The Hour | Timeshift: All the Fun of the Fair | Geordie Finishing School for Girls | True Stories: The Redemption Of General Butt Naked | An Abuse Of Trust | Imagine: Being a Concert Pianist
The Hour
9pm, BBC2
Despite the pedigree of all involved in this production, the cast in particular, The Hour has yet to warm up. At times, it has felt like not much more than a vehicle for the actors to get to smoke copiously onscreen. It helps to accept that it's not the British Mad Men, but a tale of high-level intrigue perhaps not a million miles from The Shadow Line. Tonight, with the Suez crisis lumbering about woodenly in the background, we are mostly at a country house, with the underfed Ben Whishaw teased by Romola Garai, and outdone in the alpha male stakes by Julian Rhind-Tutt and Dominic West. David Stubbs
Timeshift: All The Fun Of The Fair
9pm, BBC4
There's something undeniably magical about fairgrounds. This Timeshift documentary does much to explain their dangerous and even deviant allure, tracing the history of fairs from the sideshow era to the rock'n'roll years. Fascinating nuggets abound: freak show stars including the Elephant Man were celebrities rather than "cringing victims", fairground folk were once blamed for spreading disease, and world champion flyweight Jimmy Wilde largely learned his trade in boxing booths. Jonathan Wright
Geordie Finishing School For Girls
9pm, BBC3
The Beeb's attempts to diversify its output don't just extend to sticking some 5 Live presenters on a train marked 'The North'. No sir. There's also cross-community project Geordie Finishing School For Girls, which inducts some frightfully well-spoken southern types into the scary world of The Toon. After last week's lessons in Tyneside lingo, the girls are sent off to earn a living in Walker, once a great hub for shipbuilding but now considered one of Newcastle's most impoverished areas. Gwilym Mumford
True Stories: The Redemption Of General Butt Naked
10pm, More4
For the popular African evangelist Joshua Milton Blahyi, his past life seems like "a dream". That may well be the easiest way for him to come to terms with his 1990s life as General Butt Naked, the leader of the Naked Commandos, one of the countless murderous militias of Liberia's harrowing civil war. Blahyi's evangelical mission, fairly obviously, is rooted in the idea that people can change. This excellent film lightly illustrates that for bad or good, Blayhi's charisma and egomania are pretty much the same. "Once a general," as a local voice wisely says here, "always a general." John Robinson
An Abuse Of Trust
10.35pm, BBC1
In 1982, Roger Cook exposed the crimes of paedophile headteacher Derek Slade for the Radio 4 programme Checkpoint. Slade was eventually jailed last year, but the incidents Cook uncovered at St George's weren't the last of his findings. In this new investigation, he traces Slade's crimes from the UK to India and Africa, asking just how he managed to con two UK charities into funding a fake school and, most harrowing of all, steal the identity of a dead boy to hide his past. Sian Rowe
Imagine: Being a Concert Pianist
11.05pm, BBC1
A few weeks ago, 19-year-old pianist Benjamin Grosvenor became the youngest ever soloist to perform at the First Night of the Proms. If this broadcast has a bit of a told-you-so feel, it is forgivable. Originally shown in 2005, it meets Grosvenor as a 12-year-old prodigy. Also interviewed about playing classical piano are Evgeny Kissin, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Lang Lang; Alan Yentob presents a new introduction. Andrew Mueller
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/aug/01/tv-highlights-020811-the-hour
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