A mystery painting, lost millions and a thrilling TV masterpiece

Art dealer Philip Mould suddenly looked more ancient than an Old Master. Deep lines appeared under his eyes. His voice cracked with exhaustion.

‘I’m so thrilled,’ he croaked, reeling from the news that the painting he had sold for £35,000 was worth at least one hundred times more. the poor man seemed thrilled to the point of a breakdown.

the experts of Fake Or Fortune (BBC1) had just declared that a painting he discovered at an obscure auction in the Nineties was actually a forgotten gem by the great regency landscape artist John Constable.

Not just any forgotten gem, in fact, but an early version of his masterpiece, the Hay Wain.

We expect an emotional conclusion to every episode of Fake Or Fortune whenever presenter Fiona Bruce and her fraud squad decree whether or not an artwork is genuine. the history is always intriguing, the science is invariably surprising, and the verdict inevitably packs an emotional punch — however blasé the paintings’ owners pretend to be.

But this edition far outstripped anything Fiona’s team had encountered before. It was the perfect combination of an English treasure and a very personal story for one of whisky magnates, right back to the Constable family.

the scruffiness and stencils that stood out at the start were revealed to be the work of another hand, ‘tidying up’ the canvas after Constable’s death.

All the clues snapped together in a pattern as beautiful as the painting — now valued at more than £2million. Poor old Philip. What a shattering way to discover you were right all along.

But if you imagined it was easier to make a great show about astronauts than art history, you were quite wrong.

Astronauts: Do You Have What It Takes? (BBC2), the first of a sixpart series following 12 eager candidates through rigorous training for the chance to board the International Space Station was a baggy mess of a format.

For a start, watching 12 people tackle the same challenge, even if it is learning to hover a helicopter, is just repetitive.

Other tests were plain dull. No one wants to see a dozen assorted scientists and medics jogging up and down a gym hall till they collapse with exhaustion. there’s a good reason why ‘running back and forth’ has never been an Olympic sport.

Worst of all, though, the winner doesn’t get to be an astronaut. there’s no rocket ship at the end of it — this is all pretend. Now that’s what I call a fake.