... BY HARRY VENNING For reasons far too complicated to go into, One Foot in the Grave (BBC1, Monday. October 16, 9pm) featured a scene in wtiich victor Meldrew entered a cubicle in the gents toilet only to find himself descending into an underground brothel populated by scantily-dressed and topless prostitutes. It was the latest in a very long line of inspired moments the show has produced ...

... Real-life lottery that stretched our belief BY TARA CONLAND If Noel Coward had been alive today, chances are he would be singing: Don't put your daughter in a docu-soap Mrs Worth ington. For some, fly-on-the-walls lead to success and their own series, but most emerge in a less favourable light than that cast in McDonald's loos. So I did not hold out much hope when I saw producer Andre ...

... Lead us into this temptation BY HARRY VENNING The Sins (BBC1, Tuesday, October 24, 9.10pm) stars Pete Postlethwaite as Len Green, a former getaway driver and underworld 'face' who, on release from prison, resolves to go straight. But although: The path of the just is as the shining ngnt, that shmeth more ana more unto the perfect day (Proverbs 4:18), it can be an arduous one, beset by ...

... RATINGS WATCH By BEN DOWELL FOR WEEK ENDING SEPTEMBER 17 Big Brother. My God doth not the sound make the blood curdle? A staging post for Internet television, say the black polo- necks from Channel 4, jubilant about their own bravery as well as the Big Brother effect. What the latter means, of course, is that Daily Telegraph readers who have a sticking plaster over the number four ...

... This cod lacked conviction BY HARRY VENNING Everyone needs a role model when growing up, and mine was Raymond Chandler's fictional detective Philip Marlowe. Although living with my parents in suburban Rayners Lane and attending a boys grammar school provided little opportunity for rescuing dames, trading punches with hoodlums and wisecracking in the face of piano wire tension, I nevertheless ...

... Scottish saga short of any real surprises By Tara Conlan According to a survey published this week, the words: According to a survey published this week' are more than 90 per cent likely to be used to begin the average lazy newspaper journalist's column. I do not usually like to scrape the proverbial barrel and rely on surveys to kick off my pink (purple is so last season) prose. But this ...

... Fond memories of a twinkling-eyed Paula I think one of the finest tributes I've yet heard about Paula Yates came not after her death but in a one-to- one chat with comedy writer Dominic English last June. English, if you remem ber The Stage profile at the time, revealed that when he was working on Channel 4's The Big Breakfast he was employed to make sure that Yates read her briefs for the ...

... Good clubbing tonight BY HARRY VENNING Drugs, swearing, sex in toilets, under-age gay sex, violence and loud music with a repetitive beat. Tinsel Town (BBC2, Monday, August 7, 11.20pm) has the lot, satisfying all the requirements needed to join that burgeoning genre, The Club Scene Drama. What it.. does not have is a decent timeslot. Late on a Monday night is about as far from primetime as you ...

... BY BEN DOWELL FOR WEEK ENDING AUGEST 6 'Tis the season to drink bolly for hard-pressed TV executives in the dead month of August. It's summer holiday time, recuperation in St Tropez or, it you are Nick blliott, not much rest in his Dorset idyll frantically reading scripts for the new early evening soap opera. And that's before the booze swigging at Edinburgh. No, ratings do not figure much. ...

... Trailers spoil tale of virtue BY HARRY VENNING You really are quite unnecessarily pretty, snipes a female colleague of primary school teacher Jenny Bunn, heroine of Take a Girl Like You (BBC1, Sunday, November 26, 9.05pm). But then Jenny (Sienna Guillory) seems to provoke a strong response ever she goes, particularly among men. No sooner has she arrived in London off the Up North Express, ...

... Punchy portrayal of security's brawl game By HARRY VENNING There are few sights more thrilling than a punch-up watched from a safe distance, and it is surely the expectation of some serious fisticuffs that makes Muscle (BBC1, Saturday, February 5, 10pm) so alluring. Bristokiased Security Leisure supplies bouncers to pubs and clubs in the wild south west, and the programme follows the nocturnal ...

... Manning's hero status is a joke BY JOHN BYRNE It is always a momentous occasion when an enigmatic, cantankerous but fascinating TV character shuffles off this mortal coil. Well, okay Bernard Manning is still with us, but there is something about the Heroes of Comedy series of which he was the latest subject (C4, Saturday, November 11, 10.35pm) which suggests the kind of career retrospective ...