Fanny Hill Episode 1 of 2 Monday, 9pm BBC4
John Cleland’s saucy 18th Century novel gets the Andrew Davies adaptation treatment. An outrageously upstanding cast of actors supports Rebecca Knight as the titular prostitute, making this digital drama far classier than ITV2’s Secret Diary of a Call Girl. Sorry, Billie (and Belle)…
Russell Brand’s Ponderland daily from Monday, 10.35pm Channel 4
For some reason, Russell Brand has struggled with most, if not all, of his non-Big Brother related TV shows. Hopefully, this series, which sees Brand pontificate on various subjects through the use of odd archive clips, will do slightly better. Not quite sure why this is going out nightly, though…
Comedy Lab daily from Monday, 11.05pm Channel 4
…although this may explain it: a series of comedy pilots also being shown nightly. Not to be confused with Comedy Showcase, the series of sitcom pilots also running on Channel 4 on Friday nights.
Spooks Episode 2 of 10 Tuesday, 9pm BBC1
The pace doesn’t let up at all this week, as Harry and the team struggle to contain the biological agent loose on the streets of London. Harry enlists the help of retired field agent — and old flame? — Connie (Gemma Jones) and some very unorthodox interrogation techniques to track down a possible antidote. The biggest question of all, though, is what the hell Miranda Raison’s stylist was thinking?
Imagine… Henry Perkins: Bolshoi Boy Tuesday, 10.35pm BBC1
16-year-old Henry Perkins is only the second British boy dancer to train at Moscow’s Bolshoi ballet academy in its 230-year history. Alan Yentob’s arts series returns with a documentary looking at Perkins and his dance teacher, Ilya Kuznetsov.
Clive James Talking in the Library: Catherine Tate Wednesday, 7.30pm Sky Arts
There’s far more to Tate than her sketch show characters, as this interview proves.
Frankenstein Wednesday, 9pm ITV1
Jed Mercurio (Cardiac Arrest, Bodies) writes and directs this retelling of Mary Shelley’s classic, its setting changed to the near future. Helen McCrory is Victoria Frankenstein, whose genetic experiments result in her spawning of a monster… Neil Pearson, James Purefoy and Lindsay Duncan also star.
30 Rock Thursday, 10.40pm Five
The BBC2 trails are right, Thursdays are funny. Just not on BBC2 itself. If you haven’t yet caught this US sitcom import, it’s not too late. Better in almost every way than the similarly-themed drama Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, not least because Studio 60 doesn’t have Alec Baldwin.
