Channel Hop
When the preview-tape distributor accidently sent a television programme about dinosaurs instead of the Rolling Stones, it raised the question: is there any difference? Certainly, the Rolling Stones are getting on a bit, but they can still pull a crowd.
In February, the Stones gave a free performance on Copacabana Beach, in Rio de Janeiro. It was billed as one of the biggest concerts in pop history, with two million people expected to attend. Inside: Rolling Stones in Rio (National Geographic, Monday at 9pm) follows the final preparations in the week before the concert. To get this extravaganza off the ground, it took nine months of planning, 300 tonnes of equipment, 500 security guards, 264 crew members, a 25-metre-high stage built from scratch, 14 full-time carpenters, a guitar-stringer and a make-up artist ('My job is to make them look as much of a mess as possible, which I'm very good at').
It was a feat of perfect planning right down to drummer Charlie Watts' neatly folded socks. The concert went without a hitch - a broken spotlight, a few minor injuries and a woman who went into labour were the only hiccups - and The New York Times reported a crowd of 1.5 million. It seems churlish to mention this actually wasn't the biggest concert in history. That accolade goes to Rod Stewart, who attracted a crowd of 3.5 million when he played on Copacabana in 1994.
This is such an enjoyable show you'll wish you had been there, which is more than can be said for the dank London of Declan Croghan's (Waking The Dead, The Ghost Squad) gritty police drama Murder Prevention (BBC Entertainment, Mondays at 9pm). It's described as 'fast-paced' and, indeed, the camerawork is so frenetic at the beginning it may cause viewers to feel dizzy. Persevere, though. It calms down and the plot will draw you in.
The characterisation is hardly innovative; there's the jaded detective chief inspector, Patrick Goddard (Conor Mullen), the stiff, well-spoken new recruit, DC Mark Rosen (Tom Brooke), and the obligatory good-looking woman, DC Karen Hughes (Sarah Smart), who, of course, Rosen will fall for. The setting is novel, though. It takes place in the Murder Prevention Unit (inspired by a real-life homicide prevention unit within London's Metropolitan Police Service), the purpose of which is to solve crimes before they happen.
'I want to know if the suspect's an imminent killer and, if he is, then we mount a pre-murder investigation into him. Surveillance, find his victim, get one step ahead of him, bring him into a window of opportunity and arrest him for the crime he's about to commit,' says Sergeant Ray Lloyd (Mark Lewis Jones). And they will do almost anything it takes - breaking and entering, spying - to produce enough compelling evidence to convict their suspects. Their methods are questionable but, says Goddard, 'this is the future of policing'. It also makes great television.
A gentler option is Chinese Whispers: The Real Cinderella, a quirky two-part series exploring how
the past can be distorted or lost over time. In the first programme (Discovery, Monday at 9pm), the narrator, actress Zhang Jingchu (Seven Swords), looks at the possibility Cinderella was Chinese. (The second in the series, screening the following night at the same time, investigates the origins of football; above.)
There are more than 500 versions of the familiar fairytale featuring an orphan, a wicked stepmother, some ugly stepsisters, a discarded shoe and a handsome prince and it's told as far afield as Italy, France, Ireland, India, Cambodia and the mainland. The Chinese version involves Ye Xian, an orphan with a wicked stepmother, an ugly stepsister ... well, you know the rest. Zhang discovers the tale was originally written by Tang-dynasty scholar Duan Chengshi in about AD800. It is likely the story spread west along the Silk Road, undergoing cultural adaptations en route. (Ye has a beloved pet fish rather than a fairy godmother, for example, and instead of a glass slipper, hers is made of embroidered gold.) The first known adaptation of the tale in the west was recorded in Italy, relatively recently, in 1634.
Zhang's search takes her all over China, from Shanghai to Youyang, in Chongqing, to Nanning, in Guangxi province. In a wonderful scene towards the end of the programme, after Zhang has travelled many miles in her dogged quest for clues, she triumphantly narrows her search for Ye
to Zhuang, a village in southern China. She seeks out its oldest resident to ask if there are any records of Ye having lived there.
'I have been here for 86 years,' he says. 'Ever since I was born.'
'Then you must know everyone in the village ... and the old stories of the village,' says Zhang.
'Yes, I know. Big and small things, I know them all ...'
'Has there ever been a girl named Ye Xian in this village?' Zhang asks, closing in on the truth.
He pauses, looks into the air and thinks hard. The tension is palpable.
Then he says ... well, I won't spoil the surprise.
This is part history, part travelogue. It meanders in places but it is delightful and lilting - rather like a bedtime story.
