Must-watch TV

Health of the Nation

Health

8.30pm, RTÉ One
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It's a doctors' road-show as the effervescent Mark Hamilton brings Dublin GP, Dr Nina Byrnes, on board for a new series that sees the duo travelling around the country with their mobile surgery unit. Taking the pulse - as well as the cholesterol level and everything else - of the nation, this epic odyssey (including Cork, Limerick, Naas, Waterford and Longford) offers a useful snapshot of the country's health. It begins in Sligo, where a fatigued child and a man with a mysterious rash visit the mobile clinic. The programme also focuses on Ireland's biggest killer, heart disease, and Sligo County Darts Team check-in for a check-up.

Off The Rails

Fashion

8.00pm, RTÉ One
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Brendan Courtney and Sonja Lennon are back with a new series to tell us about what's hot and what's not for spring/summer 2010. This season it's all about underwear as outerwear (and not in the way that Woody Allen's fledgling dictator envisages it in Bananas!). We're talking ultra sportswear, snow whites and much more (if you want to know you'll just have to tune in). There's also the first makeover of the new series - 36-year-old Pearl Barnes feels that her new lifestyle as a stay-at-home mum has made her invisible. (see the OTR special pages 22-28)

Famous, Rich and Jobless

Reality

9.00pm, BBC One
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This sounds rather odd - or else that's the sound of the bottom of the reality TV barrel being scraped. The deal is that four celebrities (this week Larry Lamb, Diarmuid Gavin, Emma Parker Bowles and Meg Matthews) have all their worldly possessions taken away (just temporarily!) and move in with a real-life unemployed person. Can they convince their 'new best friend'to go out and get a job?

The Boys of St Columb's

Documentary

10.45pm, BBC One
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Recently screened on RTÉ, this affectionate documentary follows the lives of several great Irish figures, including Nobel Prize winners Seamus Heaney and John Hume as well as writer Seamus Deane, musician Paul Brady and social commentator Eamonn McCann, who all attended the same small school in Derry in the 1950s.

Atonement

Film

9.35pm, RTÉ One
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Though shot on a relatively small budget, Atonement looks sumptuous at times and has been feted at various festivals, yet somehow it fails to entirely convince. It's not just that great novels (and this is a great Ian McEwan novel) don't always become great movies. It's just that this is a tale which offers more on the page than on the screen. Take the much feted sequence on Dunkirk beach, for example. It's clear that the lingering camera pan around McAvoy and his fellow soldiers is intended to elicit a sense of awe in viewers; instead, it feels like we are being given a guided tour of a movie set.
On the positive side, our gal Saoirse Ronan delivers a remarkable performance as the young Briony and James McAvoy is excellent as the young man whose life is turned upside down by the mistakes of others. (Joe Wright, 2007, 130m)