TV tonight: our highlights for Monday, July 28, including Animal Park

Ben Fogle with Kate Humble in Animal Park 2025
(Image credit: BBC/Darlow Smithson Productions Ltd/Joff Wilson)

Here's our TV tonight picks for Monday, July 28 (for more information about what's on TV, see our TV Guide)...

Animal Park, BBC One, 9 am

Lions and tigers and (koala) bears – oh my! Yes, it’s time to return to Longleat Safari and Adventure Park for another week to peek into the lives of the staff and animals there. As ever, Ben Fogle and Kate Humble are joined by Megan McCubbin and Hamza Yassin, and while the park prepares to welcome some new resident hippos, there’s concern in Lion Country as the life of 20-year-old matriarch Malaika hangs in the balance, spelling danger if the rest of the pride sense it.

Elsewhere, Ben battles with the macaques before they dismantle their new playground and Megan meets a red panda needing a health check. Continues until Friday.

Mandy, BBC2, 10 pm

The Gentlemen’s Pearce Quigley guest stars in the second episode of this week’s double bill. He plays Lee, the neighbour of hapless jobseeker Mandy (Diane Morgan), who offers her cash to water his plants. But while Mandy leaps at the chance to make easy money, she soon finds she has bitten off more than she can chew and what should be an ordinary Tuesday descends into death, danger and destruction.

Fake or Fortune, BBC1, 9 pm

Framed landscape painting being investigated as a work by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Framed landscape painting being investigated as a work by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Image credit: BBC)

Like buses, there are not just one but two potential lost masterpieces by Pierre-Auguste Renoir for presenters Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould to investigate in tonight’s edition – and both could be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Jackie, from Bristol, has a portrait of a young girl that’s been in her family since the 1930s which has all the hallmarks of a forgotten Renoir. Meanwhile, two sisters are also convinced they have a painting by the French impressionist. The landscape was bought by their late father in 1989 for £58,000 for their mother’s 50th birthday. But there’s a blow during paint analysis when it’s revealed it might be nothing more than a sophisticated forgery!

Mayfair Witches, BBC1, 11.10 pm (times vary, box set, iPlayer)

Neurosurgeon and reluctant witch Rowan Fielding (Alexandra Daddario) wrestles with dark maternal instincts as the fantasy based on Anne Rice’s trilogy returns for an eight-part second season. Having given birth to the human incarnation of Lasher (Jack Huston) – the shape-shifting entity who has haunted her bloodline for generations – Rowan realises she’s raising a son who is far from ordinary. How far will she go to protect her family? Alyssa Jirrels joins the cast as Mayfair cousin Moira and Ben Feldman is Rowan’s ex, Sam ‘Lark’ Larkin.

CATEGORIES

David is the What To Watch Editor and has over 20 years of experience in television journalism. He is currently writing about the latest television and film news for What To Watch.

Before working for What To Watch, David spent many years working for TV Times magazine, interviewing some of television's most famous stars including Hollywood actor Kiefer Sutherland, singer Lionel Richie and wildlife legend Sir David Attenborough. 

David started out as a writer for TV Times before becoming the title's deputy features editor and then features editor. During his time on TV Times, David also helped run the annual TV Times Awards. David is a huge Death in Paradise fan, although he's still failed to solve a case before the show's detective! He also loves James Bond and controversially thinks that Timothy Dalton was an excellent 007.

Other than watching and writing about telly, David loves playing cricket, going to the cinema, trying to improve his tennis and chasing about after his kids!

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