Kidult: Marathon Boy
BBC Four, 10pm
Slumdog Millionaire — only this time round with running? Not quite. Little Budhia is a boy from the slums of India with prodigious stamina. By the age of 4 he had run his 48th full marathon and his coach, Biranchi, was grooming him to become a future Olympic champion. After running 42 miles in seven hours, Budhia became an Indian superstar. But the state’s Child Welfare Committee got involved, and his mother — who had sold him to a passing tinker — took him back to the slums, leaving the coach facing charges of torture and abuse. But just when you think the story couldn’t get worse, it does. Much worse. Gemma Atwal’s film is a complex, powerful study of exploitation and corruption — at the heart of which is an angelic-looking child with a gift for running.
Leaving Amish Paradise
BBC Two, 9pm
While the rest of the world is scrambling for oil and busily destroying the planet, life in the Amish community seems to offer some sort of Utopian alternative. The Amish still travel by horse and buggy. They have no concept of urban violence. There are numerous rules that separate them from the modern world — but anyone who breaks those rules risks being excommunicated from the Church and shunned by the community. Andrew Tait’s film follows two Amish families who felt obliged to leave the community and who are faced with a double whammy. Overnight they have to come to grips with the modernity and messiness of the 21st century and they have to do it without any encouragement or support from their old community. It’s a frightening prospect.
Secret World of Whitehall
BBC Four 9pm
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The film-maker Michael Cockerell has a rare gift for making enormously entertaining documentaries on subjects that, in less skilful hands, would be drier than dust. He is a born storyteller who focuses on the personalities in politics; he is at least as experienced as most of the people he interviews, and he has a wicked sense of humour combined with an arsenal of techniques to get people to say more than they should. No politician can aspire to greatness or goodness until they’ve been Cockerelled. In the first of a new series, he lifts the lid on the shadowy world of the Cabinet Office that operates, according to Peter Mandelson, as “a vast and rather intricate, finely tuned telephone exchange” designed to ensure the smooth running of the Government.
Jamie’s Dream School
Channel 4, 9pm
Four students are given the opportunity to join the environmentalist and astronaut Jane Poynter in a biosphere to see the workings of an enclosed ecosystem. Of the four, three leave early. Why? Because they can’t last 72 hours without a cigarette. But the financial expert Alvin Hall fares somewhat better. He begins by establishing clear rules of behaviour and then gets the kids involved in fractions and algebra by appealing to their fascination with money. As the series producer Robert Thirkell says, these kids do open up when someone believes in them and they do respond to passionate teaching. But Hall also makes the point that there is a much greater emphasis in the US on individual counselling to address the root cause of a child’s anger.
The Model Agency
Channel 4, 10pm
The fascination of this series has more to do with the subtle viciousness of office politics than with any great insight into the fashion industry. When John the Booker returns to the fold, he is soon bursting into tears because he feels — once again — that he is being undermined. Much of the tension in the office appears to stem directly from the boss, Carole, who is surrounded by a coterie of favourites. She rarely offers thanks or praise. Nothing is ever enough for her. When she doesn’t get her own way, she blows up. We see a choice example of her management style tonight, when she tells someone: “I’m right and you’re wrong.” But she’s warm and funny and effective, and above all she never harbours a grudge — and for that you can forgive anybody anything.