Brat Camp (C4); CSI; Crime Scene Investigation (five)

SEVEN desperate families, one drastic solution" is how the return of Brat Camp was billed. It soon became clear why these parents wanted to find a cure for their out-of-control teenage sons and daughters - they're evil little so-and-sos who make The Omen's devilish Damien look like Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Seeing these rude, unruly, surly, obnoxious, deeply unpleasant teenagers behaving badly acts as a much more effective form of contraception than a packet of Durex. Look at this wild bunch and you'll think twice about having kids.

The new recruits include a binge drinker, mother basher, a girl who's been expelled from three schools, a boy who steals from his mother and another who goes into drug-fuelled rages. Sixteen-year-old Ed has been living in a hostel since his mother threw him out of the house for the sake of the rest of the family. Jenny, 15, arrived home and announced in front of her mother's friends: "Now I know what it's like to have sex in a public phone box".

And don't excuse them on the grounds of "it's part of growing up". These are hardcore brats who deserve all they're going to get at Turnabout Ranch.

This brat camp in the wilds of Utah is run by cowboys who believe hard work is the best therapy. The brats can expect lots of chores, tough rules and harsh punishment. Goody, goody, it's going to be fun watching them suffer in a US state where smoking under 18 is banned and alcohol is virtually illegal. Even exposing your midriff is frowned upon.

I'm not sure if any of them will ever leave the first stage, which involves staying in a small stone circle in total silence for three days. It's a chance to reflect on why they're there, although they use the time to think up ways to break the rules and escape.

The twist this series is that halfway through, the parents have to join their children. At least one has managed to retain a sense of humour. She recalled her mother looking into her baby son's cot soon after he was born and proclaiming: "That's one's going to be an archbishop or an arch criminal".

The bad behaviour continued as CSI returned to solve four murders in a brisk, bloody 43 minutes, as well as touching on the personal problems - alcoholism and infidelity among them - of the investigators.

When one of the Las Vegas detective team said: "It's going to be a busy night", they weren't kidding, with a stripper lying dead on a blood-soaked bed, a man electrocuted in the bath, a skeleton in an alien costume in a shallow grave near a military base, and a man shot dead on the dancefloor of a crowded club.

This all proceeded at a hectic pace that left no time to reflect on the inadequacies of the characterisation or holes in the plot. Best just to sit back and enjoy the wedding chapel wars, the new DNA girl who can't cope, the scratched pink Cadillac and the gun with traces of toilet bowl cleaner on the handle.

Journey's End, Darlington Civic Theatre

YOU really are asking a lot of today's audiences to expect them to sit through a two-hour, one-set wartime dugout drama lit by candlelight and the short fuses of men facing certain death. A sniper to shoot any coughers, fidgeters and sweet bag rattlers, and particularly those with mobile phones on, might be the answer.

Fortunately, the majority grasped the seriousness of a company of British soldiers about to be overwhelmed by superior numbers - and then asked to conduct a suicide mission. Tom Wisdom gives us the mind-snapping performance that playwright R C Sherriff could only create in 1928, ten years after the Great War ended. Wisdom's whisky-sodden, sleep-deprived Captain Stanhope is the only survivor from three years of trench warfare and mentally crippled to the point of madness. He's no longer able to grieve for lost friends. Philip Franks adds the gentle Lieutenant Osborne, an ageing schoolteacher affectionately dubbed Uncle. The arrival of young 2nd Lieutenant Raleigh (Richard Glaves) - the brother of the girl waiting at home for Stanhope - finally exposes the commanding officer's mental agony. Sherriff perfectly surrounds the three main players with stoics like 2nd Lieutenant Trotter (the excellent Roger Walker), shot-dodgers like 2nd Lieutenant Hibbert (Stephen Hudson) and "all for the best" colonels (Simon Shackleton).

There is a remarkable conclusion, where cast and audience pay tribute to our folk who die in foreign fields for questionable causes.

* Runs until Saturday. Box Office: (01325) 486555

Viv Hardwick

Published: ??/??/2004