TENSE, nervous headache? Then you need Fiona Phillips standing in her luxury, clutter-free kitchen in London telling you the bleedin’ obvious about how eating better and exercising more will cure those feelings that your head is about to explode as you stand before a bank of unstaffed supermarket checkouts thinking my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me to this Waitrose-free wasteland … Deep breath, deep breath.
Actually, that is unfair to The Truth About Stress (BBC1, Thursday, 9pm). The likeable Phillips, formerly the Sundance Kid to Eamonn Holmes’ Butch Cassidy on GMTV Today, was only in her absolutely fabulous kitchen for a moment as she told us that she, too, was a victim of what the World Health Organisation has called “the health epidemic of the 21st century”. Thereafter she got out and about, talking to professor this and doctor that, about what causes stress and what we can do to tackle it.
She also enlisted volunteers to take part in experiments, including one that gauged what happens to the heart rate when you hold a tarantula (I don’t suppose the tarantula is too thrilled, either). Along the way, plenty of sound advice was dispensed, including the need to comfort eat blueberries and almonds rather than crisps and cakes. Obedient puppy that I am, after viewing I duly popped down to the supermarket to buy some healthy snacks AND GUESS HOW MANY CHECKOUTS WERE OPEN? GO ON, GUESS! Not as easy as it looks this stress-busting.
Still, at least I was not on a storm-tossed ship in 1619, sailing from Blighty to Virginia to marry a man I had never met. Small mercies and all that. This was the fate of the women in the rollicking Jamestown (Sky1, Friday, 9pm). Based on a true story, the drama focussed on the fates of three ladies, the posh, politically-savvy Jocelyn, Verity the red-haired Irish lass betrothed to the town drunk, and plain Jane-ish Alice, who met a charming, Poldark-like hunk at the dock and thought he was her intended, only to discover she had been bought instead by the brutish Henry (Max Beesley). Despite being from the makers of la-di-dah Downton Abbey, Jamestown delights in the grubbiness of its setting. By the end of the first episode, between brotherly feuds, heaving bosoms and naked greed, it was shaping up nicely to be Dynasty with mud and mosquito bites. Scrummy.
No-one in Jamestown could have conceived that 400 years on civilisation had progressed to the extent where grown men and women would spend six days making cakes that others would scoff in seconds. Over the course of half an hour, Extreme Cake Makers (Channel 4, Monday, 5.30pm) tried desperately to drum up excitement over a two foot tall, indigo-coloured cake complete with an edible feather boa, a giant fancy that hung upside down like a chandelier, and a Wallace and Gromit-themed concoction for charity that took 400 hours to put together. In what was a clear case of having your cake and not worrying about the bill, what we all wanted to know, how much the things cost, was not revealed. Didn’t want to risk indigestion in the viewer, maybe.
Coronation Street (ITV, Monday, 7.30/8.30pm) is proving to be watch through the fingers viewing at the moment. With the boldness and sensitivity which the show has exercised so often when dealing with difficult subjects, the soap is tackling the grooming and sexual exploitation of 16-year-old Bethany Platt. It is an astonishing performance from young actor Lucy Fallon, showing a smart young woman who appears to have everything in life, except the confidence to stand up to her abuser, the loathsome Nathan. There will be lots more tears on the cobbles before this story comes to a resolution, if it ever does.
The epically daft Murder in Successville (BBC3, iPlayer, or tonight, BBC1, 11.25pm) has been going through a patchy period in this, its third series. Thank heavens, then, for the appearance of our own Lorraine Kelly as the celebrity guest who plays a PC helping to solve a murder in the eponymous town stuffed with famous folk. Lorraine, assisting DI Sleet (cuddle monster Tom Davis) had to find out who killed Harry Hill. The smart money was on Madonna, or maybe Ant and Dec, or possibly David Walliams. About a minute in, Lorraine started giggling, which set off Sleet, which set off the audience, and we were off to the races. Despite Sleet and other characters being very cheeky with Dundee United’s number one fan, trying to lure her into saying all sorts of naughty things, she kept her dignity. And she looked great in uniform. Go on BBC, give the stressed-out Line of Duty viewer a break and cast her in the next series.
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