Television: February, Wednesday 23

Here’s one not to be missed. Jamie Oliver sets about trying to revolutionise school dinners for 20,000 South London pupils. At the moment, they are fed on a diet of junk food loaded with additives. Not only does he have to produce healthy and delicious food on a budget of 39 pence per head, but the children are all hooked on their junk. The entire endeavour is noble and quixotic, the characters and the dialogue make cracking fly-on-the-wall drama, and Jamie is an absolute ****ing star. It’s all good. See Watercooler.

LIFE BEGINS

ITV1, 9pm

This comedy-drama keeps getting better. Because the characters are recognisable and believable, you care about what happens to them. It is truthful without being depressing; funny without playing for laughs and filled with surprises that don’t feel contrived. There is one scene tonight with five men building a shed in the garden that could almost be a play in its own right. Another quality — and this is rare on television — is the respect that it shows towards a generation of grandparents. Tonight’s episode even goes so far as to suggest that an older generation is still capable of experiencing romantic yearning. DC

VANITY FAIR: COVER STORIES

BBC Two, 11.20pm

In the first of four profiles of influential publications, Mariella Frostrup looks at the position Vanity Fair magazine holds in US culture: somewhere between glossy celebrity worship and incisive political commentary. Frostrup interviews the current editor Graydon Carter, the former editor Tina Brown and the former staff writer Toby Young, whose account of his time at the magazine, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, became a bestseller. Carter recently said: “We’ve spent about three or four hours in total in the same room together. I’m not quite sure how Young has made an entire suit out of a piece of lint.” JJ

Multichannel choice

BLUE/ORANGE

BBC Four, 9pm

Joe Penhall’s play Blue/Orange, an incendiary tale about race, madness and a Darwinian power struggle at the heart of a dying NHS, makes the transition to the small screen with ease. In a psychiatric hospital, a dogmatic consultant (Brian Cox) and his idealistic registrar (John Simm) argue over the troubled mind of a young black patient (Shaun Parkes). The script and the acting are outstanding, with Cox and Simm utterly convincing as medical sparring partners, but it is Parkes who crackles on screen as Simm’s charge Christopher, who believes that he is the son of an African dictator. Siân Morgan

LIVE UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: BARCELONA v CHELSEA

Sky Sports 2, 6pm

Europe’s two form sides meet at the Nou Camp as the leaders of La Liga take on the Premiership pace-setters in what is sure to be the tie of the round. Tonight’s other games can be seen live over on Sky Sports Xtra.

THE COWBOY AND HIS SUB

Discovery, 9pm

Ever since he was a young boy the Arizonian Peter Robbins has dreamt of building a unique submersible to search for wrecks and get closer to marine life. This is the uplifting and inspiring six-part tale of his bid to realise his dream by building his vessel, with a limited team of engineers and restricted time and funds. Tonight, Robbins meets a former Second World War German naval lance corporal who tries to locate some of the wrecks from the war, specifically his own sunken U-boat.

THE NEGOTIATOR

The History Channel, 9pm

“A hostage negotiator is someone who can sell ice to Eskimos,” says Cliff Van Zandt, the FBI’s chief negotiator, who was present during the Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas. He describes the events of those fateful days while hostage takers reflect on their crimes, including a prisoner who helped to capture ten guards during a riot and a man who refused to release his female hostage until they were married.

TOP BUZZER

MTV, 10.30pm

Though Johnny Vaughan’s “dope opera” may not have found much favour with the critics, this episode, certainly, is funny, engaging and trots along at a nice pace. This may be a result of cameos from both Iain Lee and Mackenzie Crook, who steal the show during their brief appearance together as deliverymen, and enthusiastic performances from the wannabe music svengali Sticky (played by Teachers alumnus James Lance) and his jumpy Scouser housemate Lee (Stephen Graham, Gangs of New York and Snatch). SM