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The Real Exorcist (C4)

AN old school friend declared that Margaret McDonald "wasn't what you'd call that sort of girl". Clearly she misjudged her classmate who, when jailed in France in 2002 for pimping, had nearly 600 escorts on her books.

What she did - hooking up those who want to buy sex with those who want to sell it - is illegal in France but not many of the other 25 countries in which she did business.

How a middle class Catholic girl from Windsor became an internationally successful madam was intriguing but as she was telling the story, perhaps we should take some of it with a pinch of salt.

There was no denying she was a good businesswoman. Clients paid £650 an hour, £1,300 for the night and £2,000 for the weekend. McDonald collected 40 per cent of the fee.

Cameras followed her on her release from prison, after serving half of a four-year sentence. Her escort work began innocently enough when answering an ad in the Herald Tribune for a PA. She realised that most of the men wanted more than PA-ing, so she advertised herself as an escort.

Her first client impressed her - he cleaned his teeth, flossed even - put on his pyjamas and waited beneath the sheets for her. What's the difference with that, she argued, and going out for the evening and being picked up by a man with whom you sleep. She was only turning the tables on men by viewing them in the same sexual way that they viewed women.

This was all beginning to sound perfectly reasonable, but surely there was a dark side to her work. Apparently not. "Anyone who portrays call girls, or girls who have sex for money, as these poor innocent victims - no way. It's such fun," she said.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, her family don't want to know her. Having delayed ringing her mother after her release from prison, McDonald was put out to discover she'd changed her phone number.

From sex to Satan - what a night on C4. The Real Exorcist investigated the case behind William Peter Blatty's book and screenplay for The Exorcist. The movie had a head-turning, spewing, swearing young girl but in real life it was young Richard whose possession was the inspiration.

It happened back in 1949 after his aunt Millie passed away. The family heard mysterious night-time thumps, tapping and dripping sounds. Marks appeared on Richard's body. He began shaking.

A psychiatrist could find no mental problems so a priest was called in to perform an exorcism. The programme had the benefit of talking to the only surviving witness, Father Walter Halloran, to the long, drawn-out exorcism.

A modern-day neuropsychiatrist pointed out that what looked like the work of the devil could have had a medical explanation - an epilepsy-like condition that caused seizures. This theory was dismissed rapidly for fear of spoiling a good story.

Fanny Cradock - The Life And Loves Of A Kitchen Devil, The Studio, York Theatre Royal

LONG before Jamie Oliver and all those other TV celebrity chefs, there was Fanny Cradock.

Julia Darling's play reveals her driving ambition and a private life that any soap writer would die for. Sandra Hunt stars in this one-woman show, presenting an approximation rather than an impersonation of Fanny, who always looked dressed for a cocktail party, not spending time over a hot stove. She had a desire to succeed no matter what the cost to her personal life - that was secondary to basking in the fame of being the first celebrity TV chef.

The play disposes of three husbands and two children within the first ten minutes. Fanny virtually gave away her two sons, just as her mother had farmed out the youngster to her grandmother. She found her soul mate in Major Johnny Cradock, who left his wife and four children for her. She wrote books and magazine articles under an assortment of names before finding fame as a TV cook. Such was her success that this rather frightening woman filled London's Royal Albert Hall with a cookery demonstration.

Despite being billed as Fanny and Johnny Cradock, they never got around to marrying for years, possibly because she was still bigamously wed to a previous husband. Both Johnny and her sons were treated as kitchen helpers rather than family. Fanny was not a very nice woman and Hunt, to her credit, doesn't try to find any redeeming features. It's a fascinating story, all the same.

l Runs until tomorrow. Tickets (01904) 623568.

Steve Pratt