Television choice
OTHER PEOPLE’S HOUSES
Channel 4, 8pm
The return of the tawdry version of Grand Designs, in which people mess up their houses while being scoffed at by the design expert Naomi Cleaver. Tonight, a couple in Maidstone elect to give their tiny period cottage the light-filled, open-plan look. “You don’t think all this white is cold, even bland?” says Naomi. They ignore her, and end up delighted with the result of all their hard work. “Stylistically, it’s ordinary and workaday,” sneers Naomi. “It looks like you’ve designed it as you went along.” Nice.
Advertisement
WHAT ARE YOU STARING AT?
BBC Two, 9pm
Barbara Alvez was a model who underwent an operation to treat an infected abscess. The surgeons discovered extensive gangrene and had to remove half her face. After six years of searching, she met Dr Iain Hutchison, a surgeon at the Royal London Hospital and specialist in facial disfigurement, who agreed to help her. Some disability activists are unhappy that surgery is promoted as a solution to what they see as a non-existent problem, arguing instead that society should change its attitude to abnormality. But not Barbara. “I haven’t enough words,” she tells Dr Hutchison, “to say how much I appreciate what you’ve done for me.”
Advertisement
TEACHERS
Channel 4, 10pm
Teachers, you may remember, was the comedy about adults who behave like schoolchildren. The first two series were worth watching, largely because two of the teachers (played by Raquel Cassidy and Nina Sosanya) were an antidote to the more juvenile members of the common room. But in the new series, both have gone, with nothing remaining other than unfunny adolescent badinage of the who-wants-to-shag-whom variety. My teenage daughter, who was a huge fan of the first two series, was in a high state of excitement when the preview tape arrived. Less than halfway through, she said: “Couldn’t we watch something else?”
Advertisement
WATCHING THE DETECTIVES
BBC One, 10.55pm
A month ago, the BBC showed Trauma, a fly-on-the-wall documentary about an Accident and Emergency Unit. It highlighted the difference between real life and television drama. The difference is even more striking in this new series, shot over four years, in which real detectives are filmed investigating actual crimes. (The subsequent trials have been reconstructed using court transcripts.) Tonight’s episode is based on a stabbing in Barnsley and the grisly disposal of a corpse. DC
CV: Mekhi Phifer
ER
Channel 4, 9pm
Advertisement
Age 27
Screen connection Has a son with the actress Malinda Williams
Big break Beating around 1,000 candidates to play Strike in Spike Lee’s 1995 film Clockers
Advertisement
Biggest role to date As Future in 8 Mile, with Eminem
Pop appearance Starred in the pop video The Boy is Mine by Brandy and Monica
Coming up Is working on a remake of George A. Romero’s horror Dawn of the Dead
Satellite and digital TV choice
LIFE WITH JUDY GARLAND: ME AND MY SHADOWS
Biography, 8pm
Judy Davis’s mesmerising turn as Judy Garland lifts this telly biopic above the usual sentimental tosh. Adapted from the memoirs of her daughter, Lorna Luft, it follows Garland’s story from the age of two to her death in 1969, through the punishing MGM studio system and adoration of fans, addiction and multiple marriages, without simplifying her to either victim or harridan. A must- see for fans.
STORYVILLE: CERRO RICO
BBC Four, 9pm/1.15am
In 1554, a Bolivian peasant discovered the world’s largest silver deposit in the mountain above his village. Within 50 years, the cerro rico (rich mountain) was funding the Spanish empire, with 1,000 men dying in the hellish mines each month. Charles Vaughan meets today’s miners, chipping out a living from the dregs. GS
Radio choice
ONE MAN’S MEDICINE: MIND THE GAP
Radio 4, 9pm
Most drugs are tested on young, white males. So how well can they work on those who fit none of those categories? Vivienne Parry reports on how scientists are trying to tailor drugs to individuals.
PUZZLE PANEL
Radio 4, 1.30pm
It is back, I’m afraid. Chris Maslanka’s gathering of the high IQs has been described as “Brains Trust on speed” so you have only yourself to blame if you feel cerebrally emasculated by it all. CC