Must see on Channel 4
Educating Manchester is back with more moving, funny and dramatic insights into modern school life. Marking the 20th anniversary of Damilola Taylor’s death, Radio DJ, TV presenter and childhood friend, Yinka Bokinni discovers how the loss and trauma affected the local community. Dispatches explores the jobs crisis brought on by Covid, which is threatening to push unemployment over three million by Christmas, and outrageous comedy series Maxxx returns.
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Educating Manchester
Tuesdays at 9pm
Educating... is back. The series that's given viewers years of moving, funny and dramatic insights into modern schooling and life as a teenager returns to the same school as the previous 2017 series - Harrop Fold School in Greater Manchester. The series offers a real but warm snapshot of life in a British school. There is also a catch-up with some of the much-loved pupils from the previous series: cheeky Vincent, who's now going into Year 10 and claims he's a reformed character; and Katelyn, who struggled to focus last time but now wants to get her head down. The series also explore the ups and downs through the eyes of some of the teachers.
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Damilola: The Boy Next Door
Wednesdays at 9pm
Yinka Bokinni is a successful radio DJ, TV presenter and writer. But 20 years ago, she was one of the kids growing up on the North Peckham Estate in south London, a place that became notorious when 10-year-old Damilola Taylor was stabbed and left alone to die in a lonely stairwell. Within months, the entire estate had been bulldozed and all the residents resettled, with Peckham demonised as a 'no-go area' riddled with drugs, gangs and violence. But Yinka remembers an idyllic childhood, surrounded by a loving and tight-knit community. And the boy they all called 'Dami' was her friend. Now, aged 30, and marking the 20th anniversary of Damilola's death, Yinka attempts to reconcile two versions of her past: the warm, loving and happy community she remembers so fondly, and that which was presented in the media as a crime-ridden 'sink estate' blamed for the tragic loss of a young life.
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Dispatches: Britain's Covid Job Crisis
Mondays at 8pm
As the furlough scheme comes to an end, Dispatches follows a single job advert for a minimum wage server role at a Manchester restaurant. Almost a thousand people apply, including Katie, a cabin services attendant; Faye, a cruise ship dancer; Jake, a hotel manager; and John, a ticket inspector. We get to know them, as well as Abi, the recruitment consultant in charge of narrowing down the field; and Kerry, a mum of two, who lost her job at Bentley and is desperate to find a new position to avoid the family losing their home. Through the lens of this one position, Dispatches explores the jobs crisis brought on by Covid, which is threatening to push unemployment over three million by Christmas.
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Maxxx
Thursdays at 10pm
Hilariously outrageous comedy series that offers a rude and cringe-inducing peek behind the pop world's curtain. Former boyband star turned drug-shamed tabloid laughingstock Maxxx may be down, but he's not out. He's trying to make a comeback to prove to the world - but mostly to his supermodel ex-girlfriend Jourdan (Jourdan Dunn) - that he's not the massive loser everyone says he is. But with his adopted teenage son Amit (Alan Asaad) in serious need of daddy advice, his cousin/superfan/stalker Rose (Helen Monks) popping up around every corner, and most people assuming he's dead, the journey back to superstardom won't be easy.
