Telly Today: jazz music, holiday resorts and money launderers

Today’s telly top picks with ATV Today Editor Doug Lambert.

Friday television viewing pleasure comes in the form of jazz music on BBC Four, we’re off on our hols with Channel 4 and its all about the money launderers on Sky Cinema.

Channel 4 tonight at 8pm airs The Secret Life of the Holiday Resort. Last year, in an extraordinary summer in which Britain voted to leave the EU, Spain welcomed over 10 million Brits on holiday – two million more than the year before. With access to the largest all-inclusive resort on the Costa del Sol, this programme observes the quirks of the British holidaymaker. From getting towels on the loungers to consuming up to 6000 calories a day at the all-you-can-eat buffet, The Secret Life of the Holiday Resort follows Brits taking a break in the sun.

There’s also the staff, who cater to every need of the 3000 guests, providing four tonnes of bacon and five tonnes of chips per week. The programme meets the Lloyd family, from Northampton, including 12-year-old Danny, whose singing and dancing proves a hit at the aqua fit class. With the average British family spending only 36 minutes together each day, the Wades from Southend hope to bond via the resort’s all-inclusive entertainment, but will the kids stop bickering? And James and Leanne from Preston battle the crowds during the morning stampede for the pool.


BBC Four brings us a celebration of Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie in a Live at the BBC Proms from The Royal Albert Hall. Tonight at 8pm.

Prom 27 is a special Proms tribute to jazz greats Fitzgerald and Gillespie in the centenary year of their births. Grammy award-winning singer Dianne Reeves and sensational trumpeter James Morrison perform with the BBC Concert Orchestra under the baton of Hollywood music legend John Mauceri, showcasing some of the music most closely associated with Ella and Dizzy.

Fitzgerald was born on April 25th 1917, in Newport News, Virginia. Popular hits included stateside number one Goodnight My Love, 1936, I’m Making Believe, 1944, and her highest UK position with the top 20 track The Swinging Shepard Blues, 1958. Ella died on June 15th 1996 at the age of 79 at her home in Beverly Hills, California. Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina, the youngest of nine children, on October 21st 1917. Dizzy’s first professional job was with the Frank Fairfax Orchestra in 1935, during the 1980s he led the United Nation Orchestra with his final performances of his one man show taking place into 1992. Dizzy died on January 6th 1993, aged 75 in Englewood, New Jersey. 


Channel 5 and the weekend starts down under with the Aussie serials. At 5.30pm in Neighbours after much soul searching Willow agrees to go with Fergus. Sonya leads a group of councillors on a tour around Ernisborough in her pitch for the Livability competition, but while the wander is successful it doesn’t turn out quite how Sonya expected.

At 6pm over in Summer Bay we pay our final visit of the week to Home and Away. This evening, after another confrontation with Mason, a torn Hunter breaks down. He admits he’s unsure whether he should search for his biological father. Elsewhere Scarlett apologises to Justin for her erratic behaviour.


Sky Cinema from today brings us Brad Furman’s 1980s-set crime drama The Infiltrator. The production, starring Bryan Cranston, Diane Kruger, Amy Ryan and Jason Isaacs, sees Cranston return to the familiar world of money launderers and drug dealers, only this time he’s on the side of the law.

The Breaking Bad star is on brilliant, chameleon-like, form as Robert Mazur – the real-life federal agent who inserted himself into the intricate criminal network of Colombian kingpin Pablo Escobar. The trick was to chase the cash rather than the product, but as he moved further and further up the food chain the stakes got higher and room for error shrunk by the second.

Others starring alongside Cranston include John Leguizamo, Benjamin Bratt and Janet Aubrey.


Ella Fitzgerald is celebrated with BBC Proms, 8pm on BBC Four