Drawing from memory
WHEN I heard they were doing another LIFE DRAWING LIVE! (BBC Four, 8pm), I thought, “Great. What’s taken them so long?” But then I flicked back through the old TV schedules and guess what? It turns out it hasn’t taken them very long at all.
The first one was at the start of February, just 14 weeks ago.
If you’d told me it was 14 months, I’d have probably believed you too.
Time is playing some very strange tricks on us right now, don’t you think? Happy Christmas, by the way. This second Life Drawing Live! (if they go on to make a third, do you suppose they’d consider dropping that irritating exclamation mark?) will run along similar lines to the first, with Josie d’Arby hosting, a nude person posing and a bunch of people in clothes doing the sketching, guided by three leading artists, one of whom I’ve even heard of.
As before, we’ll also be encouraged to draw along at home, even if we have partners who like to peer over our shoulder, observe our work in progress and say things like: “It that meant to be his leg?”
A key difference (and there’ll surely come a time when this no longer needs repeatedly pointing out to us) is that those taking part in the studio will be observing strict social-distancing rules.
So anyone with iffy eyesight should remember to pack their binoculars.
Elsewhere, in the final part of PAUL HOLLYWOOD EATS
JAPAN (Channel 4, 9pm), Paul bites into a strawberry.
This probably won’t be turning up in Most Memorable TV Moments Of 2020 (although right now it wouldn’t entirely surprise me) but it does have more of a wow factor than you might imagine.This strawberry, Paul declares, is “the most impressive strawberry I’ve ever eaten in my life”.
Quite an honour, you’ll agree. And yet one of which, remarkably, the strawberry finds itself stripped within minutes.
That’s because the grower then introduces Paul to his latest variety, which he’s spent years perfecting.
“Wow, that’s intense!” Paul exclaims, having so far merely sniffed one.
Such quality doesn’t come cheap, however.To purchase this single strawberry, Paul has to hand over the equivalent of £350.And, no, I haven’t left out a decimal point.
Also tonight we have the last in the current series of I’LL GET THIS (BBC2, 10pm), the show in which five celebrities (tonight it’s Sue Perkins, Mike Tindall, Johnny Vegas, John Barnes and Fleur East) pop out for a meal and play parlour games around the table.
It’ll be back, I’m sure, although next time no doubt they’ll need a table that’s 10 times the size.