I'M SO used to watching well-realised mockumentaries such as The Office, People Like Us and Human Remains, that it's sometimes difficult to differentiate between the spoofs and the genuine article.
Ed Friend, the ideally named Health and Safety o
fficer at the centre of Cutting Edge: the Fun Police, was a perfect case in point: with his lilting Welsh accent and predilection for straight-faced yet inadvertently amusing aphorisms such as "don't forget, an anagram of 'garden' is 'danger'" he seemed more like a Rob Brydon caricature than an actual human being.
A scene in which he showed a bunch of uninterested, scoffing factory workers how to correctly lift a heavy box could have come straight from The Office. This poor man, I thought, he's only trying to help. If only his all-consuming, painfully sincere obsession wasn't so inherently comedic.
Sixtysomething Ed saw potential dismemberment around every corner. While welcoming director Nick Hornby (not that one) to his house, he warned him to look out for the seemingly innocuous acorns on his driveway. "Each one of these can act like a little roller bearing," frowned Ed, clearly no fan of slapstick.
Even a simple visit to the supermarket was fraught with peril. "I don't profess to be an expert in crowd control or car park design," admitted Ed, before pointing out the several possible death-traps surrounding his vehicle.
His penchant for unnecessary pedantry knew no bounds. "This one is quite specific," he surmised while showing Hornby one of several Health and Safety leaflets designed for the workplace. "Chainsaws at Work. That won't be relevant to every business."
Being Ed must be exhausting. Never off duty, he even took photographs of faulty scaffolding while on holiday in Italy.
I kept waiting for some dark secret to emerge, a telling explanation of why Ed was so obsessive. His wife, Jill, told Hornby that Ed had witnessed fatalities in the line of duty, which he didn't like to talk about. Eventually it was revealed that his father, a factory engineer, had been badly burned and poisoned at work. Ed, understandably, just wanted to help people avoid similar injuries.
Although Hornby's film gently mocked its subject, it actually ended up as a persuasive and surprisingly sympathetic endorsement of a much-maligned vocation. It closed with Ed all but trembling with bejumpered fury at a typically insensitive article by Richard Littlejohn in which he likened Health and Safety officers to Nazis loading Jewish prisoners onto cattle trucks. Just ignore him, Ed. If he ever slips and breaks his neck on a conker, we know who'll have the last laugh.
Celebrity satire Star Stories, returned with a typically slapdash re-imagining of the Elton John story. Kevin Bishop portrayed Elton as a ranting, rasping overgrown child, just as Matt Lucas did ten years ago in an episode of Rock Profile. But despite the threadbare script and overall lack of originality, I did smile begrudgingly at an in-the-closet Elton performing his hit single, "I Like Ladies", and the Disney opus, "Circle of Sh*te". Hardly PG Wodehouse, but childishly amusing nonetheless.
The sequence depicting the death of Princess Diana, with her driver quaffing vodka and Prince Philip on a moped shouting "get your bloody paws off her, you bloody Arab!" was almost Spitting Image-esque in its tastelessness.
This brief, reckless moment was the only time Star Stories has ever managed to transcend mediocrity. Otherwise, it just bumbles along aimlessly like a sub-standard Viz strip full of lazy gay jibes and unfunny, redundant observations.
I'M A CELEBRITY… GET ME OUT OF HERE!
STV , 8:30pm
It's all over, again. With David van Day, right, (who, let us never forget, sued Mike Nolan of Bucks Fizz for the use of the name and lost) having turned into this year's villain, it's looking even more likely that it'll be George Takei who walks through the fireworks. But who knows? Voting patterns on reality contests are all over the place at the moment – just look at John Sergeant and the hilarious Diana Vickers's X Factor success.
HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU
BBC1, 9:30pm
This week's combination sounds particularly interesting: the guest host is Al "and a glass of white wine for the lady" Murray and Germaine Greer is one of the panellists. Watch the sparks fly.
THE IT CROWD
Channel 4, 10pm
Very silly shenanigans at Reynholm industries as Douglas (Matt Berry) is made to wear electric pants after Jen makes a sexual harassment claim.
STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION
BBC2, 1:20am
One of the finest pieces of TV SF ever made, this is the two-part finale, All Good Things, of ST:TNG. The fact that it's hidden away after midnight is a reminder of the days not so long ago when BBC2 took science fiction seriously and you could catch Buffy, Star Trek,or Farscape in regular 6:30pm slots. If you are still up, don't miss this tale of time travel, anomalies and paradoxes.
KIDNAPPED
Channel 4, 1:30pm
One of many adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel, this 1972 film stars several big names of British cinema, including Michael Caine, Trevor Howard and Donald Pleasence. Young David Balfour (Lawrence Douglas) goes to claim his inheritance in the Highlands but is drawn into the Jacobite rebellion and befriends Alan Breck (Caine), who is fleeing Culloden. It's pretty faithful to the original, and so it slightly over-romanticises the Highlands, but it's a cracking story.
BATMAN
E4, 9pm
Though this film has dated quite badly (especially Prince's cheesy music), this is still and enjoyable enough take on the Dark Knight from Tim Burton. Michael Keaton is reasonably brooding, if a little expressionless and Jack Nicholson is quite a creepy Joker. The plot is basically just a retelling of Batman's origin, comparing and contrasting it to that of The Joker, whom he must fight. The one thing it captures perfectly, though, is the brooding menace of Gotham itself.
Craig Naples
LEGENDS: NANA MOUSKOURI
BBC4, 9pm
Another of BBC4's brilliant music documentaries, with interviews and archive footage, giving a rounded picture of a hugely successful singer best known these days for having worn glasses.
