TV Week: Champion (BBC One), Wimbledon (BBC), Body on the Beach: What Happened to Annie? (BBC Three)

The BBC have been busily delivering on the Reithian principles of informing, educating and entertaining this week – and that's just Wimbledon.

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

So goes the apocryphal quote from gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson (he was actually talking about the television industry), which certainly applies to the BBC’s much talked about new eight-part series Champion (BBC One). Written by acclaimed ‘Queenie’ author Candice Carty-Williams and set in the world of British rap music, it has already attracted enough buzz to be snapped up by Netflix for US distribution.

Taking place in London’s Lewisham, it follows the musical and personal exploits of a pair of siblings, convincingly played by Déja J Bowens and Malcolm Kamulete, whose thusfar symbiotic relationship is about to come to an end. Up-and-coming rapper Bosco Champion is getting his career back on track after being released from prison, but sister Vita is fed up of acting as his unofficial manager/lyricist/dogsbody and fancies her own shot at fame. Around them revolves a cavalcade of wholesome family members, fierce rap rivals, dodgy label bosses and venal PR advisors. In a standout first episode scene Bosco expresses doubt at using his criminal record, and subsequent false arrest at his 25th birthday party, to flog records. “He’ll do it”, barks his cash-hungry manager to the assembled panel of salivating record company executives.

Films and television programmes about the music business tend to live and die by the songs – get them wrong and the artificiality infects everything else, but get them right and half the work is done before the first plot twist. Happily Champion nails every track, from our introduction to Bosco performing at a homecoming gig lit by mobile phones, to Vita’s tentative first recording session. Such is the quality you’re swiftly Googling who wrote the tunes (the multi-talented Carty-Williams penned them before even tackling the story), whether the actors performed them (they did, with BBC Sound of 2017 winner Ray BLK making an impressive screen debut) and if you can buy the soundtrack (not yet, although Ray BLK has released ‘My Girl’ as a single).

In fact, other than the suspiciously spacious terraced London house where the family live – surely worth about £5million by now – most of what takes place on screen rings true. That includes the use of social media and mobile phones, with hastily-filmed videos seen whizzing onto the web for immediate and life-changing public consumption, while a stream of text and direct messages litter the screen providing commentary from the unseen outside world. A rap battle that provides a dramatic closer to the second instalment is as muscular and tense as a boxing match, although the knockout blow is delivered by way of USB stick rather than uppercut.

All eight episodes dropped at the same time on the BBC iPlayer this week, encouraging either a night oil-burning binge-watch or mid-series abandonment when the next televisual shiny bauble distracts. With the dearth of quality viewing over the summer, this is one to eke out on a weekly basis while avoiding spoilers.

Geographically just 12 miles from the London of Champion, but seemingly on a different planet, Wimbledon (BBC) is back. Pleasantly familiar, the first of two weeks of wall-to-wall tennis coverage featured the usual British triumphs, disappointments, queues and rain delays.

Claire Balding has eased into the now-retired Sue Barker’s presenting duties in the manner of a top tier Doctor Who regeneration – there’s a different face but everything else is the same and you instantly know you’re in safe hands. She helms the usual supporting cast of pundits (just don’t mention Boris – Becker or Johnson) including past champions John McEnroe, Billie Jean King and Pat Cash, alongside British plucky losers Tim Henman and Annabel Croft. The latter presumably has an aging portrait in her attic alongside her old tennis gear, having looked exactly the same for the last 20 years. Either that or she and Paul Rudd share the same makeup artist.

The BBC are very good at this kind of thing. Even though the real drama only starts in the second week, every story is picked over and discussed in depth usually reserved for election manifestos or Taylor Swift lyrics. The first day saw Britain’s Dan Evans warned for uttering an “audible obscentity”, although at least it wasn’t in front of Prince George like Aussie livewire Nick Kyrgios’ outburst last year – where he was lucky to lose just a few quid and not his head. Speaking of royalty, the Princess of Wales joined Wimbledon favourite Roger Federer in the Royal Box to watch Sir Andy Murray swat aside his first round opponent before the Scot (and, yes, the commentators referred to him as such) delivered his trademark laconic press conference.

With live coverage from 11am-9pm each day, countless live matches available via the iPlayer, and evening roundups, this is a feast for sporting couch potatoes. In this world of multi-channel television and sporting rights being split between stations, how pleasant it is to watch it all take place on the Beeb.

Also unfolding on the BBC this week is twisty true crime documentary Body on the Beach: What Happened to Annie? (BBC Three). True crime always sells, and this is no exception – having raced to the upper echelons of the iPlayer charts. It sees BBC Scotland journalist Hazel Martin take a deep dive into the case of Annie Börjesson, a Swedish woman who was found dead on Prestwick Beach 18 years ago. The police ruled it was suicide but her friends and family disagree. Suffice to say, by the end of this four-part series you won’t be sure either. What is certain is that after the first of many shocking reveals you won’t be able to stop watching.