TV Tonight: our highlights for Monday, Jan. 17

TV tonight - Kelvin Fletcher and his wife Liz adapt to country life.
Kelvin Fletcher and his wife Liz adapt to country life. (Image credit: BBC)

On TV tonight, the former Emmerdale star charts his new life in the country in Kelvin Fletcher's Big Farming Adventure on BBC1, see how the other half live in Keeping Up with the Aristocrats on ITV and get ready for more father and son mayhem as Bradley & Barney Walsh: Breaking Dad returns also on ITV. Here’s what you shouldn’t miss on TV tonight.

  • Our hand selected recommendations for what's on TV tonight include three TV shows, a film and the latest trending need-to-binge-on-now box set 
  • Keep up to date with the latest soap spoiler storylines on TV tonight with our daily soap synopsis 
  • For more information about what’s on TV tonight see our TV Guide

What's on TV tonight

Our expert TV journalists have picked the best things on TV tonight... 

Best TV shows on TV tonight

Kelvin's Big Farming Adventure, 8.30pm, BBC1

TV Tonight Kelvin Fletcher and family.

Kelvin Fletcher and family start a new life in the country.  (Image credit: BBC)

Take one ‘townie’ actor with zero farming experience, put him in charge of a 120-acre sheep farm and you end up with plenty of comical farming disasters and some brilliantly fun telly. Yes, Kelvin Fletcher used to hump around hay bales as Andy Sugden in Emmerdale, but he’s actually clueless about farming, despite some grand plans to make the Peak District farm he’s bought with his wife Liz Marsland a success. It’s a huge baptism of fire, and tonight’s opener sees him almost faint while cleaning maggots from a sheep’s hoof. 

★★★★★ HD

Keeping Up with the Aristocrats, 9pm, ITV

TV tonight Lord Ivar Mountbatten, Jean-Christophe Novelli and James Coyle

Lord Ivar Mountbatten, Jean-Christophe Novelli and James Coyle. (Image credit: ITV)

This light-hearted series follows four of Britain’s prominent aristocratic families over one social season, and the first episode reveals how these blue bloods must come up with money-making schemes to pay the exorbitant running costs of their stately homes. Lord Ivar Mountbatten and his husband James Coyle plan to open a pop-up restaurant that seats 50 diners at their home, Bridwell Park in Devon, with the help of Michelin-starred chef Jean-Christophe Novelli. At £165 per head, will they sell out?

★★★★ JE

Bradley & Barney Walsh: Breaking Dad, 8pm, ITV

TV tonight Barney and Bradley Walsh.

Barney challenges Bradley to face the fear.  (Image credit: ITV)

What do you do if your father hates heights? Get him to free-fall off the top of a football stadium, of course! Barney Walsh is determined to push dad Bradley to his limit in the fourth series of this TV gem. Thrill-seeking Barney kicks things off in Croatia by making Bradley throw himself off Hajduk Split’s home ground – cue a lot of bleeping! A welcome return. 

★★★★ RF

Best box set to watch on TV tonight

After Life, season 3, Netflix

TV tonight Ricky Gervais and Diane Morgan.

Ricky Gervais and Diane Morgan star. (Image credit: Netflix)

The final series of the award-winning comedy-drama written by and starring Ricky Gervais returns for its final six-part series. Although Tony still struggles to cope after the death of his wife Lisa (played in flashbacks by Kerry Godliman), this series has a more hopeful feel as Tony works through his grief and arrives at a more accepting and understanding place. He also contemplates his relationship with Emma (Ashley Jensen), and continues to be annoyed by his work colleagues, especially Kath (Diane Morgan). Meanwhile, he continues to find a kindred spirit in widow Anne (Penelope Wilton) and builds upon his friendships with eccentric locals ‘Postman Pat’ (Joe Wilkinson) and sex worker Roxy (Roisin Conaty). 

Best film to watch on TV tonight

Loving Vincent, 11.45pm, Film4

TV tonight The artist’s life is captured in oil paintings

The artist’s life is captured in oil paintings. (Image credit: Film4)

It’s rare to see anything genuinely new in cinema, but this is just that – a tale of a man investigating the last days of artist Vincent van Gogh a year after his death, told through animation involving more than 65,000 individual frames, each of those an oil painting in the style of Van Gogh. The result is spectacular, even if the story drags in places, but that’s lifted by a voice cast that includes Helen McCrory, Chris O’Dowd and Saoirse Ronan. A film that is truly one of a kind. 

Live Sport

  • NBA Basketball, Atlantic Hawks v Milwaukee Bucks, 11pm (tip-off 11pm), Sky Sports Main Event/NOW

Soaps on TV tonight

If you watch just one thing on TV tonight…

Don't miss Kelvin's Big Farming Adventure on TV tonight – it's nice to see the Emmerdale star in a different and very muddy light!

Not found anything you want to watch on TV tonight? Check out our TV Guide

Happy viewing!

Joanne Lowles
Freelance writer and editor

Joanne Lowles has been writing about TV since 2002. After graduating from Cardiff University with a Postgraduate Diploma in Magazine Journalism, she worked for All About Soap magazine covering the ups and downs of life on the cobbles, the square and the Dales. 


Next came nearly 10 years at TV Times magazine as a writer and then deputy features editor. Here she spent many happy days interviewing the biggest names in entertainment and visiting the sets of some of our most popular shows including Downton Abbey, Call the Midwife and Strictly Come Dancing


With a love of nature and wildlife she’s also interviewed the leading experts in this area including David Attenborough, Chris Packham and Steve Backshall. She’s also travelled the world visiting Mongolia, Canada and South Africa to see how the best in the business make the most brilliant natural history documentaries. 


Freelance since 2013, she is now is a digital writer and editor for What to Watch, previews the best on the box for TV Times mag each week and loves being constantly surprised, entertained and informed by the amazing TV that she is lucky enough to watch.