LAUNCH OF STV2, from 5pm
THE viewing figures for STV Glasgow provoked some laughs last week when it was revealed more people tuned in to watch the channel’s test card than to see its repeats of Taggart.
STV Glasgow is a daft channel, but the wider STV2 seems to hold promise, particularly with their cheeky announcement, made while the BBC was still agonising over a Scottish Six, that they’d be doing it themselves.
So, on weeknights at 7pm we’ll have STV News Tonight, bringing us Scottish, UK and international news from a Scottish perspective.
We’ll also have a weekly current affairs show, Scottish Politics This Week, plus Fair City, Ireland’s most popular soap, foreign and UK drama and the ubiquitous Taggart. Any channel can crank out soaps and drama, so the new station will surely sink or swim based on its current affairs output. With a General Election, Brexit and possible indyref on the horizon, they’ll have no excuse for failure.
THE RAILWAY PEOPLE, BBC2, 10pm
RAYMOND Meade, Ocean Colour Scene’s Glaswegian singer, visited Auschwitz and was so deeply affected he decided to write poetry and music about his experience for an album to be called The Railway People.
His visit left him stricken with horror, and when he saw the infamous railway tracks lying silent in the sun he felt as though he was trapped in time. He asked a survivor of the camp, Eva Mozes Kor, to record the album’s spoken word section for him.
Armed with his lyrics, Meade goes back to Auschwitz to meet Eva, who is sprightly and humorous and it’s mind-boggling to think she and her twin sister were once experimented upon by the appalling “Angel of Death” Dr Josef Mengele. “She told me she’d never been in a pop song so I hope she likes it,” says Raymond.
The film ends with a recital of the songs, with Eva’s haunting voice weaving through the music.
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