The Brit Awards, Hostage and Winter Paralympics: TV highlights this week

The Brit Awards (Saturday 28/02/26, ITV1, 8.15pm)

Word by Rachael Popow

The Brit Awards are back – and so is comedian Jack Whitehall, who returns to host for the sixth time. That doesn’t mean it’s business as usual though, as for the first time in Brits history, the ceremony is taking place outside London, at Manchester’s Co-Op Live.

Former University of Manchester student Jack is certainly thrilled about the change of venue as the city has a special place in his heart. He says: “I am so excited to be coming back for this very special Brit Awards in Manchester, a place that is so important to me.

“The city I started my comedy career in, it feels like a real full circle moment returning to host this historic night at the Co-op Live, a venue that is only a stone’s throw away from the comedy club I did my first 10-minute set in all those years ago. Hopefully I get a few more laughs than I did that night. I cannot wait.”

As well as taking a trip down memory lane, Jack will also be introducing performances from some of the biggest names in pop, including Harry Styles. The One Direction member-turned-solo superstar isn’t in the running for any awards tonight, but it won’t be a surprise to see him in the 2027 nominations for his album Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, which is released on March 6 and is his first since 2022’s Harry’s House.

Live performers who could be walking away with a statuette include Olivia Dean, who ties with Lola Young for the most nominations this year with five each. Olivia is in line for British Artist of the Year, Album of the Year and Pop Act, as well as receiving two nods in Song of the Year

Also taking to the stage are Wolf Alice, who are in the running for Best British Album, Group and Alt/Rock Act, and Rosalía, who has been nominated for International Artist.

Fresh from their performance at the Baftas last weekend, EJAE, Audrey Nuna and REI AMI, who voice the singing trio HUNTR/X in the animated smash KPop Demon Hunters, will also be taking to the stage to sing Golden, which could net them International Song of the Year as well as International Group.

One performer who is guaranteed to go home with a prize is artist and producer Mark Ronson, who is receiving the Outstanding Contribution to Music award. He says: “This is the most meaningful honour of my career. I think of the times I’ve watched artists I revere accept this same award. The idea that I’m now standing in that lineage feels impossible.”

Ronson adds: “I left England as a kid, but this country runs through everything I’ve made. The UK artists I’ve worked with—their brilliance and refusal to compromise—shaped not just my work but how I understand what music should do. And more than anything, it’s the crowds here who’ve sustained and showed up for me.

“The fans, the festival crowds, the record buyers and streamers—the love has always been overwhelming. I’m beyond grateful for all of it.”

Lord of the Flies (Sunday 01/03/26, BBC1, 9pm)

Words by Rachael Popow

It may seem surprising that Jack Thorne’s adaptation of Lord of the Flies is the first small-screen version of William Golding’s acclaimed 1954 novel. Perhaps previous writers and directors were worried about finding young actors capable of bringing the story of a group of schoolboys stranded on a desert island to life.

Luckily, the makers of this drama have struck gold with their cast, many of whom are making their professional debuts. The four leads have been particularly impressive, which is just as well as Thorne has focused each episode on one character.

So far, we’ve had Piggy (David McKenna), Jack (Lox Pratt) and Simon (Isaac Talbut), and in the final episode, the spotlight is on Ralph (Winston Sawyers).

When the series began, Ralph was the one who took charge and tried to maintain some sort of order on the island. However, some of the other boys have been less interested in building their own version of civilisation and have instead gone feral.

As Winston puts it: “During the story Ralph is quite constant. He starts off pretty good, nice, kind – he’s a leader. And then as the story goes on, he loses friends and loses people in his camp. I think he still stays with the same agenda, he doesn’t want to join the bad guys. Ralph is quite rooted in who he is and what he believes in.

“At the end of the story, he’s traumatised, beaten, bruised, and he’s essentially just broken.”

It’s a demanding role for a young actor, but Winston believes that filming on location helped him to get into character. He says: “I loved Malaysia. I loved my beach – I guess Ralph’s beach – in Langkawi. It’s so nice because it was such an open space.

“I feel like it’s completely different to a regular film, I used to think ‘how could anyone ever act on a set?’, because often it’s all green screen. I know it’s acting, I know you have to imagine things, but at the same time, I prefer having real things there.”

He adds: “So Lord of the Flies was a great experience, because everything was there in real life. You feel the breeze, hear the birds, and the insects – which are super loud as well. I think it made everything feel more real, in general, and that really helped get into the scene.”

Winston also embraced the chance to take part in some fight scenes. He says: “The producers walk you through safety, obviously, because you don’t want to get hurt. They explain the scene and what you’re doing. Then you rehearse until you really get it in your system.

“You don’t use actual wood spears or stones, you use rubber ones which look like the real things, which still could hurt but we were obviously careful.”

In the drama though, the violence is about to get all too real, as Ralph realises it’s his turn to be hunted…

Handcuffed: Last Pair Standing (Monday 02/03/26, Channel 4, 9pm)

Words by Sarah Morgan

Once upon a time, Jonathan Ross was a young, up-and-coming TV presenter with a bright future ahead of him.

That was in the late-1980s, and his professional ‘home’ back then was Channel 4, where he’d worked as a researcher before he and his colleague, Alan Marke, devised the format that would become The Last Resort with Jonathan Ross, a late-night chat show that launched his broadcasting career and was the first series to emulate the US programmes fronted by the likes of David Letterman and Conan O’Brien.

He went on to present the likes of The Incredibly Strange Film Show, Tonight with Jonathan Ross and Americana before moving on to the BBC and, later, ITV.

Over the years, he’s made one-off appearances on Channel 4, most notably as a guest on Celebrity Deal or No Deal, or fronting the countdown show 100 Greatest Toys, as well as on several editions of The Big Fat Quiz of the Year, but Handcuffed: Last Pair Standing marks his return to the broadcaster proper.

One imagines the show has been commissioned in the wake of The Traitors’ success (Ross did, of course, make an impact on the celebrity version last year). Although the format doesn’t match the BBC show exactly, it does share some common ground, most notably the fact that it throws strangers together in trying circumstances, during which they must figure each other out. Friendships may be forged but it’s more likely battlegrounds will be drawn.

Here, eight pairs of people who have never met are handcuffed together. That may sound hellish enough to some viewers, but added to that is the fact that they come from different walks of life and have nothing in common – their opinions, beliefs, lifestyles and habits are completely contrary.

They can be freed at any time, but must remain shackled if they’re to stand a chance of winning the top prize of £100k.

“I believe this experiment will go a small way to healing a fractured Britain; after all, to know is to love,” claims Ross. “I’m rooting for our couples to go the distance and not let our differences overpower us.”

His role involves pairing them up, then guiding them through the experience, encouraging the participants to resolve their differences and find a way to work together.

“Funny, intense, and featuring a cast reflecting a truly diverse range of British characters, this is the kind of social experiment you’d only see on Channel 4,” claims commissioning editor Tim Hancock. “The series aims to capture modern Britain by examining its divisions and hopefully helping mend some of them too.”

“The show is designed to both to be funny and to have a surprising amount of heart,” adds executive producer David Glover. “The winners will have to be able to put their differences aside and get along.”

Fingers crossed they do, otherwise this is going to be a very short and unsatisfactory experiment indeed, and one unworthy of Ross’s return to his old stomping ground.

Stonehenge: Secrets of the New Stone (Tuesday 03/03/26, 5, 9pm)

Words by Rachael Popow

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for actor Jason Watkins. Last week, he starred alongside David Thewlis in Channel 4’s drama Dirty Business, which explored the issues of water pollution.

Now, he’s teaming up with historian Tracy Borman for the documentary Stonehenge: Secrets of the New Stone.

It’s not the first time the pair have worked together. Jason, whose other credits include The Crown, McDonald & Dodds, and a Bafta-winning role in The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies, narrates the 5 documentary series Inside the Tower of London, to which Borman is frequent contributor.

The pair then teamed up for stand-alone documentaries about the landmark’s history, including Princes in the Tower: A Damning Discovery and Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I: A Tower of London Special.

They also investigated Jason’s own family connection to the Tower to see if he was related to Tudor Lieutenant of the Tower Sir John Brydges, the royal courtier responsible for overseeing the imprisonment and execution of England’s shortest reigning queen, Lady Jane Grey. (It turns out that Watkins may have had another famous figure in his family tree, as Tracy also looked into a family rumour that he was related to Jason Austen.)

Now though, the duo are turning their attention to a different landmark – Stonehenge.

At the heart of the prehistoric megalithic structure lies the altar stone, a six-tonne slab that has puzzled historians for centuries. Not only is it the only stone that lies flat on its side, it’s a different type from all the others.

Since the 1920s, archaeologists have believed the altar stone came from Wales, along with the Stonehenge bluestones. However, in a TV first, Tracy and Jason are sharing new research from Aberystwyth University that overturns this long-held theory.

It emerges that scientists now believe the stone could have come from somewhere in the northernmost reaches of Scotland. The presenters are keen to find out what this means for our understanding of why and how Stonehenge was built.

Of course, one of the biggest questions is how did Stone Age people manage to transport the slab approximately 500 miles? Jason and Tracy try out some techniques they might have used as they investigate why this particular stone was brought to Stonehenge and the crucial role it may have played in solstice celebrations.

Their search for answers takes them from Wiltshire to Orkney, where they explore some of the best-preserved Neolithic sites in the world – the vast Ring of Brodgar, and the incredibly intact Stone Age village of Skara Brae.

In the process, they learn about more than just the altar stone. The documentary shows us that not only were the Neolithic people who built Stonehenge more sophisticated than many of us may have imagined, but that the Stone Age communities across Britain could have been more closely connected than we realised.

Is it possible that Stonehenge itself was built to celebrate the unification of Stone Age people across the country?

Hostage (Wednesday 04/03/2026, BBC Two, 9pm)

Words by Richard Jones

In 2012, after working in some of the wilder regions of the world, including Afghanistan and the Himalayas, British motorbike enthusiast, adventurer and passionate photojournalist John Cantlie travelled to Syria to document the country’s developing civil war.

In July of that year, he was kidnapped along with a Dutch photographer, and got shot while trying to escape, before another militant group intervened and secured their release.

Cantlie returned to Britain but then, against the advice of some, went back to Syria to continue his work. For him, it was a fateful decision.

On November 22, 2012, soon after crossing the porous border from Turkey into Syria with his American colleague and friend James Foley, they were abducted by gunmen at a checkpoint.

They had fallen into the hands of so-called Islamic State (IS), specifically a notorious group of British extremists who would later become known as the ‘Jihadi Beatles’.

In the subsequent years, Cantlie was held in appalling conditions, fed starvation rations, brutalised and tortured along with other European and US hostages.

The captured individuals were released one by one, reportedly for huge ransoms, while other Britons and Americans were murdered on camera, with the UK and the US holding firm on their policy of refusing to negotiate with hostage-takers.

In August 2014, the unimaginable happened – Islamic State Group released a video showing Foley’s decapitation. It was a moment that shocked the world and marked a turning point in the conflict.

Soon after, more footage appeared. Cantlie was alive but, instead of kneeling before an executioner, he was dressed in an orange jumpsuit delivering reports to camera – scripted propaganda for the extremists, presented as proper journalism.

In a disturbing echo of TV series Homeland, a question began to haunt audiences and governments alike – was Cantlie being forced to perform for his own survival or had his allegiances shifted?

Building on the acclaimed podcast Last Man Standing, by Times journalists Anthony Loyd and Manveen Rana, this three-part documentary is an intimate portrait of survival and provides a powerful insight into the risks and necessity of wartime journalism.

It draws on unprecedented access to some of those close to Cantlie and Foley, fellow hostages, investigators, politicians, as well as questioning British jihadis now imprisoned in Syria and Iraq.

Through their testimony, the series pieces together what really happened to Cantlie and Foley in captivity, and delivers a forensic examination of Britain and the USA’s hostage policy, past and present.

In tonight’s first part, we hear how Cantlie and Foley followed the trail of foreign fighters in Syria, as unrest descended into war.

Their reporting attracts the attention of extremists, and what began as a tense investigation spirals into a dangerous encounter that changed their lives forever.

Unfortunately, there was no happy ending for Cantlie and his family.

In 2017, reports surfaced in the Iraqi media claiming he had been killed by an airstrike in Mosul, and despite rumours and reports in 2017 and 2019 that he was still alive, in 2022, Cantlie’s loved-ones accepted that he is dead.

To this day, he is thought to be the only foreign hostage held by IS who was neither released nor murdered on camera.

Alexander Armstrong in India (Thursday 05/03/2026, 5, 8pm)

Words by Richard Jones

Almost eight decades since it gained independence from British rule, India is not just rich in history and tradition, but also a rising superpower.

As it has the world’s largest population – 1.4 billion and counting – the South Asian republic is undergoing rapid change, so what better time for Alexander Armstrong to explore the fascinating country?

Over the next three weeks, we’ll see the multi-talented presenter, actor, comedian, singer and writer travel the length and breadth of India, exploring some of its most famous destinations – Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Bandipur – to experience the diverse landscapes, the old cultural heart and the modernisation of each.

Following his previous series exploring Iceland, South Korea and Sri Lanka for 5, Xander, who turned 56 on Monday, couldn’t wait to get travelling again.

“I am thrilled to be going back on the road with Burning Bright Productions,” he says.

“We have had such adventures in the past, and I couldn’t be more excited about heading out to India for the next one!”

Meanwhile, Guy Davies, Commissioning Editor, Unscripted for 5, was eager to team up with the Pointless host for another travel series, particularly one that focuses on a country that is becoming increasingly fascinating for tourists.

“India is at a historic point, as the country and its people take a new role in the world order,” he explains.

“Both a stunning country-wide journey, and an exploration of a nation at a turning point, this isn’t really Alexander’s view of India – it’s the people who will tell him how this amazing country is changing in these extraordinary, yet also unpredictable times.”

In tonight’s first edition, Xander dives headfirst into the glorious chaos of Mumbai – India’s fastest, loudest, and most crowded city, where gleaming skyscrapers rise above sprawling slums.

House prices are sky high here, and the presenter is curious to see what the local property boom looks like.

He meets charming, fast-talking estate agent Ravi, who shows him the highs (luxury flats with sea views) and the lows (eye-watering prices).

Along the way, Xander takes in some of old Bombay’s traditional colonial splendour – grand Victorian stations and ornate libraries – before stopping for a bite of Mumbai’s favourite street snack: the Vada Pav, a fiery vegetarian burger.

The contrasts continue in Dharavi, one of Asia’s largest slums, now the focus of a controversial redevelopment plan.

The host meets residents caught in the middle – families trying to defend their patch in a city that is bursting at the seams.

As the monsoon breaks, he joins the city’s legendary dabbawallas – an astonishingly efficient army of lunchbox delivery men – for a very wet day at the office.

Finally, Xander travels north to Delhi, India’s seat of political and judiciary power.

He visits an incredible Mughal masterpiece before witnessing the stark, everyday reality of life and death in the capital – the cremation of a homeless man.

From ancient empires to urban sprawl, spicy snacks to billionaires, Xander has already discovered India is a place of wild contrasts and rich complexity – and it’s exciting to spend time in the thick of it.

Winter Paralympics Live (Friday 06/03/26, Channel 4, 6.30pm)

Words by Sarah Morgan

If you thought last month’s Winter Olympics was exciting, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Yes, just a few short weeks on from the events in the Italian Dolomites, we’re returning to Milano-Cortina for the Paralympics, during which 650 athletes from 50 nations are set to compete for 79 medals across six different sports.

What makes the games even more special is the fact that it’s half a century since the first such meeting, which took place in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden. To help celebrate the anniversary, a new event – mixed doubles wheelchair curling will make its debut alongside other curling events, alpine skiing, snowboarding, biathlon, cross-country skiing and ice hockey.

Hoping to make a big impression is Team GB’s Jo Butterfield. She won club throw gold at the 2016 summer Paralympics before switching to wheelchair curling in 2023. That year she won mixed team bronze at the sport’s world championships, and is now returning to competition after cancer treatment – can she become the first Brit to become a champ at both the summer and winter games?

Other names to look out for include alpine skiing siblings Neil and Andrew Simpson, snowboarders James Barnes-Miller and Ollie Hill, and biathlon expert Scott Meenagh.

But before any of them get cracking on the ice or snow, we’re being treated to coverage of the opening ceremony, with Ade Adepitan, Billy Monger and Ed Jackson leading the on-screen team. Pundit Sean Rose and commentator Jade Etherington are also involved, and they’ll be joined on screen by ParalympicsGB’s most decorated athlete, Sarah Storey, and multi-gold-medal Paralympic swimming champion Alice Tai.

“We are incredibly proud to have such a fantastic on-screen team once again for the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games, whilst showcasing ParalympicsGB and the extraordinary British athletes competing on the world stage,” comments Ian Katz, Chief Content Officer at Channel 4. “Welcoming Dame Sarah Storey and Alice Tai to our presenting line-up alongside some of the UK’s most respected Paralympic broadcasters reflects our continued commitment to inclusive representation and championing talent.

“The coverage reflects the scale of our ambition both on and off screen, from the studio high in the Dolomites to the skilled teams at our remote production base in Cardiff, as we deliver world-class, accessible coverage that brings audiences closer than ever to the drama, excitement and brilliance of the Winter Paralympics.”

The broadcaster is promising to deliver more than 60 hours of action from Italy across both Channel 4 and its streaming service, as well as YouTube. It’s also highly accessible, with all content being subtitled; the live broadcast will also have live audio description from 10.30am every day, while the highlights are set to feature a British Sign Language translation.

The competitions get under way on Saturday, March 7, at 8am, and continue daily until Sunday 15, with a highlights programme every evening. Expect records to be broken and heroes to be forged during an unforgettable fortnight.