Thursday
From Morocco to Timbuktu: An Arabian Adventure BBC TWO, 9.00PM
This quirky two-part travelogue takes us through some of the most barren and unforgiving landscapes on the planet while tracing the ancient “salt road” trade routes of North Africa. Our guide is Alice Morrison, self-confessed “Arabist and explorer” who, while not your standard smooth TV presenter, wears her knowledge of the cultures, places and people she encounters with an appealing lightness. Her aim is to traverse the 1,500 miles or so south from Tangier on the northern tip of Africa to the fabled “golden city” of Timbuktu in Mali. In this opening film Morrison samples the pleasures of Tangier and Fes (where, wrinkling her nose at fermented camel’s milk, she extracts the quote of the week from a Michelin starred chef: “Everything good smells horrible at some point, even we human beings.”). GO
Born to Kill CHANNEL 4, 9.00PM
As the tense, menacing thriller about a teenage boy with a psychopathic side concludes, Jenny (Romola Garai) makes a desperate bid to get to the bottom of her son’s (Jack Rowan) increasingly dangerous behaviour. PS