BEST OF THE REST
INSIDE NO 9 BBC2 10pm
TIME for a new run of this criticallyacclaimed, clever, creepily funny and bonkersly-bizarre comedy horror anthology series from two thirds of the League Of Gentlemen, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton.
This first episode is actually not at all spooky or sinister but instead is more of an old school theatrical farce, with a hint of Shakespeare, thanks to being set in Iambic pentameter (that’s school talk for rhyming couplets).
We are in the 9th floor corridor of London’s luxury Hotel Zanzibar, where the guests checking in include a snooty prince and his homicidal head of security, a man who is the prince’s doppelganger and his fed-up fiancée, a suicidal Scot whose twin sons were given up for adoption at birth, a camp Northerner and his forgetful mother, and a prostitute.
A Comedy of Errors featuring swapped room numbers, wandering guests, drugged wine and apple pies leads to them all coming together. The cracking cast includes Rory Kinnear, Hattie Morahan, Bill Paterson, Kevin Eldon and Tanya Franks.
CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER LIVE LAUNCH Channel 5, 9pm
NEARLY 17 years since the first ever series, CBB is back for another run. But this 21st outing will be a first, as the launch show will be female housemates only, to mark the auspicious fact that 2018 is one hundred years since women won the right to vote.
Seems like a strange way to mark the centenary of women’s suffrage, by locking a load of them up together in a house in Elstree, but there you go. They’ll probably explain it by saying they want to study gender imbalance and tackle all those famous stereotypes, like: are women really the fairer/weaker/bitchier sex?
Journalist and author Rachel Johnson, sister of Boris, has confirmed she is entering the house, while other rumoured housemates include transgender newsreader India Willoughby, Made In Chelsea star Louise Thompson, pro-Brexit former Tory MP Charlotte Leslie, X Factor star Honey G and bigot-for-hire Katie Hopkins.
Quite the eclectic bunch. After an initial women-only run, men will slowly be introduced to the house. And ruin/ improve things.