What's On the Box this week?

'I Dreamed A Dream: The Susan Boyle Story' (ITV, Sunday) - Join Susan Boyle for an evening to celebrate her love of music in this hour-long special in the wake of the release of her record-breaking debut album. Featuring tracks from the new album, including 'Wild Horses', 'Cry Me A River' and 'I Dreamed A Dream', the show will be packed with special guests and surprises. Few could have predicted the record-breaking, international success for SuBo following her inspiring performance on 'Britain's Got Talent'. The Susan Boyle story will candidly chart her journey from the small Scottish village of Blackburn to superstardom and includes exclusive interviews with Susan, friends and celebrity fans, as the real Susan Boyle story will be told alongside spectacular performances. _____________________________________________________________ 'How Many People Can Live On Planet Earth?' (BBC 2, Wednesday) - In a 'Horizon' special, naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough investigates whether the world is heading into a population crisis. The Earth's natural resources are rapidly becoming outstripped by the seven billion people that depend on them for survival. In his lengthy career, the famous naturalist has watched the human population more than double, from two-and-a-half billion in 1950 to nearly seven billion today - and it is still growing. The United Nations estimates that the population will peak at nine billion in 2050. Attenborough reflects on the profound impacts of this rapid growth, both on humans and the environment. In Mexico, the programme finds out how a megacity is coping with water shortages, while in Rwanda, the programme explores whether the country's dense population and limited resources contributed to last century's genocide. ____________________________________________________________ 'The Boy Who Was Born A Girl' (Ch4, Friday) - Jon is a typical teenage boy in all respects, except one: he was born a girl. Brought up as Natasha for 15 years, Jon can remember feeling male since he was only five. He has now been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a condition that affects over 100 British children every year, and is embarking on an extraordinary journey of transition. Director Julia Moon follows mother and son through the first three months of Jon's life-changing treatment as the testosterone pushes his female body into male puberty. For mum Luisa, this means coming to terms with the enormous loss of her daughter. _____________________________________________________________ 'Guantanamo Phil' (Ch4, Friday) - Thirty-year-old Woolworths assistant manager Phil Mill from Stoke was enjoying a bird-watching holiday near the Afghan border until his arrest by US Marines on suspicion of being a terrorist. After a six-year campaign for freedom, led by his devoted girlfriend Carly, he finally returns home. But life in Britain is not quite as he remembers it - the credit crunch has claimed both his job and home. And he has several thousand answer phone messages to deal with... ____________________________________________________________ 'Another Island' (RTE 1, Saturday) - A documentary on the Great Blasket Islands which were evacuated in 1953 from whence the inhabitants moved onland to Dún Chaoin. The historical and literary legacy of the island is explored. Appearing are many of the islanders, including writers Peig Sayers and Muirís O Súilleabháin, and archive materials present the island as it was at the beginning of the century. It might have been the book that drove generations of Irish schoolkids to distraction, but Great Blasket still remains one of the country's lasting cultural landmarks. ____________________________________________________________ Movie Of The Week: 'Hunger' (Ch4, Tuesday) - Steve McQueen's award-winning drama, which focuses on the 1981 hunger strikes by Republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. Michael Fassbender plays Bobby Sands, one of a group of prisoners who first 'took to the blanket' with a 'dirty protest' in pursuit of their claims for recognition as political prisoners. Sands then became the first of the group to embark on a hunger strike that was to end in his death. At the centre of the film is a dialogue between Sands and Fr Moran (Liam Cunningham) to ask if the strike and the deaths will have any effect at all.