CHOOSE THE RIGHT PUPPY FOR YOU, BBC2, 8pm
THE internet makes impulse purchases far too easy. It can all be done with a click and a card. Such impulse purchasing also extends to buying a pet. Why bother researching the breed, or visiting your local dog home when you can find one in two minutes?
While the internet makes buying dogs easy, human nature makes disposing of them easier still. Pets bought on a whim are often abandoned, and this new series tries to halt that terrible pattern by exploring breeds and their personalities and asking what all those vet bills and toys will cost.
We meet a family whose children are desperate for a puppy, but what kind will suit a noisy household? And there’s the air steward who’s away for three night a week but still insists he wants a German shepherd. Will any dog fit his busy lifestyle?
UPSTART CROW, BBC2, 10pm
I’D been looking forward to this new series. It’s a sitcom about Shakespeare, written by Ben Elton and starring David Mitchell and so, naturally, anyone with half a brain would be anticipating it. But perhaps I set my expectations too high as it was a disappointment.
Mitchell plays Shakespeare, trying to keep his temper as he composes ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in his messy kitchen while his family deride his work.
He asks his teenage daughter to recite Juliet’s words and she responds like every modern teenager when faced with Shakespeare’s ornate language: “I don’t say stuff like this, Dad. I’d sound like a complete turnip!”
Yet he can hardly made it sound like authentic teenspeak: “Ugh. Shut up, Romeo. You’re so weird. I hate you.”
Things perk up when Elton makes some digs at privilege and the upper classes, mocking “the English posh boy” and their membership of Oxbridge clubs like The Fisted Peasant.
It’s funny in places but not quite big enough for its boots.
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