REMOTE CONTROL
Brian Donaldson finds a large number of women this fortnight are either the hunter or hunted.
It‘s a sign of how life moves on for all of us that Jennifer Saunders' new sitcom should be about a women's guild in a sleepy Devon village. Perhaps because it's so far from the madding it-crowd of Ab Fat). Jen has surrounded herself with reliable old chums such as Dawn French playing a bubble-haired schizophrenic. and Joanna Lumley. unrecognisable as a ratchety coffin-dodger whose teeth fail her while chomping on a sponge cake.
After one episode. Jam and Jerusalem (8807, Fri 24 Nov.
9.30pm coo i has yet to decide whether it's a sitcom or a comedy drama. If it‘s the latter. it should have made at least two or three of its cast slightly less daft and if it's the former. J8J has largely failed. especially considering that the staid attacks On religious structures and traditions are absolutely obvious.
Also a bit too familiar is the set-up of Strictly Confidential (STV. Thu 76 Nov, 9pm coo ). in which Kay Mellor revisits her sex therapy drama Between the Sheets. This is. as they say in the nice papers. a raunchy drama. in which therapist Suranne Jones (ex-Corrie) tries to help out ‘clients (including Nikki Sanderson: ex- iCorrie) with their problems while failing to conceive with her own fella and being drawn into a rash of autoerotic asphyxiation suffered by young women. lt's filthy and frank but so clumsily shot that y0u might start picturing the camera operators wearing blindfolds and gimp masks. And two of the 'plot‘ ‘twists‘ could be guessed by the time the opening credits were over.
Tittybangbang (BBCS, Mon 20 Nov, 70.30pm oo ) is back for a
CRIME DOCUMENTARY THE PITCAIRN STORY Channel 4, Thu 23 Nov, 10.35pm 0000
Sometimes, you think that you’ll have heard it all when it comes to child sex abuse stories. And then something like this comes along. In 2004, in the remote British colony of Pitcairn Island (population 47), six local men were convicted of raping children and young girls over a long period, with the most junior victim recorded as eight years old. Lying 9000 miles from London and a short sail away from Tahiti, the men and their supportive womenfolk claim to be outside of British jurisdiction and accountable only to Pitcairn’s ancient laws, which provide for a paltry three-month sentence for such crimes. After a failed appeal the men now await to be
second series and I've yet to receive a full explanation to why. Though the latex Tom Cruise impersonation did save it from being the worst 27 minutes of 2006. Channel slablemate Pulling (BBCIB. 777(123NOV. (0.30pm
000 ) has the potential to be something of more substance. though the fluid antics of the opening scene (there's a clue in the title) might have many pushing the off button. On the eve of her wedding. Donna has such cold feet that she calls the whole thing off. Aided by her two bessy mates (a slapper and a semi-slapper). she plummets headfirst into a life of blokes and booze. Splendid.
Drunken women of the night were the Victims of London's most notorious unsolved murders and Jack Ripper: The First Serial Killer - Revealed (Five. Tue 2] Nov. 8pm l is the umpteenth show to speculate on the killer's real identity. This one claims to be different as they have enlisted experts in geographical
profiling and nabbed some DNA from n- a shawl which turned up in someone's attic last year. Judging by the photofit. you can forget royalty or politicians. the real Jack appears to have been Bruce Grobt')elaar.
incarcerated in the prison which they helped to build.
With wide-eyed bewilderment, the ex-mayor and one of the Pitcairn Six, as no one has dubbed them, Steve Christian denies all wrongdoing. Not only that, but he reckons, in a dialect which suggests a cross-breeding between a Dundonian and a Tahitian, that he is the victim of a grand conspiracy to remove the islanders so the British government can use the land as an army base. These days, of course, anything is possible when it comes to the state and military operations, but the police officers who investigated the case over a lurid, painstaking five years and the only victim prepared to go on camera baulk at such claims. Not for nothing is this disturbing documentary part of the Trouble in Paradise strand. (Brian Donaldson)
Queen Mother in Love (Channel 4, Thu 23 NOV. 9pm .0 ) holds few surprises but y0u have to trawl your way through a screed of plummy voices and acres of horsey talking heads to discover that the deceased fish-lover was a bit of a catch in her day and really. really didn't like Wallis Simpson. Astonishing. Finally, no apologies for mentioning Young@Heart (Channel 4. Wed 22 Nov. 9pm 0.0-0.) again. especially now that it's made the leap from More/i. Besrdes. you need a show to be bored with each issue now that the sixth Sopranos series is kipping wrth the telly fishes.
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