TV choice
JACK DEE LIVE AT THE APOLLO
BBC One, 10.35pm
Jack Dee introduces a stand-up routine by the brilliant Iranian comic Omid Djalili. Djalili is blessed with a naturally comical face, like a mischievous pasha. Although plump, he moves with an exceptional grace, and his excursions into dance (including belly and disco dancing) have an obscene and hilarious elegance. Peter Sellers would have had cause to be jealous of Djalili’s range of accents and gift for mimicry, and his material covers everything from racial stereotyping and media bias to the curtain calls taken by the RSC. Jack Dee seems reluctant to finish off the show at the end: this is an impossible act to follow. See Watercooler. DC
DISPATCHES: THE DIRTY MEAT SCANDAL
Channel 4, 8pm
In one of the strongest arguments yet for vegetarianism, Dispatches goes under cover in the meat trade and finds that the system designed to protect the public from diseased and unfit meat is flawed at every level. Food-handling qualifications are being fudged; a leading industry consultant advises clients to defraud government agencies that were set up to modernise the food trade; and a wholesaler who supplies shops and restaurants in London sells cuts of meats that are dirty and diseased. (Dispatches bought a batch infected with tapeworm and pleurisy and covered in abscesses.) If we are what we eat, heaven help us.
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EARLY DOORS
BBC Two, 10pm
The Royle Family showed how TV could be funny, accurate and compelling even when nothing appears to happen. Early Doors belongs to the same blood group. The landlord’s mother (Rita May) is a bloated monster too selfish and idle to raise herself from her armchair, but the woman who comes to clean (Joan Kempson) has found a dozen vicious ways to needle her. While the pub regulars seem to be cocooned in a fug of amniotic warmth, there are kids left in the car outside, the police are off their heads in the backroom and the brewery is threatening to close the place. Nothing – and everything – happens. It is superb.
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THE SOPRANOS
Channel 4, 11pm
David Mamet directed a recent episode of The Shield, and Peter Bogdanovich directs tonight’s episode of The Sopranos. What chance of Alan Parker being tempted by Monarch of the Glen? Tonight, Carmela has an affair with AJ’s teacher — a relationship that produces some delicious dialogue. “Call me naive,” he tells her, “but I don’t really think in this day and age that your husband — if he found out — is going to break his son’s teacher’s legs.” Right. DC
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Multichannel choice
HIP HOP WARS: BLOOD ON THE TURNTABLE
BBC Three, 9pm
Last week it was the Sex Pistols spitting and swearing, this week Vernon Kay narrates the story of the rappers of the early 1990s, whose violent and sexually explicit lyrics inflamed America’s religious right. Down in Miami, 2 Live Crew were titillating the crowds with raunchy shows featuring nude dancers, while in LA, Ice-T and his gangland chums were rapping about guns and police brutality. One Miami lawyer, Jack Thompson, took it upon himself to stop the rot and even called in Moses himself, Charlton Heston, to denounce gun crime — a strange move, when you consider that Heston is the public face of the National Rifle Association. Gabrielle Starkey
LIVE FOOTBALL: MANCHESTER UNITED v LIVERPOOL
Sky Sports 1, 7pm
It’s a big day for United as Rio Ferdinand is eligible to play after his ban and Wayne Rooney should be fit to make his debut. And with Arsenal and Chelsea disappearing over the horizon, it is not a moment too soon for the Old Trafford faithful.
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THE CURSE OF OIL
BBC Four, 9pm and 12.20am
In the second part of this eye-opening series, Kieran Lagan travels the length of a new pipeline being built to bring oil from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean, thus bypassing the need for Russian or Persian supplies. But the pipe’s route cannot avoid the threat of trouble, traversing as it does the corrupt and lawless regions of Azerbaijan and Georgia. It leaves one with the horrible feeling that there is yet another disaster waiting to happen.
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THE EMMYS
Living TV, 9pm
All the red-carpet smiles and frock shocks, plus backstage access and highlights from last night’s 56th Primetime Emmy Awards, where Angels in America, The Sopranos and Sex and the City led the nominations.
BANDS REUNITED
VH1, 10pm
A 1980s pop-lover’s dream, this series last year tracked down Kajagoogoo, Berlin, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and A Flock of (mostly bald) Seagulls and persuaded them to play live again. And each night this week, another five top bands get the reunion treatment: ABC, Haircut 100, the Beat, the Motels and New Kids on the Block. Can feuds and egos be put to one side for old time’s sake? GS
kids’choice
SHOEBOX ZOO
CBBC, 6.30pm
Wallow in this return to traditional teatime storytelling with the tale of a bereaved little American girl who discovers her magical destiny with a box of toys in Edinburgh. See Kids’ favourite. GS