UK TV programmes to watch this week : 18/07/2015

Britain at the Bookies - 18/07/2015 (YouView app)Joanna Lumley’s Trans-Siberian Adventure (itv/HD | 9:00pm to 10:05pm | Sunday 19th July 2015)

The second in a three-part series which sees Joanna Lumley travel the 6,400 mile route from Hong Kong to Moscow. In this programme, she spends time with some Mongolian nomads, visits a giant statue of Genghis Khan and a gold mine. Joanna spends time in the capital Ulan Bator, where she tracks down the amazing Mongolian throat singers before catching the train to Russia. She meets Mongolian tradesmen on the train and then experiences a spot of bother at the border before she enters Siberia.

Britain at the Bookies (BBC 1/HD | 9:00pm to 10:00pm | Monday 20th July 2015)

Documentary examining the winners and losers in Britain’s gambling revolution. On Huddersfield High Street, there’s a turf war playing out. Eleven betting shops are crowded into the town centre, all competing for business. Tony runs one of the most established shops in town and has been asked to try to turn around the fortunes of another branch just up the road which has a reputation for disruptive and often violent customers and is failing to hit its profit targets. Novelty betting specialist Gary is working out the odds for the new series of Strictly Come Dancing, while the marketing team devise a scheme designed to entice people into opening online betting accounts. Self-confessed compulsive gambler Stuart trawls all the shops in Huddersfield, trying his luck on the fixed odds betting terminals.

Coast (BBC 2/HD | 9:00pm to 10:00pm | Thursday 23rd July 2015)

Coast explores why we’re at our most ingenious on the edges of our isles. Nick Crane is following the Welsh Coastal Path around Anglesey and taking in 700 years of inspired thinking and ingenious isles. Tessa Dunlop crosses the channel to France to find out how a fishing village in Normandy gave rise to British commercial radio in the 1930s. Brendan Walker goes on top of, underneath and even inside the mighty Cleddau Bridge in Pembrokeshire to investigate why its collapse in the 1970s changed engineering for ever. Dick Strawbridge is on the trail of coastal camouflage in Portsmouth as he investigates ‘dazzle’. During the First World War, a military artist came up with a novel way to disguise our ships before the days of radar. He persuaded the authorities to try a revolutionary means of camouflage – painting ships in bright vivid shapes and patterns. Finally, we meet the fisherboys who reinvented themselves as peacocks in the 1960s with a splash of colour whenever they came ashore.

The Cycle Show (itv 4 | 9:00pm to 10:00pm | Thursday 23rd July 2015)

The cycling magazine show with celebrity guests, cycling stars and features on all things bike related. Presented by Matt Barbet.

Hunted (Channel 4/HD | 11:05pm to 12:05am | Thursday 23rd July 2015)

Having previously revealed the extent of vicious gay hate crime in Russia, Dispatches returns with an investigation into the global networks supporting a wave of anti-gay laws around the world. In a special one-hour programme, spanning four continents, Dispatches exposes the well-funded backlash against gay rights. One group, the World Congress of Families, is based in America, where same-sex marriages have recently been made legal in all 50 states. The WCF and their associates claim they are merely supporting pro-family laws in other countries but Dispatches reveals how, in doing so, they have supported anti-gay laws in Russia and lobbied the Slovakian government to help pass laws curtailing the rights of the gay community.

The Last Leg (Channel 4/HD | 10:00pm to 11:10pm | Friday 24th July 2015)

The award-winning show returns for a sixth series of unique irreverent satire. Adam Hills and co-hosts Josh Widdicombe and Alex Brooker tear into the week’s main talking points, joined by a live studio audience and weekly celebrity guest.

All TV guide information taken from DigiGuide — www.getdigiguide.tv/?p=1&r=15119.