TELEVISION LISTINGS
I Mississipl Burning (BBC2) 10.20pm—12.30am. lt's showdown time in the deep South as Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe team up to square up to the rednecked. hairybacked Sheriff and his cohorts who have a penchant for pointy white hoods.
MONDAY 10
I Scrlmpers (Channel 4) 8-8.30pm. Self- confessed scrimper. Ray Brooks. suggests ingenious money-saving methods including economical and enviromentally friendly burial in a biodegradable cardboard box at only £49.50. For some scrimping is the only way to get through crushing poverty and will bring a lump to your throat; for those in the high tax bracket there are more esoteric money saving devices - porsche pawn.
I White Heat: War Machine (BBC2) 8-8.50pm. Technology marches on. making our lives ever more easy with every mod con at our fingertips. Unfortunately this works both ways and advances in science mean advances in ever more sophisticated methods of killing one another — hand-to-hand fighting is rapidly being replaced with hand-to-keyboard armageddon. This programme traces the way in which man’s first technology. weapons. could also be our last.
I Cracker: To Be Somebody (Scottish) 9—lOpm. Robbie Coltrane returns to his role as Fitz in a new series of this award- winning drama. There’s been another gruesome murder. the police are barking up the wrong tree and Fitz is looking in from the outside unsure as to whether or not he should hel .
I The Good Sex guide (Scottish)
10.30-1 lpm. Motor-mouthed Liverpudlian Margi Clarke dispenses more salacious advice to a nation that denies the existence of sex unless it involves Tory MPs and rent boys and they read it in a Sunday gossip rag. Leslie Grantham. aka ‘Dirty Den’ (snigger etc) is the unlikely object of desire in a woman’s sexual fantasy while Helena Bonham- Carter stars as vicar’s daughter Chastity in a spoof sketch that lifts the skirt on 'costume drama.
I Face To Face (BBC2) ll. 15-1 1.55pm. Jeremy lsaacs has a rete-a-rete with Salman Rushdie in his first lengthy television interview in more than two years. Rushdie talks about his early family life. his English education. his writing and of course the sword of Damocles which has been hanging over his head since the publication of The Satanic Verses.
TUESDAY 11
I Natural Neighbours: Pigs Might Fly (BBCl) 8—8.30pm. This is about as unlikely as it gets but here goes. This programme is devoted to pigs who are. it transpires. highly intelligent and charismatic animals. Officer Matt Jagusak of the New Jersey Police has an unusual helper in the form of ‘Special Deputy‘ Ferris E Lucas. a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig that sniffs out narcotics rather than truffles. ’He‘s one more grunt in the war against crime.’ sniggers Jagusack and he's normal compared to the rest of the nutters on this show.
I Takin’ Over The Asylum (BBC2) 9—9.50pm. Part three of the series finds the lugubrious Eddie facing more trouble at St Jude but miraculously in his psychotic boss's good books. This show is surprisingly funny without being patronising or numbingly depressing. Watch it.
I The Booker Prize (BBC2) 8-8.50pm. The Late Show presents a special live programme covering the Booker Prize for Fiction award ceremony. Sarah Dunant and Tracey MacLeod are your hosts for the evening. with a little help from Germaine Greer. Tom Paulin and AS. Byatt.
I Alan Bleasdale Presents: Requiem
Apache (Channel 4) 10— l l .35 pm.
1 Bleasdale gives another TV newcomer.
Raymond Murtagh. the chance to air the fruits of his pen on the box. Ex-getaway man Hamish has retired from a life of
crime to the peaceful idyll of the Home
Counties. The not so peaceful life of i crime has different ideas and drags him 1 back for one last job.
WEDNESDAY 12
I A Feast of Floyd (BBC2) 6.45—7.30pm. Convivial itnbiber Floyd takes the high
road to Loch Fyne on another alcoholic rampage through the culinary delights of Scotland. Here we find Floyd preparing a
gargantuan gigot of lamb with his customary aplomb while enjoying Sir Fitzroy McLean‘s whisky. Lucky sod. I See Ho Evil, Hear Ho Evil (Scottish) 8—10pm. Extremely poor vehicle for the
talents of Gene Wilder anti Richard Pryor. f The plot. such as it is. hinges around the fact that one of them is blind and the other
‘ deaf. If you bother to watch this you may
well find yourself wishing that you were similarly afflicted. The original was rather blue in it’s language. this time slot will ruin even that childish pleasure.
I Video Diaries: Ratcatcher (BBC2) 9.30—l().3()pm. Paul catches rats by day fora London council. At night he hunts a different type of vermin — he's an Anti -Na7.i League activist who devotes his spare time to trying to stem the spread of the National Fronl's poison. During the
70s Paul was a member of the NF but
; people they claimed to defend. This video i
came to realise they despised the very
diary follows Paul's activities in the run tip to the local government election of May 9-1 when the BNP gained its first councillor on the Isle of Dogs. The film
keeps rolling during the hairiest moments
and gives a genuine feel of what grassroots. street politics is really about. I Counter Culture: A Time For Tea (Channel 4) 9.45—10pm. The first in a series of six short films looking at contemporary British life through the shopkeeper’s eyes. After all we are living in a consumer society and what better way of finding out about that society than from those who gratify our shopping needs? Tonight‘s programme looks at Philip ‘Parks who runs a traditional tea shop in the midst of a modernised city. Just don't mention tea bags.
THURSDAY 13
I Inside Story: Wiped Out (BBC 1) [0—10.45pm. June 199] was a bad month for thousands of Names who had underwritten a series of risks that turned bad to the tune of £5 10 million. Many of them complained they were down to their ‘last cufflink’.‘This programme focuses on two such Names who lost everything. Their personal circumstances are perhaps more liable to lead to feelings of sympathy than many. but I suspect it will
be difficult for most people to feel any pity for people who were prepared to reap rather good profits and then whinge when the honey pot is empty.
I The Purple Rose of Cairo (BBC2) 9—10.20pm. Woody Allen’s 1985 offering in which a movie really does come to life and rescues down-trodden Cecilia from her thuggish husband. The cinematic conceit works very well and Farrow is. as always. delightful.
I Critical Eye: Cuick War, Slow Death (Channel 4) 9—lOpm. We may have won the war. as if it was ever in any doubt. but for those who fought it the battle is just beginning. Many soldiers returned from the Gulfsuffering from ’Gulf War Syndrome’. a debilitating illness which has left many of them unemployable. The Pentagon has recognised the Allied Forces may have scored an own goal but the MOD has stuck its head in the sand and refuses to accept that any problem exists. Surely with the money from the continuing oil flow any compensation would be a drop in the ocean? But of course it was never about the oil was it? I Prostitute: Alain and Thierry (Channel 4) 11.05pm—12.05am. The second of three programmes looking at the oldest profession. Alain and Thierry are male prostitutes who look at theirjobs in vastly different ways — for one it is a temporary necessity. a means to an end. for the other it is a hopeless predicament which is making his life an absolute misery.
FRIDAY 14
I The iieturn or Eliot Hess (BBCl) 9.30—l 1.05pm. Film follow-up to the television series reprises the story of the untouchable G-man. now retired. as he tries to clear a friend’s name.
I Knowing Me, Knowing You . . . With Alan Partridge (BBC2) 10-10.30pm. King of television parody turns his attention to the Big Questions of the day on ‘Partridge Over Britain‘.
I The Stone Killer (Scottish) l().30pm-12. 15am. A pre-Deathtt'ish team-up between director Michael Winner and Charles Bronson. who plays a former New York cop out to intervene in a dispute between two mob factions. Needless to say his form of arbitration doesn’t involve having it out round a table with tea and biscuits. Violent. and them some. so expect cuts.
I Clive Anderson Talks Back (Channel 4) 10.30—1 l. lOpm. Our own British celebrity lawyer Clive meets American celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz. the man who defended Klaus von Bulow and Mike Tyson. Anderson also tries to bowl
' English cricket captain Mike Atherton a
couple of verbal googlies.
I Eurotrash (Channel 4) ll.l()—l 1.45pm. New series of Euro-TV blipvetts presented by Jean-Paul Gaultier and
Antoine de Caunes. the men with the
hammiest French accents since 'Allo.
'Allo. The line-up for the first show —
anti-Bobbit underpants and ‘Queen of Porn' Sarah Young — suggests the show’s smutty obsessions will continue. The Sun dubbed it ‘telly’s rudest show‘. which is about as big a compliment as you can get from that quarter.
SATURDAY 15
I Assignment (BBC2) 7.15—8pm. Etl Stourton investigates why guns now claim the lives of more Amercian youngsters than all deaths by natural causes put together.
I The Director's Place (BBC2) 8—8.50pm. The series of BBC Scotland- funded personal films by major directors continues with I Dream! 1 Wake Up by John Boorman. John Hurt plays Boorman’s fictional alter-ego from Ireland. who. like the director. is fascinated by dreams. legends and trees. I Air America (Scottish) 9—1 1.05pm. Bungled screen version of Christopher Robbin’s excellent novel based on the
ClA’s covert drug-running operation during the Vietnam War. Rarely funny comedy-drama starring Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jnr.
I The Hard Way (BBCl) 9.10—10.45pm. Michael J. Fox plays to type as a spoilt- brat Hollywood star researching his next role as a New York cop. He shadows reckless policeman James Woods and the unlikely pair hit the streets in search of bad guys. Mediocre comedy-thriller.
I Tokyo Drifter (BBC2) ll.45pm—I.05am. ‘One of the hippest films of all time’. according to the publicity blurb. this rarely screened film from the ‘Lost and Found’ season is described as a ‘pop-art gangster movie' and was directed by Japanese maverick Seijun Suzuki in 1966.
I The Danny Baker Show (BBC 1) 11.50—12.30am. Music by The Proclaimers and chat from Jack Charlton in the latest attempt by British television to do a David Letterman.
SUNDAY 16 ' '
I Don’t Look Down (Scottish) 10.45—11.30pm. Mouth Music. Ballet Rambert’s relaunch at the Festival Theatre. Edinburgh and 100 years of women’s photography are on the menu for tonight’s arts programme. hosted by Janice Forsyth.
I South Bank Show (Scottish)
1 l.30pm-l?..3()am. Programme about David Mamet whose controversial anti- political correctness play Olearma is currently being filmed.
MONDAY 17
I Cracker (Scottish) 9— 10pm. Second part of three of ‘To Be Somebody’ in which Fitz (Robbie Coltrane) is convinced that the police are on the wrong track in the search for a brutal murderer. But will they listen . . . This is the programme that will be held up as proof for years to come that commercial telly can be good telly.
TUESDAY 18
I Heartbreak High (BBC2) 6.30—7.20pm. The soapy series set in an inner city high school continues to exploit our obsession with Australian teenagers. Your chance to spot the chart-toppers of tomorrow.
I Pleasure (Channel 4) 10—] 1.50pm. Third from the ‘Alan Bleasdale Presents’ series is a film written by Christopher Hood and inspired by a sentence from a Raymond Chandler book. Set in France. Pleasure tells the story of a sensual woman trapped in a loveless marriage who answers a lonely hearts ad placed by an unsuccessful toy salesman (Adrian Dunbar). As their passionate affair develops. the parallel story of a police hunt for a masked robber unfolds.
WEDNESDAY 19 ‘
I Lonely Planet (Channel 4) 8.30—9pm. The no-presenters-with-sunglasses series aimed at people who consider themselves travellers. not tourists. continues with the water-and-trees beauty of Alaska.
I Between the Lines (BBC 1) time to be confirmed. ‘The Attorney General has decided that the criminal charges against you may be difficult to prove and that they’re unlikely to secure a conviCtion.’ Tony Clark is told. ‘But they feel it’s worth having a go. However. ifyou were to resign . . .' Unorthodox detective Clark (Neil Pearson) has left the Complaints investigation Bureau at the start of a new series of the award-winning drama. But Clark's boss is still on his case . . .
THURSDAY 20
I Taggart (Scottish) 9—10pm. Last part of this posthumously-screened story
‘Secrets’ starring Mark McManus investigating death threats received by a Scots-bom Hollywood screenwriter.
78 The List 7—20 October 1994