36 saturday review Saturday January 1 2022 | the times
You Are What
You Eat
Channel 5, 8pmThe Channel 4 series that
catapulted Gillian McKeith to
fame (you might recall her
picking through people’s
excrement) returns after
15 years on a new channel and
with a new host — Trisha
Goddard. Shock and disgust
were McKeith’s primary tactics,
but Goddard is promising to
focus on mental as well as
physical health, and no fat-
shaming. The poo test remains,
and Goddard is assisted by the
GP Dr Amir Khan and the
nutritionist Kate Llewellyn-
Waters. First up, a sports coach
who turned to the fridge when
his relationship ended. JCInside the Factory
BBC2, 9pmIn Britain we chomp our way
through 130 million malt loaves
a year, but it remains
something of an enigma. It’s
called a “loaf”, so it’s bread,
right? But it’s sweet and
squidgy like a cake. So what is
it? To find out more, Gregg
Wallace pesters the employees
at the Soreen factory in
Manchester, machine-gunning
questions and generally
making a nuisance of himself.
Meanwhile, Cherry Healey
observes the process that
creates the malt flour and pairs
tea with cake, and the food
historian Ruth Goodman
reveals how a British baking
company ended up making
the first business computer. JC● S4C 6.00am Cyw 6.25 Y Brodyr Coala
(r) 6.35 Nico Nôg (r) 6.45 Jen a Jim a’r
Cywiadur (r) 7.00 Bach a Mawr (r) 7.10 Ty
Mêl (r) 7.20 Caru Canu a Stori 7.30
Cacamwnci (r) 7.45 Pablo 8.00 Blociau
Rhif (r) 8.05 Sbridiri (r) 8.25 Guto
Gwningen (r) 8.40 Anifeiliaid Bach y Byd
(r) 8.50 Amser Maith Maith yn Ôl (r) 9.05
Olobobs (r) 9.10 Oli Wyn (r) 9.20 Octonots
(r) 9.30 Ysbyty Cyw Bach 9.45 Patrôl
Pawennau (r) 10.00 Peppa (r) 10.05
Jamborî (r) 10.15 Guto Gwningen (r) 10.30
Tili a’i Ffrindiau (r) 10.45 Gwdihw (r) 11.00
Dysgu Gyda Cyw: Peppa (r) 11.05 Heini (r)
11.20 Teulu Ni (r) 11.30 Loti Borloti (r) 11.45
Do Re Mi Dona (r) 12.00 News 12.05pm
Caru Siopa (r) 12.30 Heno (r) 1.00 04 Wal
Gwestai’r Byd (r) 1.30 Adre (r) 2.00 News
2.05 Prynhawn Da 3.00 News 3.05
Gwesty Aduniad (r) 4.00 Awr Fawr: Peppa
(r) 4.05 Caru Canu a Stori (r) 4.15 Guto
Gwningen (r) 4.30 Sion y Chef (r) 4.45
Gwdihw (r) 5.00 Stwnsh: Rhyfeddodau
Chwilengoch a Cath Ddu 5.20 Angelo
am Byth (r) 5.30 Ditectifs Hanes (r) 5.55
Ffeil 6.00 Gareth! (r) 6.30 Rownd a
Rownd (r) 6.57 News S4C 7.00 Heno 7.30
News 8.00 Pobol y Cwm 8.25 Y Byd yn ei
Le 8.55 News 9.00 Noson Lawen (r)
10.30-11.35 Prosiect Pum Mil (r)
(r) repeat (SL) In-vision signing● BBC1 Wales As BBC1 except:
7.30pm-8.00 Save Our Eco Village.
A Pembrokeshire eco-community that
found itself under threat (r) 9.00-10.00
Slammed. The future is looking bright for
the Welsh rugby team. Last in the series
● BBC2 Wales As BBC2 except:
9.00-10.00pm Four Lives. A fourth
body is found but securing a guilty
conviction is far from certain
● BBC1 N Ireland As BBC1 except: 7.00pm
Hope Street. An arson investigation
uncovers a much more insidious crime
7.45-8.00 Barra’s Wild Days Out. Barra
goes in search of the rare golden hare
10.35 The Band 11.05 How Police Missed
the Grindr Killer (r) 11.55 Michael
McIntyre’s The Wheel (r) 12.55am
Question of Sport (r) 1.25-6.00 BBC News
● BBC2 N Ireland As BBC2 except:
7.00pm The One Show 7.30-8.00
The Bidding Room. A wannabe dealer,
aged just 11, tries to sell his scooter
● BBC1 Scotland As BBC1 except:
2.30pm Politics Scotland. Updates and
reports 3.15-3.45 The Repair Shop (r)
● STV As ITV except: 10.35-10.50pm STV
News 4.10-5.05am Unwind with STV
● BBC Scotland 7.00pm Scotland from
the Sky (r) 8.00 The Story of Scotdisc (r)
9.00 The Nine 10.00-Midnight Guilt (r)The Escapist (15, 2008)
Film4, 9pm
A career criminal who is content to keep his head down and serve
his time receives shocking news about the daughter he left as a
six-year-old when he was sent down. Suddenly Frank (Brian Cox,
Succession’s Logan Roy) feels that he urgently needs to reconnect
with his family. However, the only way out of jail is to break out,
and the only way to do that is to work alongside some pretty
unsavoury characters. The debut film from Rupert Wyatt (who
went on to direct Rise of the Planet of the Apes) is a satisfying
nail-biter with a tricksy, time-jumping, twist-heavy plot, a
refreshingly spare approach to dialogue and a fine all-male
ensemble cast that also includes Dominic Cooper, Damian Lewis,
Joseph Fiennes and Seu Jorge. (102min) Wendy IdeFilms of the day
The World’s End (15, 2013)
ITV, 10.50pm
Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and the director Edgar Wright reunite for
the third instalment in the Cornetto Trilogy. Pegg plays Gary King,
a self-mythologising manchild who is emotionally arrested at the
high point of his life — an epic pub crawl around his home town.
The trouble is, that was more than 20 years ago and Gary is now
a man of 40, clinging to the trappings of the youth he’s trying to
recapture, pint by pint. He still has enough sway to persuade his
four former friends (played by Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin
Freeman and Eddie Marsan) to recreate the crawl, but the town
has changed... The residents of Newton Haven now have
detachable limbs and laser eyes, as things get increasingly daft.
(109min) Wendy IdeBritain’s Most
Expensive Houses
Channel 4, 9pmThe Bishops Avenue in north
London is known as
Billionaire’s Row, and with the
property market buoyant Lee,
a broker at UK Sotheby’s
Realty, is keen to capitalise
by selling Huxley House. It
has eight bedrooms, nine
bathrooms and “extensive spa
and entertainment suites” —
yours for £17.5 million. However,
the client is demanding and
should Lee fail to shift it
quickly, he could lose it to
another agency. Elsewhere,
broker Polina is seeking a
property for a crocodile shoe-
making fashionista; one that
comes with a cigar terrace. JCRegional programmes
Wednesday 5 | Viewing guide
Critic’s choice
Mandy
BBC2, 10pm/10.15pm
Diane Morgan’s titular wonky-
mouthed grotesque returns
for a second series of her
absurdist urban adventures.
“At this time of debate about
the future of the BBC, a
second series of Mandy could
not be more timely,” Morgan
has said. “If anything proves
the worth of the corporation,
it’s a show about a woman
who wants to breed
doberman pinschers. It’s not
something you’d get on
Amazon Prime or BFI Player.”
Hear, hear! As well as starring
as Mandy Carter, right,
Morgan writes and directs
the series, and has assembled
an excellent cast to support
her. Michael Spicer (The Room
Next Door) is a recurring guest
star, with Michelle Greenidge
(Code 404) reprising her role
as Lola, Mandy’s friend and
confidante, and Tom Basden
(Plebs) returning as her
exasperated benefits adviser.
As we rejoin Mandy, she has
just quit her job at the frozen
fish factory because “one of
the other women who worked
there looked like Rose West”.
Leaving jobs for weird reasons
is Mandy’s raison d’être, but
she is given another chance,
this time providing guided
tours at a stately home in the
guise of an 18th-century
scullery maid. Things soon
take a dark turn for Mandy in
a sequence of events that
demonstrates perfectly how
Morgan marries the mundane
with surreal flights of fancy. In
the second episode, Mandy is
working for the cleaning
company Scrubbers, a role
that brings her into contact
with Deborah Meaden
(Dragons’ Den). Meaden is
recording an episode of the
genealogy series Who Are
You, Do You Think?, and in
a classic case of mistaken
identity, believes that Mandy
is her distant cousin.
Joe ClayCatch
up
David Baddiel: Social Media,
Anger and Us
BBC iPlayer
As well as envy and
bilious resentment, the
state-sponsored agitation,
performative fury,
narcissistic virtue-
signalling, antisemitism
and other poisons
that spew out
from phone and
computer
screens every
second is the
unsettling
subject of this
marvellous
documentaryfrom David Baddiel, below. He’s
honest enough to
acknowledge the benefits of
social media as a marketing
tool with an instant audience
(he is a comic performer after
all), but should we all just pack
it in? Online discourse
eliminates discussion and
forgiveness, and
simplifies complex
human identity, with
unfeeling algorithms
exploiting how people
(as Baddiel puts it)
sometimes hate
themselves. The
film’s gloomy air
lifts when he goes
cold turkey
on social media
for a fortnight
and feels
instantly better.
Ben DowellThe Repair Shop
BBC1, 8pm
Jay Blades and the talented
team return to Court Barn in
West Sussex to restore another
selection of irreplaceable
family heirlooms. Among the
items in need of TLC are a pair
of electric-blue speedway
racing boots that evoke
bittersweet memories, while
a woman hopes that the
horologist Steve Fletcher can
repair a grandfather clock, a
project embarked on by three
men in her family, all of whom
died before they could finish it.
The organ restorer David
Burville has his work cut out
trying to return a 1960s electric
organ to its former glory —
each of the 88 keys requires
refurbishing and resetting. JC