Paul O’Grady’s Favourite Fairy Tales
ITV, 9pm
The folk tales gathered by the Brothers Grimm and first published in 1812 have inspired writers and artists as diverse as Walt Disney, Jean Cocteau and David Hockney. Their intention was to record the folk stories of their nation, not to write a children’s book, and these original stories were horrible — terrifying, bloody, disgusting horrible. However, once they realised that children were devouring these dark tales, they set about sanitising them in subsequent editions, resulting in the more traditional “Happy ever after” stories that have captivated children and adults for centuries. Years of playing the wicked queen or evil stepmother in pantomime have given Paul O’Grady a deep love of these tales, so he’s off to Germany to find out more about the most famous men in the fairy tale business and the origins of their stories. The fairy tale trail O’Grady follows stretches more than 600km from Frankfurt to Hamburg, and he visits the picture-book castles and magical forests that inspired Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. He speaks to experts and fans including Dr Bernhard Lauer, head of the Brothers Grimm Society, who talks of the tales having “a moral, a wisdom that can help us to understand ourselves”. O’Grady focuses on the most famous stories — Cinderella (voted as British children’s favourite fairy tale), Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty — enjoying himself an indecent amount because he gets to play dress-up to re-create famous moments from the tales. Of Cinderella, O’Grady says: “You have to go through adversity, horrific cruelty, before you get your happy ending. You’ve really got to work for it, which I think puts children on the right path.”
MasterChef: The Professionals
BBC Two, 8pm
It’s finals week, and tonight features the most daunting challenge of them all — the Chef’s Table, where the four remaining chefs each cook a course to serve to 28 heavyweights of modern gastronomy, who between them have held more than 30 Michelin stars. Tomorrow night, four become three, with the unlucky loser missing out on a trip to Oslo, Norway, to cook under the tutelage of Esben Holmboe Bang, head chef at Maaemo, the epicentre of cutting-edge Nordic cuisine. On Thursday, the winner is crowned after all three cook a perfect three-course meal to impress the judges Monica Galetti, Gregg Wallace and Marcus Wareing.
The Supervet at Christmas
Channel 4, 8pm
If you are looking for a Christmas miracle for your injured pet,there is no one better than the supremely skilled “supervet” Professor Noel Fitzpatrick to deliver something far more valuable than the presents under the tree. Among those in need are the charity worker Kerry, who brings in Maxi, a three-year-old rescue greyhound with severely damaged front legs. There is drama close to home for the vet when his dog Keira is rushed into the practice suffering from sickness and diarrhoea. For added festive flavour, Fitzpatrick dons a Christmas jumper and makes a surprise visit home to Ireland.
Inside the Christmas Factory
BBC Two, 9pm
There can’t be many people who haven’t made a mince pie at some point in their lives, but this festive edition of Inside the Factory looks at what it takes to make them on an industrial scale. Gregg Wallace is at the Mr Kipling factory in south Yorkshire, where they bake 180 million mince pies a year, peering into vats of mincemeat and bellowing, “It smells like Christmas”, machine-gunning facts and repeating things people say to him in a loud voice. Elsewhere, Cherry Healey performs a similar role at a tinsel factory, while Ruth Goodman reveals the explosive history of Christmas crackers.
Darcy Bussell: Looking for Margot
BBC One, 10.45pm
Margot is, of course, Margot Fonteyn, the inspiration for generations of ballerinas, including Darcey Bussell. No one could invent Fonteyn’s life. Alongside her dancing career and dazzling partnership with Rudolf Nureyev, she bankrolled an attempted coup, spent 25 years caring for her unfaithful husband after he was shot, and was buried in a pauper’s grave at her home in Panama. Bussell goes behind the scenes at the Royal Opera House and the Royal Ballet, travelling from London to New York and Panama, to unravel Fonteyn’s fascinating and often tragic life story.
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Catch-up TV, by David Chater
Titanic’s Tragic Twin: The Britannic Disaster
BBC iPlayer, to January 4
On the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Britannic, Kate Humble and Andy Torbet tell the little-known story of one of Britain’s worst maritime disasters. The Britannic was the sister ship of the Titanic, launched just before the First World War and used as a hospital ship from 1915. After the Titanic disaster, the Britannic had been re-engineered and strengthened, but on November 21, 1916 it was shaken by a mine 5km off the Greek island of Kea and sank in just 55 minutes — three times faster than the Titanic — killing 30 of the 1,065 people on board. Torbet makes a dangerous dive to the Britannic wreck, while Humble speaks to some of the descendants of those who survived.
Film choice
Love, Rosie (15, 2014)
Film4, 9pm
Love, Rosie is a cheery, sweetly funny will-they-won’t-they teen rom-com that rolls on through the more complex twenties of Rosie (Lily Collins, Snow White in Mirror Mirror) and Alex (Sam Claflin, Snow White’s love interest in Snow White and the Huntsman) as their friendship, which began aged five, teeters on the cusp of love. Although all seemed equal at the start, Alex heads off to Harvard Medical School, while Rosie finds herself pregnant. Jaime Winstone plays the pink-haired best friend in this low-budget, big-hearted effort, adapted from a novel by the princess of chick-lit, Cecelia Ahern. How to Be Single, the director Christian Ditter’s latest film, is on Sky Cinema Premiere on Friday. (102min) Kate Muir
Rock the Kasbah (15, 2015)
Sky Cinema Premiere, 10pm
Here is a chance to see if this zany Bill Murray vehicle deserved the opprobrium heaped upon it when it hit cinema screens this year. Sadly, the answer is yes, in the main. It’s a lacklustre film, happy to plonk Murray in a vaguely interesting crisis situation — in this case, war-torn Afghanistan — and hope for the best. Murray is playing a failed music promoter, Richie Lanz, who winds up in downtown Kabul (don’t ask) without an army escort. When he’s not treating the Afghan people like gormless cave-dwellers who need some Richie Lanz magic, our hero finds time for a queasy romance with a bejewelled southern belle called Merci, played by Kate Hudson. For Murray diehards only. (106min) Kevin Maher
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Forgetting Sarah Marshall (15, 2008)
ITV, 10.40pm
Jason Segel plays Peter, a musician whose career has stalled writing ominous chord progressions to accompany shots of corpses in a cheesy detective show. Dumped by girlfriend Sarah, Peter takes a holiday alone in Hawaii, only to discover that she is staying in the same hotel with her new beau, the British rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand, effectively loathsome). Distraught, Peter turns to drink. Fortunately, Mila Kunis is on hand, playing the smart hotel receptionist who helps to ease Peter’s suffering. It’s an amusing, if calculated, revenge fantasy that succeeds because of Segel’s likeable presence. (111min) Wendy Ide
Radio choice, by Catherine Nixey
The Documentary: Burn Slush! The Reindeer Grand Prix
World Service, 7.30pm
In the darkened, snow-lit forests of northern Finland each winter, near the second most northerly McDonald’s in the world, a crowd gathers. Tents are erected on icy lakes, stalls appear selling fox-furs, beaver-furs and jewellery made from antlers, and people mill about drinking blueberry tea. They have come here to watch the Reindeer Grand Prix, a singular sporting event at which the type of people who know how to kill a moose strap on skis and attach themselves to the back of reindeer and are then bounced along for 2km through the forest. It is a strange otherworldly place that bears more resemblance to a Philip Pullman novel than to the gaudy world of more southerly grands prix. Cathy FitzGerald presents, in snow-hushed whispers.
The Forum: Utopia
World Service, 9.06am
When Thomas More came up with the idea of the perfect society in 1516, the somewhat pessimistic name he gave to this mythical ideal was “no-place” or, in Greek, “Outopia”. A mere 500 years later, with the utopian ideal not much closer than it was then, The Forum assembles its usual cast of alarmingly intelligent people to discuss where this place might have gone, if it exists at all — and whether More meant it as a model to copy or a warning. In a nice touch, they will be speaking in Leuven, where the work was first published by Erasmus.