Occupation
BBC One, 9pm
This is the BBC’s first major drama on Iraq. It follows the story of three soldiers (James Nesbitt, Stephen Graham and Warren Brown) who took part in the 2003 invasion and subsequently return to the country to work as “security consultants”. The first episode is very watchable, not least because of the way it captures the frenetic chaos and violence of conflict and juxtaposes it to the comfortable tranquillity of life back home in England. Where it falls down is in the telling of the soldiers’ personal stories. The Nesbitt character, for example, saves the life of a little girl in Basra and falls in love with the Iraqi doctor who treats her. It is this element of soap opera that was markedly absent from HBO’s coruscating treatment of the Iraq war, Generation Kill. There, you were brought face to face with the tedium and adrenalin of war. Here, you are caught up in the conventions of drama.
Great British Menu
BBC Two, 8pm
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The climax of the fiercely contested series between the nation’s finest chefs gets a primetime slot as Ross Kemp hosts the homecoming banquet for British troops returning from Afghanistan. The theme of the meal is “a taste of home”, and it looks likely to be a memorable feast. The first course is Kenny Atkinson’s salad of beef and carrots with horseradish, followed by Glynn Purnell’s masala-spiced monkfish. Nigel Haworth prepares the main course, a classic Lancashire hot pot with pickled red cabbage, followed by Shaun Rankin’s dessert of treacle tart with clotted cream and raspberry-ripple ice cream. None of your fussy little piles of tasty nonsense surrounded by dribbles of jus and coulis. This is straightforward and unpretentious British food, cooked simply and made with the best ingredients.
Personal Affairs
BBC Three, 9pm
Personal Affairs is about four glamorous PAs who work in an investment bank in the City. It takes a little while to realise that it has nothing to do with the real world, and accept instead that it’s just television’s answer to fantasy chick-lit. This is one of those banks that can function only thanks to the beautiful, resourceful girls (left) who work there; the male partners are salacious or inept, the female partners are aggressive or out-and-out lesbian, and it is up to the four PAs to hold it all together. In terms of plot, one of them disappears mysteriously, just as an overqualified temp in the typing pool is plotting a cyber fraud. It is Mills & Boon given the Sex and the City treatment.
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In the Firing Line
BBC Two, 10pm
How times have changed. Paul May, the economics editor of Newsnight, looks at how small-to-medium-sized manufacturing industries in the UK are dealing with the recession. Berck of West Bromwich and Wild in Redditch both make metal components for the car industry. In November, their order books collapsed and both companies were forced to respond with job cuts and shorter working hours. Wild had to cut 25 per cent of its on-site workforce, starting with temporary workers; Berck also needs to make further redundancies, although it lacks the cash to pay for them. What is so different today from years gone by is the collaborative relationship that exists between management and workforce, and the willingness on both sides to work together to salvage the industry. Amid all the gloom, that surely is progress.