Television choice
THE STORY OF THE NOVEL
Channel 4, 8pm
The final part of this rewarding series is based loosely on the postwar quest for the great American novel. After last week’s brilliant exegesis on modernism, the choices tonight feel a mite cliquey. “Inevitably,” said the series adviser, John Carey, “deciding which novels to include becomes more difficult in the modern period.” Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison and Philip Roth are featured (with a passing glance at Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs), but not a single reference is made to Mailer, Capote, Kesey, Heller or Wolfe.
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HIGH SCHOOL REUNION
Five, 8.25pm
This trashy, crass and embarrassing American reality television show continues to exercise its dreadful fascination. The school bully now fancies the shy girl who modelled for Playboy. After an afternoon of deep- sea fishing, he asks her out. “Cutting up a whole fish and then asking a girl on a date — does it get any better than this?” he wonders. On their date, he offers to give her a massage. “I’m nervous,” he tells the camera. “I just want to take the proper steps to make sure that she knows the way I’m thinking about her.” David Chater
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THE SECRETS OF MAGIC
BBC One, 8.35pm
BBC One resurrects an ancient Saturday night favourite with this new twist on the magic show. Nick Knowles presents as four easy-on-the-eye conjurors perform illusions with trick boxes, funny cups and hidden doo- dahs while a panel of C-list celebs, including Ulrika Jonsson, Leslie Grantham and Donal McIntyre, try to guess how they did it. After the secret is revealed, the trick is performed again by a different method! If you have gasps, prepare to gasp them now. Paul Hoggart
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GAUGUIN: THE FULL STORY
BBC Two, 9.30pm
Instead of concentrating on the pop highlights of Gauguin’s life — the familiar and inaccurate tale of the stockbroker who dumped his bourgeois wife and their five children for the colour-drenched paradise of sun, coconuts and teenage lovelies in Tahiti — Waldemar Januszczak retraces the whole thing. It is a riveting journey packed with unknown incident, beginning with Gauguin’s boyhood in Lima and ending on the island of Hiva Oa, where the local bishop described him as “an enemy of God and everything that is decent”.
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ROBBIE: LIVE AT KNEBWORTH
Channel 4, 9pm
Coverage of Robbie Williams’s enormo-gig. See preview. David Chater
CV: Hugh Laurie
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Fortysomething
ITV1, 11.10pm
Age 43
Well connected While studying at Cambridge University, Laurie dated Emma Thompson and was friends with Kenneth Branagh
Cambridge days Laurie took part in the 1980 Oxford-Cambridge boat race. His father was an Olympic rower
What next? He is presently writing his second novel, a thriller featuring guns and car chases
Satellite, digital and cable choice
THE EDWARDIAN COUNTRY HOUSE
Discovery Channel, 6.30pm
This entertaining social experiment echoes both Big Brother and Gosford Park as it follows the 19 volunteers who recreated life in an Edwardian country pile. While a family of five enjoys the perks of entering as head of house, the rest find themselves below stairs, faced with gruelling work duties under the strict eye of Mr Edgar, the butler. Class war looms.
CLOSE-UP
TCM, 9pm
The veteran stuntman Vic Armstrong has “starred” in such movies as Die Another Day and Charlie’s Angels, as well as doubling for the likes of Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. To go with a new film season under the banner Fall Guys, Armstrong reveals how a particular stunt was staged before a screening of the movie from which it is taken. Tonight, Bullitt’s high- speed car chase. Siân Morgan
Radio choice
THE GENERALISIMO
Radio 4, 10.30am
Francisco Franco, the “Generalísimo” of Spain, despite being a fascist dictator, survived — and thrived — after the Second World War. Miles Kington attempts to work out why.
THE CAMBRIDGE FOLK FESTIVAL 2003
Radio 2, 9pm
Only an hour of highlights, presented by Nick Barraclough, from this year’s fest, which doesn’t leave much time for Rosanne Cash, the Saw Doctors, Roddy Frame, John Hammond and Eliza Carthy to play. Chris Campling