What we're watching on TV

Taron Egerton (Rocketman, Eddie the Eagle, Kingsman), takes a more serious turn in this deliciously dark true crime thriller, spawned from the hands of one of the world’s greatest writers – Denis Lehane (Mystic River, Shutter Island).

And I wouldn’t be surprised if after this performance his hat’s thrown in the ring for Bond.

In Black Bird (based on a true story and set in the mid-90s) Egerton as Jimmy Keene seems the epitome of the American dream – his only faux pas at the start being a penchant for dressing like the Milk Tray Man.

Jimmy is an enigmatic, thoroughly charming former football star, holed up in the kind of mansion that might have featured on MTV Cribs ‘back in the day’, spending his time and money on expensive dinners, fast cars, fast women, and maintaining a buff physique.

We soon learn Jimmy’s cash these days is earnt is less than wholesome ways. And a stand-off with a drug supplier lands him in hot water with the DEA and FBI, who have him collared and looking at a stretch inside. Smugly, he thinks he’ll be out by teatime.

But his father, Big Jim (Ray Liotta in his final TV role before his death) a decorated cop haunted by the failures he thinks he’s inflicted on his family, reveals otherwise. He’s going to do time. He shouldn’t take a plea deal. He'll be out in four.

Four, in this case, equals 10. But just as Jimmy looks to time inside that will take him into his 40s on good behaviour, making cash with a side hustle loaning out porno mags, he’s thrown a potential lifeline.

Transfer to a max security prison, and use said-charm to woo and elicit a confession from a convicted killer, who’s about to appeal, and could walk free.

It’s a blunt no. Until Jimmy finds out his dad’s gravely ill, and might not see out the decade.

The felon he’ll be shacked up with? Smalltown Illinois weirdo – quietly spoken and unsettling Larry Hall - who tells the cops he has ‘vivid dreams’ about killing women.

Meanwhile, in flashbacks, detective Brian Miller (Greg Kinnear) is starting to suspect there’s more to Larry’s dreams than he could be letting on.

Black Bird is pure class and worth every penny of the fiver it’ll cost you to sign up to Apple TV+. It'll make you laugh. Think. Cry. And sink back into your chair a little in fear.

Charlotte Smith-Jarvis

This Is MY House, BBC One, Fridays, 8.30pm, and whole series available on BBC iPlayer

This Is MY House is the property show/gameshow mash-up that we never knew we needed.

A sort of reboot of Through The Keyhole, minus Loyd Grossman, four contestants each have to convince a panel of celebrity sleuths that they are the owners of the same property.

Dreamed up by former Blue Peter presenter Richard Bacon, the show made its debut during lockdown last year and has just returned in a slightly tweaked format for a second series.

Host Stacey Dooley has moved out, replaced by comedian Sophie Willan’s deliciously deadpan narration, and the run time has been tightened up from an hour to a much snappier 30 minutes.

Judi Love returns to head up the team of famous faces, joined by Richard Madeley. Richard and Judi - could there be a more perfect pairing?

And during the series the likes of Harry Hill, Scarlett Moffatt, Joel Dommett, Sindhu Vee, Kadeena Cox, rapper MIST, Nick Grimshaw, Shaun Ryder, Katie Piper, Chris McCausland and Kiri Pritchard-McLean pop in to help them solve the clues and work out who is the genuine resident.

The stakes are pretty low – whether they guess right or not, the person the celebrities decide is telling the truth wins £1,000.

But the Come Dine With Me-style competitiveness between the contestants is hilarious.

Take episode one, for example, when four contestants were trying to convince the panel that they were the real Joey, a beauty pageant queen from Conwy.

Two of the Joeys had a stand-off over whether to take their shoes off in the house, and one of them, keen to show off her local knowledge claimed that Conwy Castle was built in the 1920s – she was only out by the best part of a millennium.

How the three not-Joeys kept a straight face as they claimed to own a pair of spooky dolls with real human hair, I do not know.

The real Joey’s step-dad did his best to hold it together as all four of them sat in front of him and told them how they felt about him – a scene which was awkward in the very best way.

And, of course, there’s the true pleasure that comes from being able to have a virtual snoop around other people’s houses and play interior design critic.

Look at those weird bar stools – I would never have chosen them.

Emma Lee

Only Murders in the Building is back on Disney+ (Image: Disney+)

Only Murders in the Building, series 2 streaming now on Disney +

I remember rolling my eyes when my kids asked me to subscribe to Disney + (£7.99 per month). I mean, I’d lost track of all the streaming services we’d signed up to, and honestly, did I really want to pay just under a tenner for them to have access to a load of Disney films they’ve seen about a million times?

Today I’m eating humble pie. I think I’ve watched more than they have on the service which, as well as bringing the Disney, Marvel and Star Wars back catalogue, offers some pretty darn good original content via the Star channel – most recently Pistol, Dopesick and Pam & Tommy.

My biggest ‘guilty pleasure’ is the absurd but charming Only Murders in the Building, with season two having just landed.

Series one introduced us to long-time friends Steve Martin and Martin Short as washed-out actor Charles and failed theatre producer lover Oliver.

When a suspicious death occurs in their fancy New York apartment building The Arconia, they join forces with mysterious Mabel (Selena Gomez) - a fellow true crime podcast fan – to try to solve the crime themselves.

I won’t spoil it if you’ve not seen the show, but by the end of S1 the trio appear to have blood on their hands.

Which is where series two picks up. Who DID kill Arconia board president Bunny? Does it have something to do with Charles’ dad? And will NYC’s least-listened-to podcast find its way back online?

It’s just fun, fun, fun, watchable telly. Martin and Short riff off one another perfectly.

Charlotte Smith-Jarvis