LISTINGS TELEVISION
TELEVISION m
A selection of television highlights, listed by day, in chronological order. Television listings compiled by Eddie Gibb.
FRIDAY 21
I Public Eye (BBC2) 8-8.30pm. New series of the documentary strand starts with ‘Out of Order’, a look at the burgeoning private security industry which has grown up. unregulated and unchecked. The programme makers uncover evidence of security firms using initimidation and violence. which one senior police officer predicts will inevitably lead to serious injury or death. I Perpetual Motion (BBC2) 8.30—9pm. Start of a new off-beat transport series about design classics. The first programme looks at the enduring Ford Transit. the result of a designer’s brief to produce a van that was as comfortable to drive as a car. It also made a top-notch get-away vehicle for bank robbers. according to Bobby King. who’s done a few jobs in his time.
I Martin Scorsese’s Favourite Films (BBC2) 9.30—lOpm. Director Scorsese is the first of four Hollywood names chosen to talk about their favourite films. Scorsese cites Howard Hawks‘ Land of the Pharaohs and Orson Welles‘ Citizen Kane as major influences. with his special film Duel in the Sun. a controversial melodrama about sexuality in the Wild West. screened later on BBC2 (l2.15—2.25am).
I Paris (Channel 4) 9.30—10pm. Not Alexei Sayle’s finest half hour but an occasionally funny sitcom. Sayle is the dissolute artist hanging out in the salons of 1920s Paris.
I Backdratt(BBC1) 9.30—1 1.40pm. Television premiere of Ron Howard’s spectacular action movie stoning Kurt Russell and William Baldwin as fire- fighting brothers investigating an arson attack. Jennifer Jason Leigh. Robert De Niro and Donald Sutherland also make appearances.
I Knowing Me, Knowing You . . . With Alan Partridge (BBC2) lO—lO.30pm. Last in this series of television chatshow parodies starring Steve Coogan.
I Eurotrash (Channel 4) 11.10—1 1.45pm. Messieurs Gaultier and de Caunes whip up a froth of innuendo and campery. ably assisted tonight by breast-obsessed Spanish film director Bigas Luna. who talks about his latest film The Tit and the M0011.
SATURDAY 22
I For love or Money (Channel 4) 8—9pm. Timely look at the Getty. the world’s richest an institution. which recently became embroiled in a controversy over the Three Graces. Art series presented by Nicholas Ward-Jackson.
I Ride (in is a new series fronted by Muriel Gray and backed by her recently-
rechristened production company, Ideal World. It promises to be ‘a transport show without anoraks, placards or train spotters’, aiming to contront some of the more serious political issues surrounding transport. It also plans to be entertaining. The opener includes a report on the impact cars have on gridlocked cities, comparing the commuter experience in london and Oslo. Forthcoming programmes will look at the thousands of accidents caused by the emergency services speeding to crime and accident scenes, test drive a Russian Mi825 tighter and look at the future of air travel.
Ride On starts on Tuesday 25 October at 8pm on Channel 4.
I Peter Sellars and The Merchant of Venice (BBC2) 8--8.50pm. Part of the continuing ‘Bard on the Box’ season. this ‘Shakespeare Laboratory’ looks in on rehearsals for Peter Sellars‘ experimental production that visits London next month. Sellars uses the play to explore the tensions of multi-racial America. using a black Shylock. Chinese Portia and Hispanic Antonio.
I llegarding Henry (BBCI ) 9.10—lO.55pm. Mike WalfNichols’ film from 1991 with Harrison Ford as a tough. workaholic New York lawyer who suffers total memory loss after being caught in the cross-fire of an armed robbery. As his memory slowly returns he realises he doesn’t much like his former self. Annette Bening plays his wife.
I The Silence of the lambs (Scottish) lOpm—12. 15am. First network screening of Jonathan Demme‘s Oscar-winning thriller with Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, a better class of serial killer than the standard white trash slasher.
I The last Word (BBC2) 10.50—11.35pm. Germaine Greer chairs a new. all-female discussion programme which promises to take a provocative look at subjects of interest to men and women; love. sex. money - that kind of thing. Regular guests will include The Guardian’s award- winning columnist Suzanne Moore and television executive Janet Street-Porter. I The Danny Baker Show (BBCl) 11.55pm—12.40am. Traditional chatshow format from the man who has never quite managed to adapt his easy-going radio banter for the telly. Tonight’s guests include the always-good-value Leslie Neilsen and glamour novelist Jackie Collins, with Sinead O’Connor singing just for you.
I Comedy Rules (Scottish) 12.15—12.45am. New series featuring stand-up comedy recorded during this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Tonight’s show includes Geoff Boyz. Mark Hurst. Simon Day and Greg Proops.
SUNDAY 23
I The Clothes Show (BBC 1) 5.25—6.05pm. Bluffer’s guide to next year’s Spring/Summer collections from the catwalks of Milan, Paris and London. brought to you by Jeff Banks and gang. The extended show includes a look at the clothes of newly-crowned British Designer of the Year John Galliano. I Battle of Wills (BBC2) 8—8.50pm. More from ‘Bard on the Box’ with a programme that looks at controversies surrounding Shakespeare’s identity and authorship. Will the real William Shakespeare please stand up? .1 1‘.
I Hollywood Cowboy (Channel 4) 9—10.55pm. Jeff Bridges is an aspiring pulp Western writer in the 30s who heads to Hollywood to fulfill his dream.
I Seatorth (BBC 1) 9—9.50pm. Continuing World War II saga with a plot that’s probably too complex to pick up if you missed the first couple of episodes. I Don’t look Down (Scottish)
10.45—1 l.30pm. Scottish arts magazine programme.
I The Deliberate Stranger (BBC!) 11.50pm—l .20am. Mini-series dramatising the story of notorious American serial killer Ted Bundy. Concluding part on Tuesday.
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I Scrimpers (Channel 4) 8—8.30pm. The programme for people who make tight- fistedness a way of life. This parade of British eccentrics tonight focuses on a couple of have brought up their six children in two tepees and a cow byre in Northumberland.
I Cracker (Scottish) 9—lOpm. Final part of the first story from the new series. Robert Carlyle does an excellent nutter and. as ever. plenty of sarcastic comedy from Robbie Coltrane.
I Cutting Edge (Channel 4) 9-lOpm. New series of this documentary strand starts with the question: ‘Why would anyone want to become a dentist?’ To find the answer a group of third-year dentistry students are shadowed by a television crew as they say ‘open wide’ to real patients for the first time.
I Panorama (BBC!) 9.30—10. 10pm. The Future is Female attempts to analyse why boys and girls are born equal but don‘t stay that way. including revealing video footage of two families interacting with their children. The programme concludes that boys are underachievers and suggests that men could be better described as the weaker sex.
I X-Files (BBC2) 9.30—10.15pm. Television’s enduring fascinations with the paranormal and federal agean meet in perfect union. Tonight Mulder and Scully investigate a series of murders in which male victims appear to have been ‘strangled from within’. All in a day‘s work for the X-File squad.
I Rosemary’s Baby (BBC 1)
ll. lOpm—l.25am. Roman Polanski‘s creepy classic; a tale of witchcraft transplanted to l970s New York. When Mia Farrow and her husband John Cassavetes move to a new neighbourhood. they are soon befriended by the satanists- next-door.
The List 2| October—3 November l994 79