UK TV programmes to watch this week : 06/08/2016

Olympics 2016: Opening Ceremony (BBC 1/HD | 11:40pm to 4:00am | Friday 5th August 2016)

Clare Balding introduces live coverage of the opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympic Games from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as the games head to South America for the first time. The ceremony is a chance for participants from all 207 competing nations to parade with their flag in the iconic Maracana Stadium.

Countryfile (BBC 1/HD | 6:30pm to 7:30pm | Sunday 7th August 2016)

Countryfile is on the tiny Scottish island of Kerrera. Sitting just half a kilometre from the mainland but a world away from the hustle and bustle, Kerrera is the archetypal Scottish Island. There are rugged cliffs, wide-open beaches and remote farmsteads. Anita spends a day getting to know the locals and getting under the skin of island life. She joins postmaster Gill Vollum as she goes about her daily round – not easy when there’s only one half-finished road on the island. She helps shepherd Sheila McGregor round up her sheep and hears that all the farms on Kerrera are run by women. And she stops for a welcome cup of tea at the tea room that serves as the community hub. Anita meets owners Aideen Gallagher and Martin Shields who quit busy jobs on the mainland and finds out what living the island dream is like for them.

Full Steam Ahead (BBC 2/HD | 8:00pm to 9:00pm | Thursday 11th August 2016)

Historians Ruth Goodman, Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn explore how the Victorian railways created modern Britain. At the National Railway Museum, Alex and Peter help get the most famous locomotive in the world, the Flying Scotsman, into steam. The team take a ride of a lifetime as the loco travels along its original route, connecting London and Edinburgh, and Alex finds out what it is like for catering staff with 250 hungry mouths to feed. Peter heads to the Great Central Railway to find out how the railways revolutionised the delivery of mail right across Britain and is put to task on the travelling post office. Ruth finds out what the role of the wheel-tapper entailed and helps to tyre a wheel with a steel band at the South Devon Railway workshop. In Bristol, Alex discovers how the railways were responsible for bringing the nation into sync, as he visits a clock with two minute hands. Meanwhile, Peter learns how the railways brought Britain current news for the first time.

Amazing Spaces: Shed of the Year (Channel 4/HD | 8:00pm to 9:00pm | Friday 12th August 2016)

With the competition at the halfway point, it’s the turn of the most popular category: Pubs and Entertainment sheds. This fiercely contested group includes an entire Wild West town built out of sheds up in Aberdeen, a faithful replica of a Polish mountain drinking den in rural Ireland, and a nightclub in Hackney with a truly one of a kind owner. Also in this episode are the shortlisted sheds in the Workshops and Studios group; here, a blacksmith’s smithy is up against a Star Wars shed. And George Clarke meets a man with over 300 lawnmowers in his garden shed.

All TV guide information taken from DigiGuide — www.getdigiguide.tv/?p=1&r=15119.