Piers Morgan's Life Stories (ITV, 9pm)

I'VE always found it hard to warm to Piers Morgan, a journalist forced to apologise far too often for his editing style at The Sun, News of the World and the Daily Mirror, but he is who he is and returns to host a new series of intimate interviews with big name guests in front of a live studio audience.

His first guest of this six-show run is US pop-soul singer Lionel Richie, formerly of 1970s and 1980s group The Commodores and acknowledged as one of the world’s most successful musicians, having sold over 100 million records in his career.

The music legend, who recently topped the album charts after a triumphant appearance at Glastonbury, reveals why he took a stand against rapper Kanye West for using the "N" word, talks about his early life growing up in Alabama against a background of racial segregation, and looks back at his meteoric rise to fame and fortune thanks to a string of hit songs, including Hello, Endless Love and All Night Long. Richie also opens up about his two failed marriages and adopting daughter Nicole who he supported through drugs rehabilitation.

He says his first marriage broke down at the same time as his father’s death: “It was a train wreck and plane crash at the same time. It was, you can’t get hit anymore – it’s a bad Mike Tyson fight. And I got hit with all the punches.”

Although Richie could probably drop the last two letters off his surname because he has achieved such incredible wealth there are limits to the rumours about his finances. “The number that I like the most, which made me feel really good but I had to deny it, is that she (his second wife Diane, at the time of their divorce) is asking for $350,000 to $400,000 a month, and I said that from one point, 'That is ridiculous' and on the other hand I said, 'Boy, that makes me look like I got a lot of money', but I kind of like how that sounds.”

He also talks about adopting his eight-year-old daughter Nicole – the child of another band member who he'd informally welcomed into his family from the age of two – and supporting her through drug rehabilitation. Richie says: There is not a day that I don’t send a text to her and I put down, 'Proud of you'.”

Would I Lie To You (BBC1, 8.30pm)

THIS week the guests joining Lee Mack and David Mitchell are Richard Hammond, Sean Lock, Judy Murray and Trevor Noah.

Rob Brydon hosts the ninth series of the award-winning comedy panel show, with Lee Mack and David Mitchell as the lightning-quick team captains. Over the course of each show, a stellar cast of celebrity guests reveal amazing stories about themselves, some of which are true and some of which are not. The aim of the game is to fool the opposition into mistaking fact for fiction and fiction for fact.

The pace of Noah and Lock's stories is always a dead giveaway when it comes to "lies" and the Hamster and Murray's efforts appear to have been heavily edited.

Hopefully, Mack's tale of feigning a back injury to avoid a visit to Ikea is enough to keep up the track record of comedy classics on Friday nights.

Ripper Street (BBC1, 9pm)

THE vicious stabbing of local woman Ida Watts results in the exceptionally wealthy wife of a decorated war hero standing before the men of Leman Street charged with murder. Lady Vera Montacute was found beside the corpse, yet it remains possible her only "crime" was her curiosity. The investigators of H Division – now bolstered by a recovered Reid – are tasked with confirming the culprit before the weight of the authorities bears down upon them. Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn and Adam Rothenberg star.

Viv Hardwick