Television choices: Book in for a rich experience at celeb-rated London hotel

The staff of Claridge's star in the BBC's new documentary (BBC)

TV pick of the week

Inside Claridge's

Monday 9pm BBC2

ITV's 2010 documentary series about the Savoy came across as a monumental puff-piece for the refurbishment of that landmark London hostelry, but the new series about Claridge's (home from home for Tom Cruise, Madonna and various royal families) is something else entirely – by dint of it being the work of Jane Treays, a film-maker unafraid to ask a blunt question and capture a telling moment. Her jaw-dropping insight into the lives of the super-rich begins with an unnamed Middle Eastern royal family booking an entire floor for a week-long shopping binge, the general manager Thomas Kochs drumming up business in New York, and the etiquette of addressing the U2 guitarist Edge. Is it "Dear Edge" or "Dear Mr Edge"?

Michael Jackson: Bad 25

Saturday 9.45pm BBC2

Spike Lee's documentary about the making of Michael Jackson's 1987 album Bad – the follow-up to Thriller – celebrates Jackson the artist instead of attending to the Wacko Jacko myths. Martin Scorsese recalls directing the "Bad" video – one that would "show the homeys he's down" – while others recall Jackson's meeting with the star then stealing his crown, Prince.

Why Poverty? Solar Mamas

Sunday 9pm BBC4

Rafea, an illiterate Bedouin woman from Jordan, travels to India against her husband's wishes to train as a solar-power engineer in this brilliant documentary in the Why Poverty? season. Rafea is followed as she joins women from Colombia and Burkina Faso to learn about circuitry and sisterhood in an inspired programme bringing free energy to the world's poorest.

Imagine: Jeanette Winterson – My Monster and Me

Tuesday 10.35pm BBC1

Winterson's "monster", as anyone who knows Oranges Are the Only Fruit will realise, is her mother, the Old Testament-like figure who adopted Winterson as a baby. Alan Yentob accompanies the author back to Lancashire, as she tells of her recent breakdown and suicide attempt, and her successful quest to find her birth mother.

The Town

Wednesday 9pm ITV1

The acclaimed playright Mike Bartlett (Cock, Chariots of Fire) makes his television drama debut – and, eye-catchingly, it's not on Sky Arts or BBC4 but on ITV1. Andrew Scott (Moriarty in Sherlock) plays a man back in his home-town from London in the aftermath of a family tragedy. The writing is intriguing, and a cast-against-type Martin Clunes co-stars .

Playhouse Presents: A Young Doctor's Notebook

Thursday 9pm & 12.20am Sky Arts 1

Jon Hamm fires up a cigarette – but this isn't Sixties Madison Avenue but Thirties Moscow, and Hamm's doctor is looking back at his younger self (Daniel Radcliffe) and his early career in a rural hospital during the Russian Revolution. This four-part black comedy is based on the short stories of Mikhail Bulgakov.

Westminster Abbey

Friday 9pm BBC2

The second British institution to welcome in the cameras this week has an even longer history and more illustrious guest list than Claridge's. The first episode focuses on the Abbey's little-known boarding school, where its 30 choristers are educated, and the latest "surveyor of the fabric" to follow in the footsteps of Sir Christopher Wren, the architect Ptolemy Dean.