amazed at how quickly they took all that in their stride.”

We’ve now reached the semi-final, so the remaining contestants will be determined to prove that they really have taken all of Nigella and veteran judge’s Paul Hollywood’s words of wisdom on board. However, if being a week away from the final wasn’t pressure enough, it’s also patisserie week, so their precision, patience and pastry skills are pushed to the limit.

Who will be crowned Star Baker and move a step closer to potentially taking the title, and who will just miss out? Noel Fielding and Alison Hammond will be breaking the good and bad news, and Noel admits that when it comes to the eliminations, it’s a job that never really gets easier.

He says: “They obviously have to get shots of everyone on the line-up, and that takes quite a while. So you have to say, ‘And the person who’s leaving us is…’ and then it’s like someone at the back puts their hand on them, and they put it down when you can say who it is, and it feels like an hour and a half. It’s quite emotional at the time.”

For anyone who is also feeling a bit overcome with emotion themselves, the good news is there’s another chance to work it through later this evening on the companion show The Great British Bake Off: Second Helpings.

Murder Case: Fire in the Suburbs (Wednesday 18/11/2026, BBC Two, 9pm)

Words by Richard Jones

The Bafta-winning true-crime series following the work of Scotland’s Major Investigations Team (MIT) returns.

Once again, we’re promised this new run of Murder Case will be eye-opener for viewers, showing not only the devastating effects of a crime on the victims’ families, but also how the dedicated officers look for and find things that you could not even imagine in a crime scene.

David Harron, Commissioning Editor, Documentaries and Specialist Factual at BBC Scotland said: “With exceptional access to the Major Investigations Team, plus family and friends of the victims, it offers the audience real insight into how these murder investigations are conducted.

“And, as always, the often-heartbreaking stories are told sensitively and with great care and consideration.”

Vari Innes, Executive Producer at Firecrest Films adds: “It has been an enormous privilege that those victims and families have trusted our teams to tell these stories and an honour to remember their loved ones in the films.

“We hope we can bring to light the incredible fortitude and determination they have had in their quest for justice.”

This new series begins with a look at how 23-year-old university student Cameron Logan was set alight and murdered at his family home in the affluent town of Milngavie, East Dunbartonshire, in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2017.

On the night in question, Cameron and his girlfriend Bex Williams returned home at 4am, having been to a Hogmanay party.

Cameron’s mother, Catherine Logan, went downstairs at 7.15am and saw a dark figure in the living room.

She saw the person throw something that was on fire and then run out of the house – but she did not know who he was.

When she turned back to the living room, she saw “orange and crackling” and the room turning black.

Bex managed to roll onto the floor and crawl into the kitchen but was unable to open the back door. She put her head in the fridge to protect herself from the fire before passing out.

“I woke in, like, a shock and the whole room exploded,” Bex recalls.

“The bed’s on fire, my clothes are on fire, I mean the whole room was on fire…and I remember it being really noisy and I couldn’t see because the smoke was so thick. I don’t remember Cameron and I being able to communicate, it all happened so quickly…”

Bravely told through her eyes – she survived the attack but had to be treated in hospital for burns to her face, arms and hands and damage to her throat – this two-parter, which concludes next week, charts the hours and days which followed as police painstakingly investigated the evidence to find who is responsible.

As key witness Bex was in a medically-induced coma in hospital, it was a race against time for the police to track down a known arsonist and a mysterious car spotted in a lay-by at the time of the fire.

Rumour and suspicion intensified among the small community and the Press – particularly when it came to light that Cameron’s own brother Blair, 27, had a long-held hostility towards him.

The siblings had not spoken since the death of their grandmother in 2013, which left everyone to consider whether the perpetrator was closer to home.

Cunk on Cinema (Thursday 19/11/26, BBC Two, 10pm)

Words by Sarah Morgan

Call yourself a film buff? Think you know all there is to know about cinema?

Well, think again, because chances are you ain’t ever seen it from such an extraordinary point of view as that adopted by Philomena Cunk.

The character was created by comedy star Diane Morgan and writer Charlie Brooker, and first appeared in the latter’s Weekly Wipe TV series, which ran from 2013 to 2020. It soon became clear that she had enough promise to front her own programmes, and so the mockumentaries Cunk on Britain (2018), Cunk on Earth (2022) and Cunk on Life (2024) were born.

In between each show, Morgan carved a name for herself in British sitcom history via roles in Motherland and After Life, and launched her own series Mandy in 2019. Her most recent project was the touching Ann Droid, about an OAP who forms a bond with her new robot assistant, which became the BBC’s second-biggest new scripted launch of the year when it aired July; a second run has already been commissioned.

But now, Morgan is making a welcome return as her delightfully dim-witted alter ego, who’s shining a spotlight (or turning the camera on, whichever phrase you like best) the world of the big screen, a place where dreams can come true, although we’re betting that Philomena hasn’t actually discovered what hers are yet.

Previous programmes featuring her have included her wonderfully deadpan interviews with various experts, many of whom had no idea who she was, and so were left feeling baffled and bemused – which was all part of the fun for those watching. You imagine, however, that after 13 years on our screens, many of the participants in the new series know only too well what to expect. Thankfully, as those who saw last week’s opening episode will be aware, they play along with her bizarre line of questioning.

Director Michael Bay, actor Benedict Cumberbatch, film-maker Mark Cousins, composer Daniel Pemberton, cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, stunt performer Jim Dowdall and critic Mark Kermode are among those in the line of her fire.

“Philomena Cunk is back!” smiles Jon Petrie, Director of Comedy at the BBC. “As our leading intrepid documentary filmmaker, who better to investigate the world of cinema? This series follows in the hugely successful footsteps of other Cunk projects, so we can’t wait to see what she unearths this time around. A huge thank you to Diane and Charlie for bringing Philomena back onto our screens.”

But perhaps the woman herself should have the last word: “Cinema has given the world some of the most profound, memorable and moving visual moments in its unswerving depiction of the human condition: the shower scene in Psycho, Death playing chess in that Swedish thing, and Tom Selleck’s glistening moustache in Three Men And A Little Lady, to name but all three of the only examples I can think of at the moment.

“There will, unfortunately, be some bits in black and white, but we’ll keep that to the barest minimum.”

Bill’s Included (Friday 20/11/26, BBC One, 9.30pm)

Words by Sarah Morgan

There’s an old saying that states authors should write what they know. When it comes to acting, you could suggest that Rob Brydon plays what he knows.

The actor and presenter is currently looking forward to appearing as a fictional version of himself for the fifth time, alongside his old mate Steve Coogan, when a new run of their travelogue The Trip returns shortly. This time the pair will be heading to Scandinavia where they’re hoping to spot the Northern Lights.

Speaking at the show’s premiere in London last month, he revealed how much he enjoys donning an alternative interpretation of himself, revealing that when director Michael Winterbottom first suggested it, they were “both against the idea… But in fact, as ever, Michael was right because it just gives the show… you’re more curious about it. ‘Is that how they really are?’”

To some, however, he will forever be Uncle Bryn in Gavin & Stacey, a sweet-natured and innocent chap. He played a similarly naive soul in the mockumentary series Marion and Geoff, in which he Tok centre stage as taxi driver Geoff, who spends each episode talking viewers through a messy divorce; you could argue that some of the guys he played in Human Remains were similar too.

In his latest sitcom, Brydon adds another such character to his CV. As Jon Petrie, BBC Director of Comedy, states: “Rob Brydon has given us some of Britain’s most beloved TV characters over the years and we’re about to get another one!”

Bill Beam is a cash-strapped, warm-hearted but slightly neurotic divorcee in desperate need of keeping the wolf from the door. He does so by renting his spare rooms to students, who inject some much-needed vim and vigour into the house.

But there’s a snag. Although Bill adores his new housemates and would love nothing better than to be part of the gang, he finds himself at odds with their indifference to his laminated house rules and colour-coded cutlery. Can they ever find a way to live in harmony?

For writers Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen, the chance to work with Brydon and Steve Coogan’s production company Baby Cow, which is behind the project, was an opportunity they couldn’t miss.

“When we first met as students, we bonded over Human Remains and Marion and Geoff,” claim the duo. “To now be writing a show in which Rob Brydon lives with students is both a dream come true and a weirdly specific full circle moment. Bill’s Included, you’re invited, we’re excited.”

“From the beginning, we knew this was a show we wanted to make – a perfect sitcom set-up with a sharp, contemporary twist,” adds executive producer Rupert Majendie. “With its mix of heart, originality and beautifully observed characters, it feels like a classic Baby Cow show. Ben and Alex have written something properly special, and with Rob at the centre of a brilliant ensemble, we can’t wait to bring it to life.”

And with Brydon giving a new spin on a familiar character, we can’t wait to see it either.