THE CULTURE SHOW
BBC Two, 7pm/11.55pm
“If you could paint, you wouldn’t need $100 million to make a movie,” says Martin Scorsese in this fascinating interview that coincides with the opening of the Caravaggio exhibition at the National Gallery. Scorsese has been heavily influenced by Caravaggio — in particular, his striking imagery, the use of light and shadow and the realism and drama of his paintings. And like Caravaggio, Scorsese combined the sacred and the profane, giving rise to a storm of religious controversy. “Were he alive today,” says Scorsese, “Caravaggio would be a great film-maker. There’s no doubt about it.” Also in tonight’s show, the author Kazuo Ishiguro and EastEnders at 20.
FAT FRIENDS
ITV1, 9pm
The return of Kay Mellor’s popular soap opera about a group of friends and relatives belonging to a weight-loss club in the North. Now starting its fourth series, it is obviously doing something right, but precisely what remains a mystery. Most of tonight’s episode concerns the jealousy caused by the blossoming relationship between the mother (Alison Steadman) and the son she once gave away for adoption. It comes with acting-by-numbers and dialogue by the yard (“I can’t live me life worried by how people feel”), but presumably, like all soap operas, you eventually develop a relationship with the characters. Life is too short.
THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR: TRIAL OF THE KING KILLERS
Channel 4, 9pm
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A long and vastly superior dramatisation of the trial of the 29 men accused of responsibility for the execution of Charles I, based on court transcripts and first-hand testimony. Unlike most dramatisations, the actors are not used as waxworks; for once, the individual personalities of all participants in the trial are allowed to shine through. It soon becomes clear that the trial had far more to do with revenge than justice. According to the judge, the king’s death was “so aggravated a villainy that truly I cannot tell what to say. That blood cries out to you for vengeance, and will not be appeased but by a bloody sacrifice.”
GROWN UP GAPPERS
BBC Two, 9.50pm
A new series that follows eight people of a certain age who travel abroad like affluent students on a gap year. First off tonight is Margo Grimshaw, a millionaire businesswoman from Blackburn. She is energetic and forthright and knows what she thinks. “I’m typically British,” she says, which is not entirely a virtue. As she travels across Asia for four months, she takes all of her hard-earned prejudices with her. She resents the fact that the natives don’t speak English. She doesn’t like the food. It’s too hot. She misses her friends. Nevertheless, she has one extremely moving encounter with Buddhist nun, which makes the entire programme worthwhile.
MULTICHANNEL TELEVISION
by Gabrielle Starkey
FX COMES TO NTL
Channel 289
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Good news for NTL cable subcribers — from today FX, the Sky channel with a superior line-up of US dramas (including Huff, The Wire and Carnivale), will be added to the family package at no extra cost. During March, as part of the launch promotion, it will also be available in the basic package, to tempt entry-level viewers to increase their subscriptions.
A MAN CALLED MOTHER BEAR
Animal Planet, 8pm
In Russia, a female brown bear has been killed in the forest and her three-week-old cubs face the prospect of death or life in a zoo. But in this heartwarming film, a scientist, nicknamed “Mother Bear”, spends a year bringing them up in the wild, teaching them to feed themselves and fear men. It is a unique insight into the childhood of one of the world’s most impressive animals.
BROADWAY: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL
BBC Four, 9pm/1.30am
Michael Kantor’s six-part history of America’s musical theatre is stuffed to the gills with famous faces and vintage clips, but feels stiff and old-fashioned. Maybe it’s the fault of the host and narrator, Julie Andrews, who has to smile while saying, “Let’s start at the very beginning, which as we all know is a very good place to start,” or maybe it’s just the perennial problem of stage shows translating badly on film. Look past the starchy packaging, though, to the impressive and glamorous content.
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LIFE AS WE KNOW IT
Living TV, 9pm
After the glossy moralising of E4’s recent teen dramas such as Dawson’s Creek and The OC, Life as We Know It is a breath of fresh air. Made by the producers of the critically acclaimed Freaks and Geeks, and based on the novel Doing It by Melvin Burgess, it harks back to the innocence of The Wonder Years as it follows three teenage boys through the sexual minefield of high school. There’s Dino, the ice-hockey jock with the perfect girlfriend; Ben, who’s got a crush on his sexy teacher; and Jonathan, the sensitive one, who’s in love with his dumpy-but-sweet best friend (Kelly Osbourne, playing herself in a surprisingly unannoying way). And then a shock revelation changes everything . . .
THE DINOSAUR THAT FOOLED THE WORLD
UKTV History, 9pm
Horizon traces the story of a mysterious Chinese fossil that National Geographic magazine championed as the missing link proving the theory that dinosaurs evolved into birds. Of course, it turned out to be a fake, causing huge embarrassment to the publication, which prides itself on meticulous scientific research and fact-checking. But just when it seemed that the flying dinosaur theory had bitten the dust, new discoveries about the original fossil reignited the debate.