BUSINESS DOCUMENTARY BRITS GET RICH IN CHINA Channel 4, Mon 28 May, 9pm .00
Paul Merton recently recalled with some anxiety how he forced down a portion of cooked donkey penis in the name of travel shows. And in this documentary, a marginally traumatised businessman dines briefly on the same delicacy. The connection between the two films is that both show a side to China which somewhat goes against the grain of that country’s current image as a progressive economic superpower and a futuristic force
forchange.
Some of the other goings-on in the clumsily titled Brits Get Rich in China (what was wrong with the previous working title of China or Bust?) are similarly hard to swallow as we track three male entrepreneurs heading off to the new land of plenty in order to reap
REMOTE CONTROL
Brian Donaldson finds that the past is a place where we never had it so good. Maybe.
They don't make ‘em like they used to back in the good old days. do they? The nostalgia industry is showing no sign of abating and. frankly. why shOuld it when it consistently throws up some fascinating television. The clutch of shows about the past during this fortnight have plenty things in common, and not just that they have all elected not to give Jimmy Carr a job as comedic link man. Looking back on recent events may be one of the keys to helping us change the way we live. but the evidence it puts forth goes a long way to proving that histOry has an uncanny habit of repeating itself over and over again.
YOU can easily imagine a programme such as Children’s TV on Trial: The Kids’ Verdict (BBC4, Sat 26 May. 9.05pm 000 ) being made in another 30 years time With a Similarly diverse quartet of nippers absolutely destroying Tracy Beaker ('not shrill and annOying endugh'). slagging off the Tweenies for being grey and QUiet. while possibly lamenting the fact that we still
unimaginable rewards for their companies. Whether you are in the business of building kitchens, making cushions or creating energy saving devices, there is one thing you have to beware of: the underhand Chinese
trickster.
can't get shot of Blue Peter. Grange / li/l or Ant and Dec. In this streamlined seeial experiment. the weaiis were made to don the clobber and snack on the scran of each decade going )(le to the 1950s while analysing the tell; of those periods. It was discoiicmtiiig to see them recoil iii horror at a tame gay Deck on the cheek Ill Byker Grove. but it was hard not to agree With statements about the early days of Newsround Such as: 'they're talking to us as though we're adults. And we're. like. children'. Yet the claim that .John Craven was no Peter Kay weiild surely be laughed out of court.
It was hard not to chuckle at Sport’s Dirty Secrets /C/l(I/7HO/ 4, Mon 28 May, 7 7.20pm; Tue 29 May. I l.():'>pm I... l when it recalled the female
one of them is on screen and the doomy voiceover as Pete" Shoa'u keepi‘g; as one shady dealer after another comes on board to puff at a cigarette while erecting a smokescreen which the beleaguered Brit has to overcome. Meanwhile, should his kitchen business eventually come to nothing, brash Rochdale lad Vance Miller may well find himself in demand as a kind of Gordon Ramsay for the building trade, cursing and blinding about the ongoing injustices inflicted upon his wallet from forces he cannot comprehend. (Brian Donaldson)
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.-'- ' .1. ‘THE LIST 83