SUMMER: EARTH’S SEASONAL SECRETS, BBC1, 8.30pm
THIS jaunty and cheerful new series shows how the changing seasons act as “the driving force of all life on Earth” and how animals adapt to cope with the changes in weather, landscape and food supplies.
Tonight is all about summer and we see it’s a time of “glorious abundance” and yet “the living isn’t always easy.”
We go to the wilds of Canada, Madagascar and the Serengeti to observe different animals relishing summer, and there is some quite spectacular footage on offer here.
We start with Canadian bees who are gathering nectar from sunflowers. It might look bright and peaceful, but it takes two million visits to flowers to produce one cupful of honey. There’s hard work under all that lazy bumbling. And your work might be ruined if a bear cub tries to rob your hive and steal the honeycombs.
Elsewhere tiny rodents build haystacks to hide their winter supplies, only to find the neighbours from hell have pinched it all. Slap an Asbo on those rodents.
CAMPING, SKY ATLANTIC, 10pm
AGONISING. Awkward. Cringeworthy. Painful. These are words which describe this sitcom. Another word would be “genius”.
The series was shown a few months ago on Sky Atlantic but is being repeated tonight. All six episodes are broadcast here in one tremendous, spectacular parade of humiliating humour, and I urge you to watch it if you missed it the first time around, or even if you’ve already seen it.
Camping is about three middle-class English couples who go on a posh camping holiday for one disastrous weekend. Marooned in the countryside together, all their hatred, resentments and concealed lusts come boiling forth.
We get horror and conflict in a sweet, chocolate-box setting. It is just brilliant.
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