Dishing up old favourites
THE lockdown’s given many of us a chance to slow down and reflect a little, and TV has followed suit with a bunch of retrospectives. Unable to make new shows, programme-makers have raided the archives and got hosts to talk us through the best bits – think Stacey Dooley on EastEnders, Jason Manford’s Corrie nostalgia trip and Joanna Lumley revisiting her travel highlights.
They do more than just plug a hole in the schedule – revisiting our favourite scenes and hearing what that main players have to say about them is pure pleasure. So, in the absence of plates of actual food to scoff, John Torode and Gregg Wallace have been chewing over previous series on CELEBRITY MASTERCHEF: A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS (BBC1, 8pm).
Their reminiscences about the past 15 years of the show, recalling who sizzled and who wilted has been a delightful trip down memory lane.Tonight, the hosts look back at the 2013 semi-final challenge set at Cambridge’s Gonville & Caius College in which the likes of Janet Street-Porter, Les Dennis and eventual winner Adrian Edmondson cooked a meal for 150 posh guests.
Of all the ordinary citizens who’ve risen to the occasion during the pandemic, centenarian Captain Sir Thomas Moore stands out as one of the most extraordinary.
Capturing our hearts as he embarked on a garden minimarathon ahead of his 100th birthday in April to raise money for the NHS,Tom’s exemplary selflessness made us all feel warm inside. THE LIFE & TIMES OF CAPTAIN SIRTOM (ITV, 9.15pm) is tonight’s well-deserved tribute to Tom, one of the remaining heroes of the SecondWorldWar.
Tom, who was knighted by the Queen last month, talks us through his teenage years, his career and nursing wife Pamela through her final illness.
Since making her mark as the dim-witted interviewer Philomena Cunk on Charlie Brooker’s TV Wipe, Diane Morgan’s star has shot up. She went on to make an impression in the comedies Motherhood and After Life and has now landed her own six-part series. Morgan writes, directs and stars in MANDY (BBC2, 9.30pm),
15-minute comedies shown in double bills.
Looking disconcertingly like Patsy from Ab Fab, Mandy pursues a dream in each episode, and tonight her ambitions are earning fast cash in the gig economy and winning a line dancing contest.
She ends up in scrape after scrape and isn’t shy of manipulating her best mate, Lola (Michelle Greenidge), into bailing her out. It’s a measure of Morgan’s fame that she’s landed Maxine Peake to guest star in the series.
Like the very best comic actors, Morgan’s just got funny bones.