TV choice
THE GREAT SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE
Channel 4, 7.10pm
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was as devastating to the city as the bombing of Hiroshima or Dresden. It lasted 48 seconds. Six thousand people died and 200,000 were left homeless. Fires broke out and raged through the timber houses, developing into an uncontrollable firestorm. This docudrama uses remarkable contemporary footage to describe what happened from different individual perspectives, including those of a nurse, a baker and the corrupt and incompetent mayor. Since then, the Pacific plate of the San Andreas fault has continued to bulldoze its way north at a rate of two inches a year. “A repeat of the 1906 earthquake,” says Professor Mark Zoback, a seismologist at Stanford, “is essentially inevitable.”
THE ROMANTICS
BBC Two, 8.10pm
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The second part of Peter Ackroyd’s series describes how the Romantics sought an intense relationship with the natural world. He discusses how Blake experienced adult inspiration through childhood visions and how those songs of innocence turned into anthems of protest. He explains why Coleridge was so determined that his children should grow up as peasants; how Wordsworth sought to express the grandeur and divinity of landscape; and how Mary Shelley (played by Cara Horgan) conjured up the horrors of science. It is a worthy lecture, delivered with lugubrious relish and illustrated with moody modern-dress dramatisations.
SEA OF SOULS
BBC One, 9.10pm
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Tonight’s episode was written by Dusty Hughes, who — a quarter of a century ago — won the London Theatre Critics Award for Most Promising Playwright. It is the strongest story so far in the new series, describing what happened when guests at an expensive hotel found themselves disturbed at night. Lights flickered on and off. Rooms became icy cold. Showers didn’t work. Taps spewed out filthy water. Scratching sounds came from behind a closed-up door and a dog could be heard howling for its master. “There’s death around here,” said the old chambermaid, like a cosy version of a witch from Macbeth. The two ghost busters from Clyde University are called in to investigate, and they discover . . .
JANET STREET-PORTER’S DESPERATE WOMEN
Channel 4, 11.15pm
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It’s exhausting having to watch Janet Street-Porter. It’s not that she is crass and braying, but the fact that she delights in being crass and braying. It’s her thing. In this crude polemic, she states that women — despite having more choices, more power and more money than ever before — are “desperate” because they are being fed a version of perfection that they cannot live up to.
“All we need,” she says, “is a perfect body, an unthreatening IQ and the secret of eternal youth.” The worst offenders at perpetuating this myth, she says, are other women. And all this from the sister whose comments on fat ladies in Grumpy Old Women were too savage to be quoted in the cold light of day.
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BEST OF THE REST . . .
CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION
Five, 9.10pm
Repeat of the superb double bill directed by Quentin Tarantino. If you haven’t seen this one yet, don’t miss it.
Page 2: Multichannel choice ()
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Multichannel choice
MOZART 250 CELEBRATION
BBC Four, 7.30pm
Four gives almost its entire evening’s schedule over to highlights of last night’s concerts to celebrate the Austrian composer’s 250th birthday. Among those playing Mozart pieces outside normal concert halls are Daniel Barenboim (left) and his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, who were filmed performing in Ramallah, Iraq, and a piano trio who play at Salzburg, the composer’s birthplace.
MARRIED TO THE PRIME MINISTER/TONY BLAIR ROCK STAR
More4, 8.05pm/9.10pm
It’s second-chance-to-see time for these looks at our glorious leader and his wife.
SLINGS AND ARROWS
Artsworld, 9pm
This brilliant comedy-drama is essential viewing. In part three, Macbeth director Geoffrey’s tête-à-têtes with his late mentor pick up steam, and a confrontational ad campaign outrages theatre patrons.
THE LAST LAUGH
BBC Three, 11.25pm
In the second of this series looking at the theory of comedy writing, Dara O’Briain visits the Coronation Street set and looks at sexual and camp humour.
THE BEAUTIFUL DEAD
National Geographic, midnight
A look at the bizarre case of the corpse of St Bernadette, who died in 1879, but whose body, unembalmed according to the Church, has never decayed. ANGUS BATEY
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Daytime choice
ART OF LIFE
CNN, 12.30pm/4.30pm
Monita Rajpal presents this new series that looks at the lifestyle accessories and accoutrements enjoyed by the international jet set.
LIVE GUINNESS RUGBY
Sky Sports 2, 1.30pm
Bath host Wasps (kick-off 2pm) in what may prove to be a decisive fixture for both teams. The home side are struggling with only three wins, while their visitors are joint top of the Premiership.
MACBETH
Artsworld, 5pm
Slings and Arrows fans should take note of this 1998 adaptation, with Sean Pertwee as “Mackers” and Lesley Joseph as one of the witches.
LIVE FOOTBALL: AFRICAN CUP OF NATIONS
British Eurosport, 5pm
The final and decisive set of group matches begins today. There is live coverage of Egypt v Ivory Coast, and news of Libya v Morocco. AB