On the up

FOR the first time in history, more people live in cities than the countryside. Across the globe, there are 21 cities with more than ten million people and these numbers are set to increase – busy, noisy, crowded megacities are the future.

The three-part series Andrew Marr’s Megacities aims to find out how these heaving mega-conurbations feed, protect and move their citizens.

For starters, he considers how people live in five of the world’s biggest megacities – London (one of the world’s oldest megacities), Dhaka (the world’s fastest growing megacity), Tokyo (the largest megacity on Earth), Mexico City (one of the most dangerous cities of the world), and Shanghai (arguably the financial capital of the world).

He compares the sleek skyscrapers and rapid modernisation of Shanghai to the colourful street culture and geographic sprawl of Mexico City. He spends a night living in a one-room shack in Dhaka’s toughest slum, taking his turn to fetch water, cook and clean; and he hires a “fake-friend” in the efficient and hightech but alienating city of Tokyo.

As he gets under the skin of each metropolis, he discovers how the structure of each megacity defines every aspect of its inhabitants’ daily lives. And he considers what the metropolis of the future can learn from the mega-conurbations of today.

IN 1980, David Lynch’s The Elephant Man received worldwide critical acclaim.

Although not a completely factual account of the life of Joseph Merrick, it highlighted the condition neurofibromatosis, from which he’s believed to have suffered.

He died just over 120 years ago following a brief but incredible spell in Victorian London’s limelight, when he befriended members of the aristocracy, including Princess Alexandra.

Merrick had made his home at the London Hospital in Whitechapel, where he was cared for by Frederick Treves, one of the era’s leading doctors. His final, comfortable years were in stark contrast to his early life spent in the workhouse and later as an exhibit in a travelling freak show.

Meet The Elephant Man tells how international scientists are studying his bones, while Brian Richards, who suffers from the same disorder, is following in Merrick’s footsteps, uncovering details of what the one-time elephant man was actually like.

THE latest edition of Extreme Fishing with Robson Green – At the Ends of the Earth finds the Geordie actor in search of more elusive piscine prey.

He’s off to experience the bleak midwinter in eastern Russia. Although Khabarovsk is known as the Nice of the East because it shares the same latitude as the French city, Green discovers it has very little else in common with the Mediterranean resort as ice flows down the Amur river.

Two hours north of there, in Sikachi- Alyan, live the Nanai people. They fish the Amur with the hope of catching a northern pike. Robson also flies over to the Kamchatka peninsula, a place twice the size of Britain, and picks up a few tips from master angler Sergei.

WHETHER it’s Botox, breast enlargement or liposuction, Transform – the UK’s longest-established provider of cosmetic surgery – has it covered.

Over three months of filming, documentary- makers were granted access to every trim, tighten, nip and tuck carried out across the network of Transform hospitals and clinics. The result is Bums, Boobs and Botox.

Last year, the company performed more than £40m-worth of business and staff pride themselves in having taken plastic surgery to the masses. If you think the answer to your problems is changing the way you look, then it’s more than likely that Transform’s 280 full-time employees will be happy to help.

Like any business, it has to constantly come up with new products and find different ways to bring new clients in. This documentary explores a world where staff, as well as patients, enjoy the treatments in order to become anything from glossier and perkier, to younger and thicker-haired.