The Choir: Unsung Town
BBC2, Tuesday 9pm
I don’t know how Gareth Malone does it, but he seems to get younger with each series. After The Choir and The Choir: Boys Don’t Sing, Malone (who now looks about twelve) takes on the whole of South Oxhey, a town-sized estate outside Watford, in an attempt to turn the residents into a fully-fledged professional choir. So far, so The Singing Estate, which ran on Five a couple of years ago — but Malone’s enthusiasm makes this three-part series unmissable.
The Fixer
ITV1, Tuesday 9pm
The words “ITV1 primetime drama” and “second series” rarely fit into the same sentence these days — but Kudos’ tale of a mercenary in the employ of a top-secret government agency got the recommissioning green light after an entertaining first series.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey
Channel 4, Tuesday 10.35pm
Following five housewives from the same region sounds like it could be a cross between Wife Swap and The Family. And it is — but in the state that was the home of the Sopranos, “family” has more than one meaning. This series has been going down a storm in the US, and looks like it could be the must-watch reality event of the next few weeks.
EastEnders
BBC1, Thursday 7.30pm
There’s a much-trumpeted return on its way on Friday - you can hardly have missed the trailer in recent weeks. On the principle of “one out, one in”, another character makes a dramatic exit this week, as Lucas and Trina have a dramatic confrontation in, er, Charlie’s allotment shed. The unlikely location leads to one of the least-likely exits in soap history.
Justin Lee Collins: Ballroom Dancer
Sky 1, Thursday 10pm
In this week’s ‘in at the deep end’ task, in which he has to take on the role of a professional ballroom dancer, JLC does have a (tiny) spot of previous. Way back in the first series of Strictly Come Dancing, he hosted the accompanying magazine show on BBC3, the imaginatively titled Strictly Come Dancing on Three — and his samba with Paul Killick remains a comedy highlight. As we recently reported, Justin recently signed a two-year exclusive deal with Five — let’s hope he’ll continue to make shows as entertaining as this.
Didn't "The Singing Estate" pre-date "The Choir".
It was some sort of Arts Council thing as well.
Although The Singing Estate was broadcast on TV before the first series of The Choir, The Choir is filmed over a much longer period of time so was commissioned and went into production long before The Singing Estate.