Magazine


Watch out: What's on TV this week

by Conrad Astley
23/ 6/2005

RICHARD Curtis attempting to deal with the issue of third world debt - sounds like something to approach with caution.

After all, this is the man who, in Love Actually, made the suggestion that the world was a nice place, because the desperate mobile phone calls made by 9/11 victims were messages of love.

Surely anyone capable of such a blatant lack of judgement should stick to what he's good at - fluffy romcoms, which seem to be funded by the London tourist board - and leave politics to the big boys.

The Girl In The Café ( Saturday, BBC1) sees the writer attempting to mix global issues with the soppy stuff.

Big important civil servant Bill Nighy starts a stuttering and implausible romance with the much younger Kelly McDonald, and asks her to accompany him to a summit of world leaders in Reykjavik.

A nice warm feelgood ending seems fairly likely after all the anti-poverty polemic has been dealt with.

Meanwhile, an interesting rummage through Britain's cultural history is in store in The Story Of ITV: The People's Channel ( Sunday, ITV1).

Celebrating the channel's 50th birthday, Melvyn Bragg looks at why the idea of an alternative to the BBC was so controversial on its launch, and why director general Lord Reith claimed it was "potential social menace of the first magnitude".

Of course, those BBC bosses knew what they were doing, and threw a spanner into the works by putting on a particularly eventful edition of The Archers on ITV's opening night.

Ahh, simpler times.

Coronation Street creator Tony Warren, who has probably had more to do with the channel's enduring success than most, also makes a contribution.

Elsewhere, we have the story of a woman who poisoned one husband with a curry, before turning up at his funeral in a black miniskirt.

And she convinced another to go into hiding, because the Mafia was after his cuddly toy leprechaun business.

These stories, surprisingly, are extracts from a documentary. Cutting Edge: The Black Widow ( Wednesday, Channel 4).

It serves to prove the old truism that fact is stranger than fiction as it looks at serial murderess, bigamist and thief Dena Thompson.

The obvious question of how she got away with it for so long seems to be answered by making a quick assessment of her victims' intelligence.

One, who narrowly got away with his life, describes how he first got an inkling something was wrong when she hit him with a baseball bat.

This sounds unmissable.


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