Agatha Christie’s Marple
ITV1, 8pm
Julia McKenzie makes Miss Marple her own from the very start. While Geraldine McEwan played her as a mischievous sparrow, McKenzie’s Marple is everyone’s favourite aunt — warm, kindly and principled. This is a real person, not a theatrical one. Her relationship with Inspector Neele (Matthew Macfadyen) is based on fondness and co-operation — if she thinks he’s a bit dim, she’s far too nice to let on, and together they make a formidable team. The stellar cast includes the late, great Ken Campbell — the theatrical oddball who once staged a 22-long hour play, The Warp — in the role of a drunken butler, and the late Wendy Richard of EastEnders fame. On top of that, there’s Prunella Scales, Ralf Little, Rupert Graves, Helen Baxendale . . . the list goes on and on. And the icing on the cake is a script by Kevin Elyot, a writer capable of turning a crossword puzzle into a drama.
Joanna Lumley: Catwoman/Last Chance to See
ITV1, 7pm/BBC Two, 8pm
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Two national treasures travel around the world looking at cuddly animals. Joanne Lumley sets out to discover why some people find cats irresistible and others regard them as unknowable and disturbing. The programme is not without its insights. When she sees a cat wearing a rabbit hat in Japan, she says: “It must be so strange being slightly deaf inside a pink rabbit hat.” Infinitely more engrossing is the journey taken by Stephen Fry and the zoologist Mark Carwardine in search of endangered species. Tonight, they seek the Amazonian manatee — a peaceful, bovine mammal with the grace of a dolphin and the competitive spirit of a sloth. Their quest isn’t helped when, in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, Fry falls and breaks his arm in three places.
9/11: Phone Calls from the Towers
Channel 4, 9pm
Thousands of people trapped inside the twin towers tried to make phone calls to the outside world. They are the only record of what was going on inside the buildings, and their all-too-human expressions of love, terror, courage and suffering are a shocking reminder that ordinary people were at the heart of a cataclysmic event. Some relatives listen to messages left on answering machines hundreds of times; others draw comfort from just knowing that they are there. “What I would like people to learn from listening to these recordings,” says one widow, “is that life is short. That you never know when you’re going to lose your loved ones, and to spend every minute that you can showing them that love. That’s what is important in life.”
Waking the Dead
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BBC One, 9pm
Something old, something new. The cold-case squad have moved into new premises, and the scientific wizardry in the programme has risen to CSI levels of sophistication. This two-parter also contains a “Significant Development” that I cannot divulge. Apart from that, it’s business as usual. Trevor Eve as DSI Boyd remains as spectacularly evil-tempered as ever, snarling at his subordinates and making suspects vomit in the interview room, which leaves Grace (Sue Johnston) pursing her lips and saying: “Do you have to be so rude?” Silly question. That’s why we watch. Concludes tomorrow.