Wednesday

Pick of the day

Dispatches: Britain’s Forgotten Pensioners

10pm, Channel 4

Pensioners – especially the one in five living in poverty – are too often on the fringes in the cost of living discourse. Beyond financial limitations, their mental health can be hugely affected. This powerful Dispatches shares some of their stories, including 82-year-old Harry who can no longer afford to do the one thing he enjoys: making pots, and 68-year-old Doreen, who who has had just two visitors in 38 years. And yet their strength of character and humour shines through.

The Repair Shop 8pm, BBC One

This week, the poet laureate,

Simon Armitage, brings into the workshop a harmonium that is tied to memories of his father. Other items looking to be revived: a pair of children’s leather clogs, a silver charm bracelet and a broken sculpture of its owner’s mother. HR

The Great British Sewing Bee 9pm, BBC One

It’s west Africa week in what is surely the only reality competition to wring drama from “complex pockets”. The hotshot needlers are watched by guest judge Banke Kuku as she sets challenges including making a Ghanaian men’s batakari tunic and working with traditional Yoruba àdìre fabric. AD

The Gallows Pole 9pm, BBC Two

Shane Meadows’s first period drama continues with David Hartley (Michael Socha) giving an accidentally hilarious monologue about his spiritual “vision of stagmen”. He tells a roomful of blankfaced friends and family that he knows what he thinks he should do to protect their futures in a changing world: coin-clipping. HR