THE GIRLS WHO CAME TO STAY
ITV1, 9.30pm
Heart-warming. That’s the phrase that springs to mind. This drama tells the story of a middle-aged couple (Alun Armstrong and Lindsey Coulson) who find themselves looking after two young girls from Belarus whose lives have been blighted by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. A charity brings them over to Englandfor four weeks of good food, clean air and love, whilethe children in turn teach their foster family that thereis more to life than working endlessly for material possessions that nobody needs. Some people will find it a mite cloying, but Armstrong and Coulson are always reliable and the girls give wonderful performances. It is a generous, gentle drama.
Are people who hear voices in their heads insane? Not necessarily, according to the psychiatrists, artists and priests interviewed in this programme. People have the ability to create working models in their brains — rather like meteorologists building models that predict the weather — which develop an autonomous life of their own and blur the line between the real and the imaginary. Thus totally sane mathematicians can hear voices that speak in numbers; playwrights and novelists can listen to their characters speak, and the religious can hear the voice of God. As one contributor puts it, we need to cultivate the abilityto be quietly respectful of things that come from outside our sense of rationality and control.
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FRANCESCO’S ITALY TOP TO TOE
BBC Two, 9pm
Francesco da Mosto continues his picture-postcard journey across Italy in a snappy red sports car, silver hair blowing in the wind. This week he travels through Tuscany and Umbria, stopping off in Assisi, Siena, Florence and Lucca. It is an ultra-light and self-conscious travelogue with a work of art here and a glass of wine there, all washed down with an abundance of commonplaces delivered in a seductiveItalian accent. It lacks the acerbic tongue of a Brian Sewell, but it is just about worth watching to see Francesco learning to make fresh ravioli stuffed with Parmesan, spinach, egg and Ricotta or to see an Italian opera singer let rip in Puccini’s home town of Lucca, to the delight of passers by.
BEST OF THE REST . . .
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LIVE TENNIS: STELLA ARTOIS CHAMPIONSHIP
BBC Two, 2pm
Sue Barker presents coverage of the men’s final from the Queen’s Club.
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FUNLAND
BBC Two, 10.30pm/11pm
Things get yet darker and more twisted as Shirley (Ian Puleston-Davies) goes to deal with Mercy (Judy Parfitt), and is forced to confront his demons
Multichannel choice
WHO’S THE DADDY? HOMER SIMPSON
Sky One, from 9.30am
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Sky One devotes Father’s Day to the world’s leading father figure — Homer J. Simpson. The doughnut-scoffing, beer-guzzling, enviably lazy icon stars in an entire day of Simpsons episodes, dispensing hard-won nuggets such as “weaseling out of things is important for the boy to learn”, and inspiring the nation’s fathers to greater heights of responsible parenting.
8TH & OCEAN/LAGUNA BEACH/TIARA GIRLS
MTV, 6.30pm/7pm/7.30pm
These three new teen reality shows lift the lids on aspirant supermodels, the beautiful people of a Californian beach town and beauty pageant contestants respectively.
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WOGAN: NOW AND THEN
UKTV Gold, 7pm
Brian Cox and Alex Kingston (the latter discussing being turned down for Desperate Housewives for being too fat!) guest on the Wogan couch.
TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY: SIMON COWELL
E!, 8pm
“He’s honest, but tactless,” the American Idol host Ryan Seacrest says of the show’s Mr Nasty. Everyone, from his mother to Pete Waterman, helps to tell his story.
SPIRAL
BBC Four, 9pm
This Paris-set crime series is creating quite a stir, its locations and accents making it the CSI intellectuals will admit to watching. AB
Daytime sport
LIVE MOTOGP
British Eurosport, from 8.45am
The motorbike race series has reached northern Spain, with the MotoGP Catalunya (1pm) following races in the 125cc (9.45am) and 250cc (11am) classes.
LIVE ONE-DAY CRICKET
Sky Sports 1, 10.30am
Gloucestershire play Surrey in a C&G Trophy match that highlights a problem with the competition’s new format: neither can reach the final.
BRITISH SUPERBIKE LIVE
Men and Motors, 3pm
The Bennetts British Superbike championship moves on to Snetterton in Norfolk, with the field looking to close in on the overall leader and reigning champion Gregorio Lavilla of Spain.
LIVE ATP TENNIS
British Eurosport, 2pm
The final of the Stella Artois tournament from Queen’s Club, London. AB