Split decision ... the fatberg or the lawyer

There was a pair of programmes on at 9pm last night that had a lot in common. On Channel 4’s Fatberg Autopsy we met the people whose job it is to separate and dissolve a huge festering mess that is threatening to ruin lives. Meanwhile, BBC1’s new drama The

Split was all about high-powered divorce lawyers, who do pretty much the same thing – only in designer suits rather than hazchem ones.

If you missed either, or both, you should definitely seek them out on catch-up. When I heard Channel 4 would be filling our screens with “huge lumps of congealed fat and human waste”, right, I was a bit worried they might have bought Big Brother back from Channel 5.

So it was a relief when it turned out instead to be a jaw-dropping look at the gruesome, and growing, mountains of lardy detritus that clog up our sewers.

As for The Split, with Abi Morgan writing the script and Nicola Walker leading the cast as divorce lawyer Hannah, I suppose we were entitled to expect top quality.

Obviously, with the central themes being the breakdown of marriages and the break-up of families you feel a bit grubby for enjoying it so much.

But then you realise it has got away with giving a divorce firm the puntastic name Defoe’s. And Mr Serious quickly leaves the room.