Tribal Wives
BBC2, 9pm
Wife Swap USA
Channel 4, 11.05pm
As Tribal Wives attested, 800 lovely people live in palm-roofed huts on one of the tiny coral San Blas Islands just off Panama's coast. Members of the Kuna tribe, they live their lives in easeful acceptance of nature. "That is how it is," goes the refrain to a Kuna prayer chant.
Last of the Dambusters: revealed Five, 8pm
PROCLAIMING itself "a journey into the past to confront the full truth", Last of the Dambusters: Revealed trudged 86-year-old great-grandfather George "Johnny" Johnson around various fields in the Somme and the Ruhr valley. For various reasons - not the least being respect for the physical wellbeing of a man not in the first flush of youth - this was a not-altogether-edifying TV spectacle, although it was certainly a grimly compelling one.
Terrestrial
Location, Location, Location
Channel 4, 8pm
Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer help find a house in north-west London for Tony and Michelle on a paltry budget of £900,000, also
aiding first-time buyers Amy and Takbir to find a shoebox for £250,000.
The Father, The Son and The Housekeeper: Storyville
BBC4, 9pm
Dickens's Secret Lover
Channel 4, 9pm
IN 1991, student film-maker Alison
Millar began a year recording the everyday life of Ireland's favourite and most media-friendly priest, Father Michael Cleary, in the Dublin home run by his housekeeper, Phyllis Hamilton. It also housed her teenage son, Ross.
On the plus side, Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley was a light-hearted drama which truly worked the magic of theatrical storytelling by eliciting sympathy for its cold, ruthless, fiercely ambitious and utterly
self-absorbed subject.
Summer Heights High
BBC3, 10.30pm
Reaper
Channel 4, 11.05pm
A big hit in its native Australia, Summer Heights High is a cross between The Office and Bo' Selecta, with additional elements which will have you playing that great new parlour game: Hey, Which Recent Cutting-Edge Comedy Did That Bit Come From?
Strewth, he’s stopped being bonzer! In the latest edition of Ray Mears Goes Walkabout, Ray avoided doing what he usually does with such bullish verve, to wit, he failed to set alight the entire
Australian outback in the traditional
lo-tech bush-life manner he promotes.
Whither Taggart? Or withered Taggart? Reader Jim Brooks, of Aberdeen, a keen fan of the venerable Glaswegian detective show, has helpfully e-mailed an action plan to ensure it stays on track.
River city
BBC1, 8pm
With shame, I confess to having failed to keep up with recent developments in the native soap which currently attracts more viewers north of the border than EastEnders. It is plainly my loss that I have hitherto been unaware that River City boasts TV's most wondrously named character: Sharon McLaren
(she hails fae Arran!)
Sharon McLaren was largely absent from last night's River City double-dose. Perhaps she was in Spain with Wayne McLean, or at a do in Achiltibuie with Louis McCue and his brother, Hughie? But I digress.
Terrestrial
The Great British Body
ITV1, 9pm
Over three successive nights, Skinny and Tranny - whoops, that's Trinny and Susannah - will be descending on Gateshead, Brighton and Birmingham trying to persuade the locals to get their kit off. In Gateshead, they meet elastic granny Marjorie Bradbury, who, aged 90, can still do the splits and teaches aerobics. She treats T&S and the waiting crowd to an impressive routine of gymnastic moves but says she won't get naked because she has to think about her grandchildren. In Birmingham, Adrian Rollinson displays his brute strength by lifting Trinny and Susannah in each arm at once - sadly not going on to crush them both to death.
As more joyful nonsense unfolded in My Name Is Earl, the slacker surrealist duo of Randy and Earl took their
latter-day Abbott and Costello cross-talk act back out into the wider world of Camden County, temporarily
forsaking the confines of A J Johnson Prison (official motto: “Safer than you think, but still not that safe”).
River cottage spring
Channel 4, 9pm
Filth: the mary
whitehouse story
BBC2, 9pm
IN River Cottage Spring, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall made the job of reconnecting with the land seem appetising fun. Seasonality? Yum, yum: just boil a free-range egg for four minutes and steam some fresh-picked British-grown asparagus above it for the same length of time. Anoint the green spears with cider vinegar and dip them into your egg's sunny yoke: tasty asparagus soldiers!
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