Wednesday 29 Oct 2014
It's the Eighties and an agitated Betty Stevenson is in her loft, trying on a dress that used to fit around 30 years ago, in the first episode in Kay Mellor's A Passionate Woman, starring Billie Piper and Sue Johnston.
Surrounded by mementos from her past, Betty is transported back to the Fifties, to a dance hall full of boys in blazers dancing with girls in full-skirted dresses. It was the night she met Alex Crazenovski – or Craze; a gorgeous bad boy who she later discovers lives below her in a run-down tenement block in Leeds.
Despite knowing Betty has a husband and being married himself, Craze pursues Betty and she can't help but respond to his advances. Nobody has ever made her feel the way Craze does – especially her husband, Donald. Betty's relationship with Craze awakens a part of her she didn't know existed and, as the couple take more and more risks to be together, she realises she would give up everything to have a life with him. However, she wonders whether he would leave his wife, Moira.
Weeks later, Betty is driven to desperation when Donald proudly announces he's finally saved up enough money to put a deposit on a house in a better area. When she discovers that Moira is pregnant, Betty is close to hysterical. She is furious with Craze for what she sees as the ultimate betrayal. On moving house with Donald and baby Mark, Betty soon slumps into depression, terrified of living a life she now sees as empty and passionless.
Betty then receives a letter from Craze, begging her to run away with him. She manages to escape from Donald but their planned rendezvous is thwarted by the arrival of Her Majesty The Queen on a visit to Leeds. Betty is distraught when, after arriving late, Craze doesn't show. A few days later, she discovers the shocking truth – Moira found a letter from Betty and shot her husband dead in a jealous rage.
The arrival of Betty's now grown-up son, Mark, jolts Betty back from the Fifties and he can't understand why his mother is in the loft – it's his wedding day! Betty placates her son and promises to return to the wedding party. As Mark leaves to get a step ladder to help his mother down, Betty drops the loft hatch and pushes a chest on top of it. Turning round, she sees Craze, large as life, standing in her loft: "So what happens now, beautiful?"
Fifties Betty Stephenson is played by Billie Piper; Eighties Betty by Sue Johnston; Craze by Theo James; Fifties Moira by Kelly Harrison; Eighties Moira by Barbara Marten; Fifties Donald by Joe Armstrong; Eighties Donald by Alun Armstrong; and Eighties Mark by Andrew Lee Potts.
SJP
Beijing has been and gone, the London Olympics are getting closer and the sacrifices along the way are mounting. The athletes are looking to their next challenge with many embarking on the long journey towards fulfilling their ultimate goal of securing a place on Team GB and winning gold in front of a home crowd at London 2012. Revealing just what it takes for these Olympic hopefuls to make the grade, the next instalment of Olympic Dreams, co-produced with The Open University, comes in two parts.
The athletes featured include diver Tom Daley; GB junior judo hope Ashley McKenzie; sprinter Shauna Thompson; heptathlete Jessica Ennis; rowers Andy Hodge and Pete Reed; weightlifter Zoe Smith; and synchronised swimmers Jenna Randall and Olivia Allison.
Building on the success of the first two series, Olympic Dreams offers an insight into the world of elite sport and intimate access to British athletes' lives – their gruelling training schedules, daily sacrifices, highs of victory, lows of defeat and injury, and the pressure of coping under the weight of growing expectation.
LW
This extraordinary three-part observational series explores life at the sharp end of one of the most extreme urban environments in the world: Lagos, Nigeria. Today, more than half the world's population live in cities, and this eye-opening series shows what life is really like in the toughest parts of the world's fastest-growing megacity.
With extraordinary access to some of the poorest parts of town, the series celebrates the resilience, resourcefulness and energy of Lagos's 16 million or so inhabitants, and shows how successfully many of its slum-dwellers are adapting to the extreme urban future.
The first programme was filmed in the city's rubbish dump; the second at Makoko, a floating slum where 300,000 people live on the water; and the third in the squatter camps on the beach, where residents are constantly under threat of forcible eviction.
Tonight's episode uncovers life in Olusosun rubbish dump. Here, around a thousand people live on top of the rubbish in houses built from scrap. It looks like the end of the world, but the film reveals that there is order – and honour – among this seemingly chaotic environment. There are shops, bars, restaurants, cinemas, even a mosque, and the scavengers have set up their own kind of government, with a democratically elected chairman at the head.
The film follows the daily lives of two men in particular who have become skilled at turning rubbish into gold. Eric is a musician, and every bit of scrap he finds brings him one step closer to his dream of launching his music career, but a serious fight nearly ruins his chances. Joseph is a trader who works hard to provide for his wife and two small children, and who offers profound insights into the value of a loving family life, while up to his ears in garbage.
KA
Paul Weller, Hot Chip and Marina & The Diamonds are among the first acts in this new live series of Later ... With Jools Holland.
Once again, the show is broadcast live on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two, along with the now-traditional hour later in the week. The live show is an opportunity to see the majority of the artists perform one or two numbers live to air, and the other show sees further songs from those acts, plus the added extra of at least one artist not featured in the live show.
The first show in this run features Paul Weller, who makes a welcome return to the Later... studio to perform tracks from his 10th solo album, Wake Up The Nation, the follow-up to his highly acclaimed 22 Dreams set, which will be debuted live on the show; South London's Hot Chip return to the studio to showcase tracks from their recently released fourth album, One Life Stand.
The hotly tipped Marina Lambrini Diamandis, aka Marina & The Diamonds, makes her Later... debut performing songs from her Family Jewels debut; Gogol Bordello are on hand to play a number or two from their new Trans Continental Hustle release; and Free, Bad Company and latterly Queen legend Paul Rodgers pops in for a chat about his incredible career. More acts are still to be confirmed.
As a taster of some of the 60-plus artists appearing on this upcoming series, Later... will feature the likes of Gorillaz, Band Of Horses, Kate Nash, Jerry Dammers' Spatial AKA Orchestra, Laura Marling, Mos Def, Vampire Weekend, MGMT, Jeff Beck, Yeasayers, Drive By Truckers and The National.
Since 1992, Later... has featured performances from some of the biggest and hottest names in music, with 2009's autumn series welcoming the likes of Jay-Z, The Decemberists, The Xx, Shakira, Dizzee Rascal, Florence & The Machine, Ellie Goulding, Stornoway, Maxwell, Andy Williams, Yoko Ono and The Dead Weather.
Later Live ... With Jools Holland is simulcast on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD channel – the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s High Definition channel, available through Freesat, Sky and Virgin Media.
IW
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