Friday’s TV: Sport Relief

Come Dine with Me
Channel 4, 8pm

Aficionados of trash TV will be in heaven tonight, what with two helpings of Benidorm (both in its regular spot and on Sport Relief) as well as a vintage episode of Come Dine with Me. It is one of those nightmare series, such as The Apprentice, which works on the principle that the worse it is, the better it becomes — and tonight’s episode is gratifyingly horrible. The culinary cage fighters have been classified as a tattoo- lover, a traditionalist, a community worker and (most dubious of all) an “Italian”. They serve up raw chicken and cold jerk lamb, bend the rules and are thoroughly rude to one another. What better way to spend a Friday night?

Classic Albums
BBC Four, 9pm

In the past, Classic Albums has featured recordings by the Doors, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, John Lennon and Queen. Joining this illustrious company is Peter Gabriel and his 1986 album, So. The album included Sledgehammer, the single that reached No 1 in the US and knocked his old band Genesis off the top spot — helped along by a music video featuring animation from the creators of Wallace and Gromit. The programme goes back to the original multi-tracks to show how Gabriel fused African music with pop and soul to produce what many consider to be the crowning achievement of his career, featuring interviews with the man himself.

Benidorm
ITV1, 9pm

For those of us who enjoy a little moral turpitude, this is another tremendous episode, once again written by Steve Pemberton. The high society of Benidorm are gathering to witness a gala performance by the British Olympic Synchronised Swimming Team, as long as the facilities of the hotel are up to scratch. (“We are here in Spain to compete,” says their team manager. “Not to throw ourselves down a rusty metal chute into a pool of hepatitis slime.”) But whenever you have group of nubile teenage girls on the loose with access to unlimited supplies of free alcohol, stuff is bound to happen. And Benidorm, you’ll be glad to know, continues to be a bastion of bad taste.

Reverse Missionaries
BBC Two, 9pm

Dr David Livingstone brought Christianity from Blantyre in Scotland to Malawi, and now — 150 years later — Pastor John Chilimtsidya is bringing it back again. But no young people attend the local Congregational Church in Blantyre and the church elders are politely wary of his evangelical enthusiasm. “We’re not a jump-up and jump-about church,” explains a lady of a certain age. But just as Dr Livingstone adapted his missionary work to local customs, so too does Pastor Chilimtsidya. Once he has got over the initial shock, he organises an informal church service at the local skatepark. And what happens next takes everyone by surprise.

Digital choice by Joe Clay

South Park
Comedy Central, 10pm

For many, the animated comedy is just a happily gratuitous rude joke-fest, but its creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone don’t think it could have survived so long without a moral framework, however nebulous it may be. Despite storming Broadway with their musical about Mormons, Parker and Stone are still fully committed to the scatalogical world of Kyle, Stan, Cartman and Kenny, and season 16 begins tonight with a double bill, with the topical subject matter meaning the episodes are put together at the last minute.

Midsomer Murders
ITV3, 9pm

More than 180 countries are addicted to Midsomer Murders, and only the most ardent John Nettles fans really cared when Neil Dudgeon took the reigns in 2011 — fans tune in to escape to a bucolic world of chocolate-box villages, cress sandwiches, bell ringers, vicarages and, erm, violent murders. To mark the 15th anniversary of the series, here’s another chance to see the pilot episode, written by Anthony Horowitz, set in a preposterously idyllic village where everybody has a secret and nothing is quite as it seems. “Why do I get the feeling that everyone is lying to me?” asks DCI Barnaby (Nettles), after an elderly woman is murdered in her own home. “Because they always do,” replies his wife, thus establishing the formula that would serve Midsomer Murders so well over the subsequent 15 years.

Earth Days
PBS, 10.15pm

This absorbing film looks back at the development of the modern environmental movement, from its post-war rumblings in the 1950s to the first successful 1970 Earth Day celebration and the subsequent firestorm of political action. The stories of the era’s pioneers, among them the former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall and the renewable energy pioneer Hunter Lovins, are illustrated with an illuminating array of archive footage.

Prog Rock Britannia
BBC Four, 11pm

Music critics have often poured scorn on progressive rock for being boring, pompous and pretentious. This 2010 film does little to contradict that view but it is highly entertaining, revealing how its key protagonists — from Yes to Jethro Tull — tried to prove that music could be profound and grown-up by pushing the traditional structures and technical boundaries. How? By donning a 6ft wizard’s hat (Rick Wakeman) and sticking knives into his organ (Keith Emerson). Ouch.

Film choice by Wendy Ide

The Visitor (2007)
BBC Two, midnight

A gentle, hopeful movie with no big name stars, this is a beautifully nuanced character-study. The central character is a widowed college professor, Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins). On a rare trip to the city, he finds two strangers living in his New York apartment. Tarek is Lebanese; his girlfriend Zainab is Senegalese. On a whim, Walter lets them stay. Tarek repays him with drum lessons and friendship. But when Tarek, an illegal immigrant, is incarcerated, his mother Mouna (Hiam Abbass) arrives in New York. The understated relationship that develops between Walter and Mouna is the film’s magic ingredient. (104min)

The Others (2001)
Film4, 9pm

The first English language film from the Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar is an old-fashioned ghost story which gives Nicole Kidman one of the most satisfying roles of her career. It’s an elegantly crafted chiller, which creates more tension from its suffocating atmosphere than most other horror films do from vats full of fake blood and viscera. Kidman plays Grace, the mother of two sickly children who has moved to an isolated house on the Jersey coast while she waits for her soldier husband to return from the Second World War. When new servants are employed, strange things start to happen. (101min)

Love Exposure (2008)
Film4, 11.05pm

Four hours is a long time to spend immersed in any film director’s vision, but four hours in the weird world of the maverick Japanese filmmaker Sion Sono can warp your brain. But there is something utterly compelling about this sprawling opus. Devout teenager Yu lost his mother to cancer and his father to a severe case of Catholicism. Although an essentially good kid, he feels compelled to sin so that Dad can forgive him each day. Yu soon finds he has a gift for sin — specifically up-skirt photography. But then he meets Yoko, butt-kicking, man-hating schoolgirl and answer to his fantasies. It’s tasteless, but never dull. (237min)

Climates (2006)
BBC Two, 1.35am

The Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan enforces an uncomfortable intimacy on the audience by appearing in this film alongside his wife Ebru Ceylan, right. The knowledge of their real-life relationship adds an awkward piquancy to this story of a failing love affair. As an actor, Ceylan has a lugubrious onscreen charm, but as a director he’s not interested in portraying himself in a flattering light. His character is weak and dishonest. An archaeologist by trade, in work and in life he’s preoccupied with the past. He can’t resist revisiting previous affairs, and once he has split from his lover, she too becomes idealised by his nostalgia. A mournful masterpiece. (101min)