The Supersizers Eat . . .
BBC Two, 9pm
At the start of a new series, Giles Coren and Sue Perkins eat and drink their way through the 1980s. When they are not swallowing rushed breakfasts, power lunches and foodie dinners, they irradiate Chinese food in one of those new-fangled microwave devices and demolish an entire plate of Anton Mosimann’s nouvelle cuisine in a single mouthful. Pints of espresso and gallons of Krug are consumed, and — most dangerous of all — they knock back a lethal assortment of cocktails, including the appalling “cement mixer”. (It involves swirling a shot of Baileys and a shot of lemon juice around the mouth until it curdles and you stop breathing.) In the same programme the intrepid couple assemble Ikea furniture, drive a Sinclair C5 and lunch with Lords Tebbit and Archer. Indestructible and droll, they laugh in the face of adversity.
Springwatch Close Encounters
BBC Two, 8pm
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Spring is good. The economy collapses, MPs resign en masse and North Korea threatens to blow us all up, but nature carries on regardless. BBC Two celebrates this surefire winner with three special programmes during the week. Tonight, Simon King shares his most memorable encounters in a lifetime of watching wildlife, and shows how to get really close to wild otters and how to train a robin to feed from the hand. On Wednesday at the same time, Martin Hughe — Games presents a guide to green-tinged holidays in the UK. And on Thursday, Gordon Buchanan showcases some of the best wildlife footage that viewers have sent in over the years, as well as giving a guide to the basic do’s and don’ts of wildlife photography. With coverage such as this, you never need to venture outdoors.
The World’s Greatest Musical Prodigies
Channel 4, 9pm
Having already chosen three prodigies to perform his new concerto, the 16-year-old composer Alexander Prior arrives in China in search of a pianist. There are 30 million piano students in China, many of whom think nothing of practising up to six hours a day. “I find the art of the piano is unlimited,” one young Chinese pianist says. “It can produce many different sounds and create all sorts of tone colour. So it is very, very profound.” (He is 9 years old.) As with the first programme, the musical talent on display has to be seen to be believed. And once again, Prior comes across as a less-than-likeable young man. Sitting in a caf? discussing which of them will be chosen, one of the young contestants says of Prior: “Maybe he just likes himself.”
Ross Kemp in Search of Pirates
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Sky1 (HD), 9pm
In the second part of this excellent series, Ross Kemp travels to the troubled waters off the coast of Nigeria where piracy is rife. Up to 100 ships at any one time have to wait in so-called quarantine anchorage in the water off Lagos and are sitting targets for pirates. The film shows exactly why piracy takes place: there is no fairness to the distribution of oil wealth and poverty in the waterside slums off Lagos is among the worst ever seen on television. And farther south in the Niger Delta, where most of the oil is drilled, the pollution is so extensive that traditional livelihoods — fishing, for example — have been destroyed and the people forced to become criminals.