Weekend TV: Saturday night fare without a doubt

IN the sitcom Extras, Ricky Gervais’s character, Andy Millman, has his comedy script accepted by the BBC. Any writer struggling for their big break would be overjoyed, but Millman keeps his cool in the initial meeting with the Beeb and is at pains to stress the comedy should be shown on BBC2. Instead of grabbing at anything, he insists it should not be shown in BBC1. After all, a comedy on BBC1 prime time can’t be particularly clever or subversive can it? So what of comedy shows that are not only on BBC1 but, whisper it, on BBC1 on a Saturday night?

Specifically, what of a comedy that has been brought in to replace The Voice in the schedule? Can it be any good? This is not an hour of stand-up, which would have been a brave and welcome move. Instead, it’s more of a variety show, hosted by McIntyre, and his guests include Michael Ball, Geri Halliwell and Tinie Tempah. There will be sketches, singing, acrobatics, and pranks on the audience. It’s Saturday night TV without a doubt.

TOM JONES’S 1950S: THE DECADE THAT MADE ME, BBC2, 9pm

SIR Tom says if you remember the 1960s then you weren’t there, but if you remember the 1950s then, who cares? There probably wasn’t much to remember anyway, it being the era of austerity and post-war recovery. Rationing was still around and everything seemed grey and repressed. That is, says Tom Jones, until rock and roll came along…

Being from Wales, hardly the thriving centre of the universe, rock and roll told young people in small towns and depressed areas that the place they inhabited didn’t matter.

A kid in Pontypridd could listen to the same records as those living it up on Carnaby Street and could use the new music, and the bold attitudes it created, to forge his own identity.

Sir Tom explains the 1960s were “the reward” but it was in the 1950s that the revolution began. He takes us back to south Wales in this heart-warming show to relive the decade and explain how it created Tom Jones the star.

TOMORROW

THE FEARLESS CHEF, C4, 7pm

KIRAN Jethwa is not just a chef: he is a “food adventurer and global gastronaut”. Born in Kenya, he has devoted the past few years of his career to opening restaurants in Eastern Africa. That’s to be applauded, surely, as any chef who wants to make their name will head to London or Paris.

But in this new series he tells us: “I want to get out of the kitchen.” He’s in rebellion against processed and packaged food so “is going to travel the world to follow the ingredients back to the source – whatever it takes.” This doesn’t mean paying a visit to an organic farm in gentle Dorset.

Instead, he’ll be tackling mountainsides and vicious rivers and so this “fearless chef” becomes a cross between Bear Grylls and David Attenborough in his quest to show us where food comes from, and who are the hardy souls who make a living by catching, gathering and fishing it.

In tonight’s episode, the first of eight, he begins in Bolivia, travelling the precarious “Road of Death” to harvest the innocent little coca leaf which can be transformed into cocaine – but it has some nice culinary uses too.

HIDDEN BRITAIN BY DRONE, C4, 8pm

WE worry that machines are making us redundant. Robots build cars in our factories and take payment for our groceries – while helpfully insisting we have unexpected items in the bagging area. Now the cheeky machines are working their way into film and TV, dislodging the camera operator and taking over the filming themselves.

This series is largely composed of aerial footage taken by a drone rather than by a skilled technician in a helicopter. We can assume this reduces the cost of making the series so perhaps without drone technology it wouldn’t have been commissioned at all. And a human camera operator was clearly filming the segments presented by Tony Robinson, so the machines haven’t taken over yet.

Drones are sent across areas of Britain which are hidden from the public and while there’s nothing as mysterious as Area 51 here, it’s still an interesting show. Tonight a drone flies across, and inside, Rosyth dockyard where aircraft carriers are built.