Gareth Malone Goes to Glyndebourne
9pm, BBC2
In the feverish climax of the series, Gareth Malone gets his motley collection of truculent youths ready for their big moment: performing an opera at Glyndebourne. With his charges now opened to the craft and beauty of opera, he also sets his sights on inspiring another group of people: their mums. And the mothers' chorus is far worse, for some reason, than the teenage one. Malone is a good anchor for the project, proving tougher than he looks when it comes to knocking everyone into shape. Shanghai Tales
9pm, BBC4
This remarkable film, first broadcast in 2008, follows the intense training regime of the Chinese Circus School, which moulds children into physics-defying acrobats capable of performing what seem to be superhuman feats. Watching them learn the processes, attached to a complex network of ropes and surrounded by nets and mattresses, is mesmerising, because it repeatedly answers the question of what might happen if it went wrong, albeit with safety mechanisms in place. Their discipline is equally incredible; the emotional cost gently but properly questioned. Southland
10pm, More4
This cop series starring, among others, Benjamin McKenzie from The OC as a young rookie, is as much a study in the failure of US network nerve as in the travails of patrolling one of LA's most sprawling and crime-ridden districts. Conceived by Ann Biderman, it was commissioned by NBC, which was impressed by its raw, authentic take on police work, only for it to cancel the series on account, of its, er, rawness and authenticity. It has since been bought by TNT, however. This immediately impressive opening episode proceeds in flashback from a gangland shooting.
Skins
11.15pm, Channel 4
Lumped in with sister Emily during series three, it's time for Katie to strike out with her very own episode. The Fitch household is struggling to maintain its bright and breezy family image, as the twins' father (comic John Bishop) struggles to keep hold of his gym business, Emily has moved into miserable independence by shacking up with Naomi, and Katie has medical problems that nobody is willing to hear about. BBC Samuel Johnson Prize For Non-Fiction
11.20pm, BBC2
This weighty Culture Show special comes from the Royal Institute Of British Architects, where the winner of this year's Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction will be announced. But before we hear which tome has carried off the £20,000 prize, each author talks through their shortlisted work: Alex Bellos on Alex's Adventures In Wonderland; Barbara Demick on Nothing To Envy: Real Lives In North Korea; Luke Jennings on Blood Knots; Andrew Ross Sorkin on Too Big To Fail; Jenny Uglow on A Gambling Man, her Charles II biography, and Richard Wrangham on Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.
Important Things With Demetri Martin
11.20pm, E4
Dryer than a three-week-old coat of paint, smarter than a Tom Ford suit – comic Demetri Martin returns for a second series of his themed comedy lectures. Exec-produced by Jon Stewart, Important Things takes an arbitrary topic and riffs around it. He begins tonight with "Attention", the highlight of which is a sketch about a fake TV show called Bruce The Funny Dog – in which a basset hound has to learn when it's appropriate to dress up.
