TV tonight: the British TV event of the year finally arrives!

Let the backstabbing begin in The Celebrity Traitors. Plus: tearjerking searches in Long Lost Family. Here’s what to watch this evening

8pm, BBC One Whom will Michael Sheen pretend to be in his latest role? How long before James Blunt gets his guitar out? Will Prof Hannah Fry prove to be too clever? And how well do Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan really know each other? Welcome to the TV event of the year! Last year’s inaugural starry series provided dozens of sublime small-screen moments and made the show the hottest celebrity booking in the business. Can this year’s maintain the standard ? Phil Harrison

10pm, Channel 4 A comedy built around the housing crisis was only a matter of time. This series follows Lil and Ben as their move to London goes pear‑shaped. In the time it takes Ben to confess to a drunken one-night stand, the couple go from conversations about what colour bedding they’d prefer to labelled sections in the fridge. Unfortunately, they’ve signed a six-month tenancy, so they’re stuck. It’s amusing rather than uproarious, but Lara Ricote and Samuel Bottomley are sweetly bewildered leads. PH

This attempt to approximate the magic of Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing returns. It is rather lovely in its own right, even if the actors Sam West and Ade Edmondson lack Bob and Paul’s comic chemistry. They begin in the Yorkshire Dales, where Sam drags Ade out of bed at 3am for the dawn chorus. Ouch. PH

9pm, ITV1 Two more tearjerking searches are shepherded by Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell. First comes Anita, who found a photo of a baby in her mother’s wardrobe and is finally searching for the brother who was given up for adoption. Then, Ruth traces her late sister’s son, who was taken into care. Hannah Verdier

9pm, Channel 4 This customarily spicy mixture of comics is dominated by Richard Ayoade and his disdain for the whole enterprise. However, Chloe Petts also causes problems for Alex this week by hiding something in a very awkward place indeed. Somehow, Taskmaster’s formula is sturdy enough to accommodate everyone it encounters. PH

9pm, Channel 5 Siegfried works the veterinary practice flat out as he tries to “seize the advantage” from his rival Granville Bennett, while James’s devotion to work leaves Dorothy feeling neglected. It’s time to make amends: “Dorothy … would you consider making things between us more permanent?” Ali Catterall

Better Man ( Michael Gracey, 2024), 8.30am, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere

Michael Gracey’s film about Robbie Williams sticks to the music biopic template of rise-fall-redemption, save for one aspect: he’s portrayed as a chimp. Manifesting Take That’s cheeky chappy as an ape provides a pleasingly surreal edge to the singer’s lairy tale, as well as giving Williams, who narrates, the chance to be amusingly self-deprecating. A fun, vibrant and silly film, with one set-piece, Rock DJ on Regent Street in London, that’s the equal of La La Land’s freeway number. Simon Wardell

The Holdovers ( Alexander Payne, 2023), 9pm, Film4 Alexander Payne gets back with his Sideways lead, Paul Giamatti, for a witty, bittersweet story . The actor is on fine misanthropic form as Paul Hunham, a widely disliked classics teacher at a New England boys’ boarding school in 1970. He is ordered to stay on site over the Christmas holidays to supervise the children who can’t go home, most problematically Dominic Sessa’s smart, sardonic teenager Angus. Also stuck there is the grieving canteen manager, Mary (an Oscar-winning Da’Vine Joy Randolph). Forced into uncomfortable proximity, the three slowly eke out an understanding. S W