HOWARDS END,
BBC1, 9pm

I READ this novel years ago, back when I thought you couldn’t be educated without having ticked off a tumbling list of Penguin Classics. Watching this adaptation, I couldn’t remember a thing about it, so either I was indeed too young and daft to appreciate it or it wasn’t up to much.

It’s the dapper Edwardian era and the feisty Helen is staying with the fascinating Wilcox family at their country house, flirting, shouting, and falling in love, while her sensible older sister, Margaret, back at home in London, fears “that the real word has been marching past us”.

Their interfering aunt (Tracey Ullman) sets off for the country to act as a civilised chaperone to her impetuous young niece, and brilliantly awkward chaos ensues.

I had feared a stifling, dull period drama, based on my vague memories of the book, but this was actually quite peppery and enjoyable, even if it does get a bit repetitive seeing posh, rich English people take tea and flounce.

SHANKLY: NATURE’S FIRE,
BBC2, 9pm

A CROWD of Liverpool fans put their scarves on and climb on to the coach, but they’re not heading to a game. Instead they’re off to Glenbuck in Ayrshire, as Bill Shankly’s niece shows us where “Uncle Wullie” was born.

This documentary tells the story of Shankly’s life, going from poverty as an Ayrshire miner to international fame as Liverpool manager. Miners were once no better than serfs in Scotland but Burns Clubs and football clubs boosted a drive for self-improvement and soon they bettered their conditions. It was in this fearless spirit that Bill Shankly was raised, sent down the pits at 15, but still believing “a man’s a man for a’ that”.

This film features interviews with Hugh McIlvanney, Billy Kay and Irvine Welsh, the latter saying football must have felt like “an existential release” for miners who were enclosed in claustrophobic darkness all day, then finally experienced liberation in the playing of football where they were running in a green, fresh, open field.