Secrets Of The Arabian Nights | House | Wishful Drinking | The Animal's Guide To Britain | A History Of Celtic Britain | Long Lost Family
Secrets Of The Arabian Nights
9pm, BBC4
Actor Richard E Grant has been a fan of the stories in 1001 Arabian Nights since he was a child. Now he's revisiting the book and discovering that it has always been a controversial text (there are some who would like to ban it today), that Scheherazade's stories originated from far and wide along ancient trade routes, and that its tales of princes, genies and robbers helped shape the west's view of the Middle East. Given its status as a children's classic, it starts with a grisly premise: Scheherazade's husband, the king, takes a different virgin for his bride each night and has her executed in the morning.
Martin Skegg
House
10pm, Sky1
The 150th episode of House is marked by the return of Thirteen (Olivia Wilde), who went awol at the start of the series, but tonight reveals her good excuse: she's been in the slammer for six months. The reason for her incarceration is one case House is particularly keen to crack. Obviously, he does. Rebecca Nicholson
Wishful Drinking
10.15pm, Sky Atlantic
"Celebrity is just obscurity biding its time ? " Carrie Fisher's one-woman HBO show, based on her recent memoir of the same name, is studded with hardened, diamond-sharp observations like this. In a presentation laced with footage of her parents, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, as well as her own appearance as Princess Leia in Star Wars, Fisher gives us a uniquely candid and comical guide through the myriad, dysfunctional history of her privileged but troubled upbringing, and the maze of "Hollywood inbreeding" that is her family tree. Nothing is taboo, not even her own less-than-slender appearance nowadays: "How come you look like Elton John?" A jaw-dropping joy. David Stubbs
The Animal's Guide To Britain
8pm, BBC2
This week Chris Packham looks at Britain's grasslands, seeing the myriad fauna that inhabit the green areas that take up approximately half of our nation. Despite a relatively low human presence, rest assured we still manage to mess it up for the animals with our farming and building. There's a good selection of critters here: starlings, bumblebees, horseshoe bats, brown hares and barn owls. Nice to see how some of them adapt to human life, too; and human death, for that matter, as the hares Packham finds in a cemetery thrive on the constantly replenished flowers left by mourners. Phelim O'Neill
A History Of Celtic Britain
9pm, BBC2
Tonight's episode of Neil Oliver's altogether watchable history series reaches the point at which it all went wrong for the Celts: the arrival of the Romans, fresh from subduing Gaul, better armed, better trained, and far better organised. From Kent to the Thames, Oliver follows the trail of what might be thought of as the first battle of Britain, as Caesar's legions overcame the resistance posed by the rebellions of Queen Boudicca. It was a tough fight ? Boudicca's militias killed thousands of Roman soldiers, at St Albans, London and Colchester ? but a lost cause.
Andrew Mueller
Long Lost Family
9pm, ITV1
Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell host this new series, which aims to reunite separated family members, a bit like Surprise Surprise, but with a more earnest soundtrack and heightened sense of both drama and misery. Covering two stories per episode, it begins tonight with twins separated at birth, and a woman searching for her father. It's very moving but, at times, so intimate that it feels intrusive.
RN
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/apr/21/television-documentary
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