Pick of the day
The ice women cometh ...
Dirty Sexy Things
Tonight, London Live, 8pm
A trip to Iceland and its otherworldly spires, a land stirred by lava where Björk emerged from a phoenix egg laid by a space Viking, is one many would accept without reservation and would leave them violently happy. But models aren’t us, and Ariella adheres to our preconceptions of skin mannequins’ human behaviour by throwing a strop over the request made by photographer Perou.
When Ariella discovers she’ll be asked to lower her clobber faster than the credit rating of the country’s banks on a black-sand beach, she rails against the shoot and its faux-fur accoutrements. With that attitude, frustrating Perou and delaying the session on the eerie shores of Vik, Ariella had better check herself before she Reykjaviks herself.
Less concerned with strutting around in smalls are Charlotte, BB and Jesse, even though local folklore speaks of trolls lurking. Good on them for not caring about keyboard warriors’ opinions of their body.
London Live Debates
Tuesday, London Live, 10am
On Thursday, a protest will take place in Brixton over claims that the area is being over-gentrified through rapid redevelopment projects. Those involved argue that businesses and residents are being forced out to make way for the rich.
Ahead of the demo, London Live debates will ask — is London changing too fast? Host Anthony Baxter is joined by experts who have researched the social and economic impact on the regeneration of east London, campaigners who say the capital is losing itself to corporate firms and property developers, and those who say they’re fighting to save areas such as Soho and Brixton.
Ealing Studios: The Blue Lamp
Tomorrow, London Live, 2pm
This 1950 movie is seminal in British cinema history in its own right but it also led to the TV spin-off Dixon of Dock Green, which ran for 21 years from 1955 with Jack Warner (opening catchphrase “Evening all”) in the same role he plays in this film.
There was a five-year gap between this and Dock Green, a space in which ripples caused by The Blue Lamp’s most infamous sequence — in which Dirk Bogarde as violent robber Tom Riley shoots the almost retired, honest copper PC Dixon — never diminished and forged a new picture of post-war British society. Even if there is a very Ealing conclusion, it’s far from its trademark cheeriness.