TV
Reviews
ARTS DOCUMENTARY THE GARDEN OF COSMIC SPECULATION Scottish, Sun 3 Apr, 11.10pm 000 13:42.?-
Don't worry, neither Alan Titchmarsh nor Charlie Dimmock is bantering over bedding in this South Bank Show. Architectural critic and designer Charles Jencks and his late Wife Maggie KeSWick (founder of Maggie's Centres) began this private horticultural feat 15 years ago and it's where the Gallery of Modern
The Quatermass Experiment Live BBC4, Sat 2 Apr, 8.20pm As part of the Non Trial season,Jason Flemyng, Mark Gatiss and David Tennant Star in this live adaptation of the classic 608 sci-fi romp.
50 Greatest Comedy Sketches Channel 4, Sun 3 Apr, 9pm Who's the winner: Eric'n'Ernie? Tubbs and Edward? Pete'n‘Dud? Ralph and Ted? Andy and the guy who pushes his wheelchair? Tom Baker narrates.
Oasis Video Exclusive Channe/ 4, Wed 6 Apr, 11.05pm The Gallaghers and co gatecrash their way back into our collective psyche with the promo to their new single ‘Lyla'. Rogue Farm Scottish, Thu 7 Apr, 71pm The acclaimed Scottish anime is the latest in the fine New Found Land series. Crime Story ITV3, Wed 73 Apr, 9pm Chicanery in Chicago is the topic for this late 803 series which has been dubbed ‘Miami Vice Meets The Untouchables'.
Art sv/irl (LandfOrmi was born. Fractals are represented in the patio; evolution in a cascading water sowce; waves iof scunds. light. particleSi in grass forms and DNA in sculpture.
Melwn Bragg walks around the mind- boggling grounds With Jencks.Thev conversations illuminate the scrence behind the shapes and forms, but JOlly SCIentists are thankfully drafted in every now and then to clarify. At one pomt. these ambitious thinkers of our time reach the top of a stairway and find the source of the problem. ‘You're in the mirror,‘ laughs Bragg. 'And now you are.‘ retorts Jencks. It's a neat comment on the ego and greatness of such aims.
(Ruth Hedges)
SOCIAL DOCUMENTARY KILHOY’S WEEK WITH THE GYPSIES
Channel 4, Mon 4 Apr, 8pm .00
Who would have thought two of the nation's greatest pariahs would somehow cancel each other out? What sounds like a premise for some kind of monstrously Springeresque showdown — Vanitas silver fox Robert Kilroy Silk spending a few days living with gypsies - ends up with a clearly pre-arranged “I've-been- treated-with-much- warmth-and-now-truly- understand-their-plight‘ sign-off.
Originally he intends to stay with a Romany family in the days leading up to their eviction but takes one look at his accommodation and books into a hotel. And despite his disgust at the rubbish surrounding their caravans (and the fact that he seems more concerned with invading people's personal space than actually listening to anyone) he gets his head around the
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COMEDY DRAMA CASANOVA
BBC1, Mon 4 Apr, 9pm .0.
BBC3 may be known as a hotbed of comedy talent. but it's clearly trying manfully to make a name for itself in the drama stakes. After the success of Bodies and Outlaws. the similarly mono-monikered Casanova takes their lead by making a Quick SWitch onto big people's telly With the body tale of the 1700s Iothario who may well have had that same number notched on his bedpost. Dayld Tennant is comically excellent as the cad about town who gets himself into waters both hot and cold amid Venice's high society as he ‘courts' nuns. Sisters. a male Singer who turns Out to be a lady and Laura Fraser as the engaged Henriette: his confeSSion of this to a bedazzled Father is one of several amusmg scenes. Peter O'Toole Just about forces the lines Out as the elderly Casanova recalling his Wicked ways and the whole affair Winds up just a little flacod. (Brian Donaldson)
CRIME DOCUMENTARY POISONED
Sky One, Mon 4 Apr, 9pm 00
Taking its lead from the dioxm pOisoning of Ukrainian preSident Viktor Yushchenko during last year's election campaign. this overblown. unnecessarily dramatic look into the history of p0isoning in Eastern Europe at least contains some very interesting facts. Filtering Yushchenko's cautionary tale through a litany of excrUCiating
SCIENCE DOCUMENTARY LIFE BEFORE BIRTH Channel 4, Thu 7 Apr, 9pm 0000
Have a glance around the TV schedules these days, and there‘s death everywhere. From The Government Inspector to The Contender, ‘Killer Corrie' to Wildife on One and on to Nathan Barley’s ratings, corpses are strewn around, twitching and burning across our small screens. Press the red button on your remote control and blood may well jet onto your carpet. So, what a blessed relief it is to see an innovative documentary which celebrates the joy of life; or at least shows, via ultra-vivid 4D scanning techniques, the remarkable stages which we all experienced over the course of approximately nine months before forcing our way onto the
world’s big stage.
Set to a standard, sensitive Channel 4 documentary voice-over broken up by specially-written verse from Roger McGough, the film takes the viewer on a jaw-dropping, educational acid trip through a gestating body. The actual footage of a growing sprog may be familiar from last year’s confessional tale, My Foetus, but the filmmakers have taken it an evocative stage further, letting us imagine what a heart looks like when it takes its first beat and how a small person yawns from within the womb.
At a pair of hours long, it‘s maybe stretching your astonishment to bulging point, but as a rollicking ride into evolution and a pleasuredome for those who love amazing facts, it’s a dream. Did you know, for example, that one third of a human’s DNA also appears in a daffodil’s genetic make-up?
(Brian Donaldson)
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