Only Stwpd Cowz Txt N Drive, BBC3, Monday 8.30pm
This half-hour drama, made in association with Gwent police, received lots of press coverage when first released on the internet. It’s an uncompromising depiction of the potential consequences of taking your eyes off the road while texting on your mobile. Slow-motion special effects add to the goriness.
Glee E4, Monday 9pm
The third episode of the musical sitcom sees teacher Will setup an all-male a capella group, the Acafellas (and you thought Only Men Aloud! was a naff name for a male choir). While his attention is elsewhere, the new glee club members, led by the treacherous Quinn, enlist a fierce new choreographer. Meanwhile, Mercedes has a cruch on male soprano Kurt, but his attentions lie elsewhere… Guest stars in this episode include Josh Groban sending up his own persona something rotten, plus Broadway legends Victor Garber and Debra Monk make an appearance as Will’s parents.
National Television Awards ITV1, Wednesday 7.30pm
New host (Dermot O’Leary replacing Sir Trevor Macdonald), new venue (the O2 Arena instead of the Royal Albert Hall), new time of year — same good old populist appraach to awards. There may not be any surprises on the scale of the last ceremony’s live link-up to the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon in which David Tennant made the formal announcement that he was leaving Doctor Who, but chances are he’ll grab the show’s only non-soap acting gong. It’s followed by a “backstage” programme on ITV2, which if similar events are anything to go by will prove to be car-crash telly.
Leverage Bravo, Wednesday 9pm
A set of con-artists do their thing in a slickly-shot, entertaining drama. Yes, it’s American television’s answer to Hustle, and none the worse for that.
Mock the Week BBC2, Thursday 9pm
A new series of the topical comedy panel show returns, with Frankie Boyle’s seat now vacated to make way for another guest panellist. Disappointingly, the first programme maintains the bloke-iness of previous runs, with an all-male guest roster of Milton Jones, Patrick Kielty and Mark Watson.
* Rab C Nesbitt* BBC2, Thusrday 9.30pm
Gregor Fisher and Elaine C Smith return as Rab and Mary, in a long-awaited ninth series of the Govan-set sitcom.
Bellamy’s People BBC2, Thursday 10pm
When Radio 4 comedy Down the Line first started, several people failed to recognise that it was a spoof of the type of phone-in that dogs the airwaves. Rhys Thomas’s Gary Bellamy, the bland host of the radio show, transitions to television to front the sort of meandering documentary that deserves the same sort of pillorying. A host of familiar comedy faces (Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, Simon Day, Lucy Montgomery and more) portray the people Bellamy meets, with varying degrees of success. It doesn’t have the subtlety of, say, People Like Us, which lampooned a very different style of documentary, but it’s very funny nonetheless.
