HOME FROM HOME, BBC2, 10pm
JOHNNY Vegas stars as grumpy dad Neil in this sitcom pilot about family life and class warfare.
Neil and his wife have struggled to afford a battered old holiday home in the Lake District, but are nonetheless delighted with it, even if their cranky kids won’t settle down for the motorway journey. They’re told to behave or they won’t get their “onion rings at Tebay!” But there is no bliss to be found on this trip. Hoping for hot tubs and wi-fi, the kids are disappointed to find the house looks more like Father Ted’s caravan, and Neil can’t settle into country life, refusing to eat fresh eggs if they’ve come “from a chicken’s backside”; he prefers them in a box from the supermarket.
His grumbles increase when his handsome, wealthy new neighbours make him feel rather oafish. This posh couple met in a luxurious resort, whereas he met his wife at North Staffs General where he ran the WH Smith concession.
Emilia Fox plays the snooty wife next door and smokes and sneers with icy brilliance, and Vegas is his funny, burly self, but there are no huge laughs here.
NEW YORK: AMERICA’S BUSIEST CITY, BBC2, 9pm
WITH New York being the most famous city on Earth, you might wonder what this new series has to offer. Doesn’t everyone know what New York means, feels and contains? You don’t need to visit to get an impression of it: just watch a film and it’s there, soaked into popular culture.
But this new series goes behind the scenes to show us the nuts and bolts of New York, and how the city keeps ticking along despite the weight of people and expectation.
This first episode is about transport, and the camera crew venture into Grand Central Station and the subway in the morning rush hour, managing to get in the way of some annoyed New Yorkers. Other options include gliding into work, free and easy, on the Staten Island Ferry or being gripped with insanity and deciding to cycle through the frantic streets.
There are also constant digs at how shoddy and expensive public transport is in Britain when compared with the sleek and gleaming Manhattan networks.
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