What’s on TV tonight: what to watch on Tuesday 12 April, from Derry Girls Season 3 to Compulsion to Julia

Here’s your guide to what’s on television on Tuesday 12 April, from the latest series of Derry Girls, a documentary about Frederick Douglass, and an arctic challenge series.

I’ve highlighted a top pick for the evening, as well as suggested a streaming boxset to check out on Apple TV+ if nothing on normal television catches your eye tonight.

Top Pick

Derry Girls Series 3

Channel 4 @ 9:15pm

Derry Girls is returning for its third – and sadly final – series tonight. It promises to be just as funny as ever, very much tonight’s television highlight.

Best of the Rest

Freeze the Fear with Wim Hof

BBC One @ 9pm

Cold man Wim Hof does cold challenges with celebrities unused to the cold in this cold new series presented by Lee Mack and Holly Willoughby. Keep an eye out also for BBC Three companion series Munya and Filly Get Chilly, an accompanying look behind the scenes hosted by viral comedian Munya Chawawa and rapper Yung Filly.

Compulsion

Channel 5 @ 9pm

Leanne Best (Four Lives) stars as Jenny, a paramedic who develops a gambling addiction while trying to recover from PTSD. Anna Chancellor (The Split) stars as Sasha, a good Samaritan who’s not as trustworthy as she initially seems. Compulsion is four episodes, airing nightly at 9pm on Channel 5.

Hullraisers

Channel 4 @ 9:45pm

Lucy Beaumont (Meet the Richardsons) adapts Israeli series Little Mom into this series about three working-class women from Hull juggling their work, family, and friends. Craig Parkinson (Line of Duty) and Shobna Gulati (Coronation Street) guest star.

Julia

Sky Atlantic @ 9pm

Sarah Lancashire (Happy Valley) and David Hyde Pierce (Frasier) star in this biopic of famous television chef Julia Child, looking at how she revolutionised public television in America.

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?

Britbox

Hugh Laurie directs this Agatha Christie adaptation that stars Will Poulter and Jim Broadbent amongst others.

Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches

Sky & NOW TV

Actors Nicole Beharie (Sleepy Hollow), Jeffrey Wright (The Batman), Colman Domingo (Euphoria), Jonathan Majors (The Last Black Man in San Francisco) and Denzel Whittaker (The Great Debaters) perform speeches from the revolutionary abolitionist in this historical documentary.

One to avoid

Hard Cell

Netflix

A mockumentary set in a women’s prison, where an ineffectual-but-overpromoted governor believes that staging a musical will help with attempts to rehabilitate the inmates; Tate plays six characters, most built on the hope that you’ll find Tate’s broad Glaswegian accent inherently funny and not much else.

Streaming Choice

Severance

Apple TV+

The sci-fi satire with Adam Scott recently concluded its first series, and it has quickly become one of the most talked-about television series of the year. You can see why I enjoyed it so much here.