On TV

Unreported World (C4)

I HAVE seen the future of broadcasting. There will be 60 Big Brother houses occupied at once. Call My Bluff will be played with real guns. And anyone who refuses to sing on Stars In Their Eyes will be blinded. How this would affect the ratings I don't know. What's certain is that writer Russell T Davies was having great fun in the opening episode of the final story in the resurrected Doctor Who series.

When Big Brother asked: "Will the Doctor please come to the diary room?", I thought my mind had been addled by watching too much TV, especially as the familiar BB music was playing at the time. The Time Lord's travelling companion Rose echoed that feeling as she found herself a contestant on The Weakest Link. "I must be going mad," she said, facing the robotic presenter Anne Droid (voiced by the real life Anne Robinson). Losers on the quiz in the year 200,100 are disintegrated, just as housemates voted out of Big Brother are "evicted from life".

Meanwhile, the Doctor's other helper Jack Harkness was being given a makeover by robotic Susannah and Trinny. The facial was extreme as it involved operating on his face with a chainsaw. "Where were you hiding that?" they demanded to know as a naked Jack produced a laser gun to defend himself. "You really don't want to know," he told them.

What's been great about the new Who is the way Davies and the other writers have taken the elements fans expect to see - slimy villains, incomprehensible technological talk, dodgy special effects and a sonic screwdriver - and coupled them with a crisper, cooler, more modern approach. The results have been unmissable. Rarely has a series so successfully been brought back from the dead.

And those who moaned that only a solitary Dalek was seen in a previous episode will rejoice that the cliffhanger revealed not one, not two, but half a million Daleks ready to exterminate everyone. It would have come as more of a surprise if last week's trailer hadn't given the game away. But the scene is set for a confrontation between the Doctor and his feared enemy that will leave him a changed man.

Land Of Missing Children, the first in a fresh series of Unreported World documentaries, went to India in search of child sex slaves and found plenty of evidence.

A UN report suggests that 30,000 children are trafficked into Calcutta each year. Reporter Sam Kiley followed the trail of one 14-year-old girl who'd been rescued by her security guard father. She'd been drugged, raped and sold to a brothel in Bombay. The girl told how her captors had threatened to kill her if she tried to escape. Another distraught mother ran up to Kiley in the street begging for help. She told how her daughter disappeared after being sent off on an errand. Three years later, the same thing happened to her other daughter. The girls were aged ten and 11.

The involvement of Durbar, the sex workers' union, doesn't always seem helpful. They, and elements of the police force, are adamant that there are no underage prostitutes. The union is lobbying for the legalisation of prostitution, winning the financial backing of the British government among others. Quite how this will help the slavery and rape of minors is debatable.

Tori Amos, Newcastle City Hall

HER version of Fog on the Tyne eclipsed that of Lindisfarne. The American singer-songwriter's bell-like voice charmed the Geordie song in way previous artists have not, despite stuttering some of the words halfway through. It may have been just for the audience, along with her references to drinking Newcastle Brown Ale. "I love it up here," she cooed. "And I walked across the bridge today," failing to specify which of the seven she meant. But it didn't matter and the crowd went crackers to have their home town flattered by the sensual, red-headed Ms Amos. Swirling psychedelic patterns from the screen behind her were projected around the inside of the almost capacity auditorium. Wailing like a finely tuned banshee, she belted out melancholic melodies, her songs punctuated by her characteristic sharp intakes of breath. A prolific pianist, she jumped between the grand piano and the keyboard on stage, leaving the audience unsure where she was going next. But they were certainly not disappointed and exploded into applause before the final bar of each carefully crafted track. I was a little surprised she didn't do one of her best known songs, Cornflake Girl, but, hey, that's Tori Amos for you. She's not your conventional performer.

Gavin Havery

John Shuttleworth Presents Fawn Again, Middlesbrough Theatre

JOHN Shuttleworth has been described as "aural prozac". His comedy is an acquired taste, but for those of us who love to hear the banal musings and quirky songs of a middle-aged man (accompanied on a Yamaha keyboard), this is a comic creation up there with Homer Simpson. Graham Fellows, who shot to fame with his first alter ego, Jilted John (Gordon is a Moron), has crafted Shuttleworth to perfection over the past 15 years. We now meet the wannabe entertainer in late middle-age and he believes he's in "God's waiting room". The one-man show comprising stand-up, songs, film and even a cartoon never flags. Shuttleworth introduces us to fantastic characters, including his wife Mary and his agent, "showbiz impresario" Ken Worthington. Fellows also treats us to another of his creations, Dave Tordoff, an affluent tradesman and hopeless after-dinner speaker. Less offensive than the 80s creation Loadsamoney, Tordoff portrays a crass innocence that complements Shuttleworth's genial incompetence. The show's final high saw Shuttleworth encore with the classics Pigeons in Flight and Austin Ambassador Y-reg. He's back in the region soon - it would be a shame to miss him.

* John Shuttleworth is appearing at Durham's Gala Theatre on Thursday, 0191-332 4041; Newcastle's Tyne Theatre on September 23, 0870 1451200 and York Opera House on October 2, 0870 606 3595.

Ed Waugh