THE HAIRY BIKERS’ COOKBOOK
BBC Two, 8.30pm
This is an example of a bizarre species of public service broadcasting — a niche programme made by people with beards as a comfort to the hairy. Two lads from the North, Simon King and David Myers, travel on miniature (and supposedly comical) motorbikes to the Isle of Man to watch the TT race. They do a little cooking along the way, all the while exchanging horribly awkward banter of the bloke-ish variety. It does not contain enough inspiration or information to work as a cookery programme, and it is far too dull to succeed as travelogue. Beards, someone once suggested, are a cry for help.
Advertisement
SURVIVING DISASTER
BBC One, 9pm
Mount St Helens in Washington State erupted on May 18, 1980, with a power equivalent to 500 Hiroshima bombs. It blew 1,300ft off the top of the mountain and left a crater two miles wide, scattering ash across 11 US states and setting alight 3,000 acres of forest. Given the magnitudeof the blast, it is remarkable that only 57 people died — the majority of them sightseers and visitors. This docudrama mingles clumsy dramatisations with real footage to describe the two months leading up to the blast, as scientists, politicians and local residents responded in different ways to the conflicting scientific evidence. The event marked the beginning of modern volcanology.
Advertisement
ELIZABETH DAVID: A LIFE IN RECIPES
BBC Two, 9pm
It would be hard to exaggerate the influence of Elizabeth David on English food. Into the grey austerity of postwar Britain, a time when cooking consisted of boiled cod, sodden carrots and puddings made of glue, she introduced lemons, olive oil, garlic, pungent herbs and the warmth of Mediterranean sunshine. She exhorted people to use ingredients with flavour and cook them with simplicity. Unfortunately, this dramatisation of her life (starring Catherine McCormack and Greg Wise) — which should have been one of the highlights of the new year — is a disappointment. It is charmless, arch and self-conscious, joining up the dots of her biography and drenching them in unconvincing period detail. It achieves the one thing that David would have hated more than anything else — it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
Advertisement
IMAGINE
BBC One, 10.35pm; Wales, 11.05pm
Music is as fundamental to life in New Orleans as eating. “We must have bread,” says the songwriter Allen Toussaint, “we must have red beans and we must have music. All day, every day.” The thousands of musicians who lived in the city developed a unique, laid-back New Orleans sound bred of gospel, blues, jazz and folk, accompanied by a bouncy shuffle. When Hurricane Katrina hit, the musicians’ homes were destroyed. Alan Yentob visits the devastated city and talks to musicians on both sides of the Atlantic about its glorious past and uncertain future. “The magnetic power that somehow sits here in this swamp is not going to be denied,” says Quint Davis, who runs the New Orleans Jazz Festival. “It’s like gravity, and it’s going to draw the music back.”
MULTICHANNEL CHOICE
By James Jackson
THE GOLDEN GLOBES AWARDS
Living2, 9pm
Advertisement
Coverage of all the “glamour and glitz” at last night’s Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills. Brokeback Mountain led the nominations in film, while HBO shows led the TV nominations. Anthony Hopkins received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement.
THE WIRE
FX, 9pm
Advertisement
Series three of HBO’s much-admired crime series kicks off with Baltimore’s drug dealers being forced to find a new home after their estate is destroyed. As usual, the “bad guys” are just as richly characterised as the cops, adding depth to the show’s depiction of a dysfunctional system. Great dialogue, too.
OFF SET: ANJELICA HUSTON
TCM, 9pm
The Huston dynasty remains unique as the only family to have three generations of Oscar winners: Walter, John and Anjelica. So it seems fitting that the latter should lend her opinions to TCM’s 28 Days of Oscars season: here, she woodenly discusses such classics as Blow-Up, Key Largo, Bonnie and Clyde and daddy’s The Maltese Falcon over a generous supply of clips. John H’s The Treasure of the Sierre Madre follows at 9.40pm.
WANTED
ITV4, 10pm
Another gritty US cop show, this new one about a team of law enforcers led by Conrad “Connie” Rose (Gary Cole of The West Wing) on the trail of the 100 Most Wanted in LA. When a female intelligence officer — in the sultry form of Rashida Jones (NY-Lon) — is forced to join them, Connie and co clench their jaws in antipathy. The show looks cool, sounds cooland clearly really wants to be cool.
OVER THERE
Sky One, 10pm
It was perhaps inevitable that there would be a US drama series set among troops in Iraq. But for it to turn up while the situation is still live and unfolding is more surprising. Despite such a bold, provocative premise, as a drama this feels all too familiar. Each M16-toting character has a nickname (“Dim”, “Scream”, “Smoke” etc) to signpost their unique trait; meanwhile, issues of race and sexism are touched upon amid graphic battle scenes, terse frontline conversations and letters to sweethearts back home.
The show’s creator Steven Bochco (NYPD Blue; Murder One) has stressed that it is not a platform for political statement — it may be refreshingly free of jingoism, but it’s also little more than Tour of Duty in the desert, except with a couple of women troops and a less catchy soundtrack.
BEYOND THE NFL
Sky One, 11pm
In this new series the retired England rugby hero, Martin Johnson, and the former England goalkeeper, David James, both avid fans of American football, travel to Seattle to investigate the sport’s business footings and community outreach work.