Is this the dodgiest accent since Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins?

Most schools have a nightmare pupil who every teacher dreads seeing in their classroom. At Ackley Bridge (C4) that pupil was Jordon Wilson. He disrupted lessons, he mocked teachers and he racially abused his classmates.

However, when he seized control of the school intercom system to announce that Ackley Bridge was: ‘A town with a foodbank that’s full of smack heads and pram faces,’ he had a point.

Ackley Bridge is a bold new drama set in a Yorkshire mill town inhabited by a largely divided Asian and white community. When two comprehensives (one formerly attended by the white pupils, the other by Asian ones) merge, Ackley Bridge school is created.

Headteacher Mandy Carter (Jo Joyner) had a bold vision of an integrated place of learning where differences were tolerated and education thrived. she’d be lucky.

In last night’s opening episode, the show was stolen by two of the extraordinarily talented younger female stars.

Missy Booth (Poppy Lee Friar) was a sink estate kid. Bright, mouthy and in danger of slipping through the cracks, her mum was a drug addict and so the job of caring for the younger sibling fell to Missy. smart and popular with the boys, she spent too much time swigging cheap cider and not enough doing her homework.

Nasreen Paracha (Amy-Leigh Hickman) was her neighbour and best friend — until their two schools merged. Influenced by a disapproving gang of hijab-wearing girls, Nasreen felt pressured into disowning Missy and her troubled family.

And it wasn’t just the kids who were dysfunctional. there was a PE teacher who thumped pupils, an English teacher with topless photos all over social media and a school sponsor who’d bedded half the women in the town.

Never more topical, Ackley Bridge got off to an entertaining and fastpaced start that promised much in the weeks ahead. the only downside was sunetra sarker’s attempt at a Pakistani accent. I haven’t heard anything as dodgy since Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

Wild weather, rather than people, was the problem in Horizon: Antarctica Ice Station Rescue (BBC2). It was down to British research in the Antarctic that a hole in the ozone layer was discovered in 1985.

thanks to the discovery, important environmental changes were made and the hole hasn’t grown. Halley VI is the current research centre, built in 2012, that sits on the Brunt Ice shelf.

A series of brightly coloured, inter-connecting pods, it looked more like something you’d find at Legoland.

But it was perilously close to a huge crevasse. there was real risk of Halley VI being cast adrift on a giant iceberg. Moving the £25 million structure 23 kilometres was the only solution, and it had to be done during the summer when the weather is a balmy minus 10c, as opposed to the brutal minus 50c of winter.

Film- maker Natalie Hewit spent three months document- ing the painstakingly slow move of the station and meeting the brave, slightly crazy researchers and admin staff who lived there.

there is a canteen, a doctor’s surgery and a gym. But if anyone gets ill, the nearest hospital is a two-day journey away.

No wonder chef olivier went into raptures when a food delivery brought the first fresh vegetables he’d seen in four months.

Meeting Halley’s inhabitants was interesting, but the breathtaking landscape was the star of the show — even if the programme didn’t quite live up to the drama of its title.