An Awfully Big Adventure (Monday 7.10pm, BBC4)
Jenny Agutter looks into the life of The Railway Children writer E Nesbitt. Was the author as innocent as her childrens’ books would have us believe? A repeat of a TV adaptation of Nesbitt’s The Phoenix and the Carpet follows at 8.30pm, but sadly is a 90s version and the not the fondly remembered 70’s take on the novel.
The Real Mr Pooter (Monday 9pm, BBC4)
Ahead of tomorrow’s Andrew Davies adaptation of The Diary of a Nobody, this exhaustive documentary, forming part of the excellent Edwardian Season, explores how Charles Pooter, hero of the novel, is a template for some of our modern day comic icons. It also gives a thumbnail biography of the author George Grossmith and includes contributions from Davies, Peter Ackroyd and David Nobbs.
New Tricks (Monday 9pm, BBC1)
New Tricks – it’s like Waking the Dead meets Last of the Summer Wine (in a good way of course!). Tonight, Inspector Wexford himself, George Baker, guests stars in a tale that sees the aged team uncover an armoured security truck at the bottom of a lake. Does it link to a murder case, and how will the death of a witness effect the investigation?
Life Line (Tuesday 9pm, BBC1)
After last week’s Sea of Souls outing, here’s another two-part piece of spookiness from Auntie. It’s all very silly, as Peter (Ray Stevenson) has a brief reunion with an old flame (a very welcome appearance from Joanne Whalley), who then dies on him. This sends Peter’s life spiralling out of control, until somebody introduces him to the Life Line, a telephone service that… well, you can probably work that bit out for yourself. Sounds like something out of Rentaghost, to be honest. Concludes on Thursday.
The Diary of a Nobody (Tuesday 9pm, BBC4)
This is worth it for Hugh Bonneville’s sterling performance as Charles Pooter, because let’s face it, Andrew Davies could have knocked this adaptation out in an evening with a red pen and copy of the book. Bonneville is pitch perfect as Pooter, giving life to the character’s pained expression and view of life. It’s this turn that thankfully raises this above being merely a Radio 4 reading of the novel.
Sex on Trial: the Soapstar Story (Tuesday 10.30pm, C4)
Anybody with half an interest in television and soaps will want to tune in here to relive one of the biggest scandals to rock the foundations of Soapland. Sex scandals for soap actors these days are ten a penny, but when EastEnders actress Gillian Taylforth allegedly performed an act of oral pleasure on her fella at the time in a lay by, this was pretty saucy stuff. And so was the libel action brought against The Sun by Taylforth, that backfired on her spectacularly. Relive the case in all its gory details here.
Columbo (Wednesday 1.30pm, Five)
The kind of TV that makes you long to work from home. A double-bill of the best detective drama ever to grace the world’s airwaves. Oh, there’s just one more thing: make a cuppa, get some biccies out and take the phone off the hook.
Champions League Live (Wednesday 7pm, Sky Sports 1)
Come on Liverpool!! (Normal service will now resumed).
The Apprentice (Wednesday 9pm, BBC1)
It’s Wednesday, so what else are you going to be watching? As the teams enter the murky world of photographic art, the big revelation this week is that Tre isn’t descended from a fish. Well, thanks for that Tre. He’s rapidly becoming the entertaining heart beating The Apprentice to some increasingly high ratings, and is a cringe worthy joy to behold. Having said that, I’m missing Sophie and her theories about milk, but Tre more than makes up for her absence. Elsewhere, the time bomb that is Jadine continues to tick, leading everybody to wonder: just when is she going to explode?
EastEnders (Thursday 7.30pm, BBC1)
It’s an Albert Square wedding. Rejoice! At least something will happen for a change. And who’s putting money on Shirley telling all about her night of lust and passion (ew!) with Kevin before he gets Denise down the aisle? With those odds, it’s not worth my while…
The Human Footprint (Thursday 9pm, C4)
A quite ingenious documentary (sort of) that shows just what effect we have on our surrounding during an average lifetime. Did you know that, for example, you might eat 13, 345 eggs before you die? Food for thought. Ahem…
House/Shark (Thursday from 9pm, Five)
A coupling of fine American drama that makes Five just about worth tuning into. You know the drill with House, but things are a little different this week as the good doc seems to have found his match in the form of David Morse’s hard cop, Micheal Tritter, who has House banged up on drug charges. Gasp! Shark, on the other hand, is still an unknown quantity, although James Woods as a scenery-chewing lawyer with lots of one-liners isn’t a million miles away from House.
I'm still enjoying the Phoenix and the Carpet, regardless of your snootiness over versions. Especially as national treasures like Miriam Margolyes keep popping up in it when I'm not expecting them to. I hope BBC4 decide to show the 1990s version of Five Children and It after this has finished too. In fact if they re-showed all the children's dramas I enjoyed as a kid like The Box of Delights and Moondial maybe it will encourage the current TV producers to pull their fingers out and make some new big budget children's dramas.
You mean like The Wind in the Willows, Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars, The Sarah Jane Adventures and Doctor Who ;-)
And the 1970s The Phoenix and the Carpet is sooooo much better than the 1990s version. Fact!
But none of those were screened during the children's BBC time zone when most kid's get home from school and actually watch the TV. That timeslot between 3pm and 6pm should be when they screen or serialise the big kid's dramas - because that's when they'll be in to watch them. Putting them on at weekends means you have to come in from playing on your own time - instead of hanging around waiting for dinner/putting off homework, so you're less likely to watch it. And the last two aren't particularly good for the younger children under 6 because of the 'scary' or upsetting content. Doctor Who is all 'fight aliens! blow up things!' not just gently exploring the world and universe/s around you and finding interesting things and ways to look at it. Which is probably where a lot of people differ in their approach to storytelling. Drama doesn't always have to be about all-out conflicts but can be about problem solving. I feel a lot of TV and film producers seem to veer towards the immediate thrills rather than the journey of exploring.
I take your point, and yes, there should be good, decent budgeted childrens' dramas on durihng the week, but I would strongly disagree that Doctor Who is all "fight aliens! blow up things!". That's a part of it, yes, it is a sci-fi adventure series, after all. However, I also think Doctor Who is one of the most life-affirming shows out there. It's about the human spirit, and it does explore the universe in different ways, whether it's on an alien planet far in the future, or Elizabethan London with Shakespeare or learning things about 1930s New York. Yes, some of the history is thumbnail stuff, but it might encourage a child to look deeper into the reality.
And with luck, The Sarah Jane Adventures, which is filming now, is hopefully going to go out in the weekday CBBC BBC1 time frame.