WHAT’S HOT TO WATCH TODAY
NOW and again, a TV show deserves a mention for its clever title alone. And there’s one of these on Channel 5 tonight at 9pm.
It’s about restaurant chain Nando’s, and how it’s become such a hit. And it’s called – get this – NANDO’S: A PERI-PERI BIG SUCCESS.
Geddit??!! Peri-peri. Sounds like “very very”. Or at least it would if you were saying it after a botched collagen injection.
It’s the South African name for piri-piri, see – the Portuguese chilli sauce that’s a speciality at these places (South Africa being where the business began).
OK, on second thoughts maybe it’s not that clever.
But it’s an impressive story even so, particularly when you hear how close the company came to failure at the start.
Its grasp of social media has been a huge help, of course. So has Ed Sheeran writing a song about it. It’s now got 400 outlets in the UK alone (it has yet to close a restaurant here), and 1,000-plus worldwide. So, yeah, peri-peri well done them.
WELL worth another look on BBC Four tonight is WHITES V BLACKS: HOW FOOTBALL CHANGED A NATION (10pm). It recalls an extraordinary match played in May 1979, a testimonial for West Brom’s Len Cantello that saw a team made up entirely of black players taking on a team consisting exclusively of white guys.
The very idea seems gobsmacking to us now, so how on earth did it come about? Adrian Chiles, a lifelong West Brom fan, looks back at this remarkable fixture, and discovers it carried rather more significance for the black players than for their opponents.