INSIDE NO 9, BBC2, 10pm
I’M so glad this series is back. I am in childish awe of its two writers and main actors, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton.
They gave us the first episode over Christmas as a festive special. Now the series starts properly, so clear your calendars for the next five Tuesdays.
Tonight’s episode is full of famous faces, with Jason Watkins and Philip Glenister joining the cast.
A group of friends, all hefty middle-aged businessmen and professionals, meet for dinner. The waitress is closing the restaurant but the men are still at the table and starting to get rowdy.
Chaos erupts but not in the way we expect, and it all starts with macho boasting and wallet-waving about who’s going to pay the bill.
FURTHER BACK IN TIME FOR DINNER, BBC2, 8pm
TONIGHT we’re in the 1940s to see how the Robshaws will cope with rationing.
The war brought severe restrictions on food, and housewives were urged to bulk up thin meals with things like semolina, but when poor Rochelle serves up her first wartime meal, a mushy, gooey mess, she apologises to her hungry family that “it’s just lumps of semolina with meat”.
“That’s a novelty,” says her husband cheerfully.
Later she tries to make a fried egg using powdered stuff, and the end result is a yellow, rubbery thing. At least the son is happy, having been “evacuated”
to a farm where he’s surrounded by fresh food.
Back home his family is eating nettles on toast, all boiled into mush to remove the sting. The government encouraged foraging, for the hungry population to eat from “nature’s larder”, and provided recipes for such things as roast starlings.
Little wonder that the Robshaws cave in when a black market “spiv” comes calling with steak and chocolate.
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