Rupert Everett in Search of Byron

After retracing the footsteps of the Victorian explorer Sir Richard Burton last year, Everett takes on the hard task of trekking around Italy, Greece and other Mediterranean lands in “search” of Lord Byron, or rather his notorious past. As with all the best summer holidays, this promises to be a mix of highbrow reading and scandalous gossip (Channel 4, July).

Endgame

In the late 1980s, an English country house was the unlikely venue for a series of secret talks that ended apartheid; these have now been dramatised by Paula Milne in a thriller that chronicles the extraordinary meetings, and developing friendship, between Thabo Mbeki (Chiwetel Ejiofor), later president of South Africa, and Willie Esterhuyse (William Hurt), who represented PW Botha's hated regime (Channel 4, May 4).

Mrs Mandela

As she put it herself, “Things went horribly wrong” for Winnie Mandela, the former first lady of South Africa, whose spectacular fall from grace included convictions for kidnapping and fraud. Her story is told in this drama, with Sophie Okonedo in the title role (BBC4, July).

Desperate Romantics

The pre-Raphaelites revelled in unloosening the strait-lacings of Victorian morality, and their complicated men-behaving-badly indulgences are likely to lend themselves perfectly to television drama. With Rafe Spall and Tom Hollander (BBC2, July).

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