DOMINIC SANDBROOK: LET US ENTERTAIN YOU, BBC2, 9pm

Anyone who’s still rather miffed at Britain’s imperial and economic decline can take heart from this new series; things aren’t as grim as some historians suggest because, according to presenter Dominic Sandbrook, Britain still dominates the field of popular culture.

Having produced global successes like Harry Potter, The Beatles, Doctor Who, James Bond and Agatha Christie – the latter being outsold only by Shakespeare and the Bible – Britain can still claim to be a (cultural) superpower.

Sandbrook begins by linking Britain’s artistic post-war brilliance to our Victorian predecessors. He says the musicians, producers and writers of the era showed the “same spirit of invention and entrepreneurship” as those at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution. He takes the band Black Sabbath: its members were working-class boys from the steelworks of Birmingham, an industrial city already in decline, and so their future was either unemployment or manual labour but they were as determined as any Victorian businessman to make their name in the emerging “heavy metal” scene.

This entrepreneurship was also at play with The Beatles whose manager’s first act was to take them to Liverpool’s finest tailor, transforming them from leather-clad American copycats to neat British lads, slightly quirky and totally unique. They were now a brand as well as a band, with Epstein carefully creating “an immaculately packaged product.”

These early artists set the tone of the new “swinging” London and arty Britain whilst others, such as Andrew Lloyd Webber with his blockbuster musicals, have ensured the country is a “tourist honeypot”. Britain may have lost its Empire but has built an “Empire of the Imagination” in its place.

 

MY PSYCHIC LIFE, C4, 10pm

A psychic draped in beads whispers to the spirits, begging them to leave the house they haunt - then she turns to the camera and declares in blunt Yorkshire tones, “That’s that sorted.”

“I’m Edward,” squeaks another woman then sits on a park bench to chat with her spirit pals.

This observational documentary follows a collection of so-called psychics from Northern England who insist they can speak with the dead. The programme’s jaunty music declares its own cynicism. Without it, you might feel you’re watching a grotesque sitcom.