Too Posh To Wash (C4); Stars Behind Bars (five)

HAVING gone round the U-bend ensuring that the homes of ordinary folk are sparkling clean, whiter-than-white, Kim and Aggie have embarked on a campaign to make toffs tip-top in the personal hygiene department.

Too Posh To Wash - or How Clean Are Your Armpits? - takes your breath away, first at the uncleanliness of people and then at their willingness to have their dirty habits exposed in front of millions of people.

Osla, a 23-year-old from Co Durham, was the first volunteer. She goes weeks without washing, takes no pride whatsoever in her appearance, and she picks her nose. Her one good point is that she doesn't flick the bogies away indiscriminately, but puts them in the pocket of her jeans (which like her bra, she probably never washes).

There were serious points to be made, rammed home by horrific photographs of rotting teeth and infected eyes. Swabs taken from "duchess of dirt" Osla and her belongings revealed millions of potentially-harmful bacteria infecting her body and clothes.

Kim and Aggie held their noses, pushed her under a decontamination shower and had her teeth fixed. I hope that the combination of their stern words and public revelations about her unappealing hygiene regime will make her change her ways.

An evening without a makeover programme is unthinkable, just as a night with a celebrity show is unlikely. Stars Behind Bars was not about performers with bad drinking habits. The bars were on cells where the rich and famous end up for being naughty.

Some just provoke a giggle. Quentin Tarantino, noted for his violent movies, was jailed for unpaid parking fines, while Jon Bon Jovi was done for illegal ice skating and Billy Joel for illegally fishing for striped bass.

Others don't surprise you at all, like Ozzie Osbourne being banned from the city for ten years for urinating behind a bush at The Alamo.

The catalogue of offences took in shoplifting, brawling, drink-driving, domestic violence and hit-and-run accidents. There was even airport rage with Diana Ross laying hands on the female security guard she claimed had frisked her too enthusiastically.

American courts like giving celebrities community service. A star is appearing near you, doing good deeds to pay for their crime.

Hooker Divine Brown recalled Hugh Grant's fall from grace in a car on Hollywood Boulevard. Surely she's had more than her 15 minutes of fame by now?

O J Simpson made the number one spot with a story that had everything - murder, police chase and the trial of the century with a great American hero in the dock.

But stars should beware. Being arrested can damage your image. Michael Jackson, who has taken so much trouble with his appearance, must have been distressed by the police mug shot of him that, according to one critic, made him "look like Joan Crawford, an old white woman with bad plastic surgery".

The Haunted Hotel, Darlington Civic Theatre

THE Haunted Hotel is one of Wilkie Collins' later works, produced decades after his best-known work, The Woman in White.

It's a play within a play, set in the Majestic Theatre with owner Sir Francis Westwick (Andrew Ramsay) inviting matinee idol Gerald Ivor (Dominic Kemp) to a reading of a spooky play he hopes will reverse his declining fortunes. It's nearly midnight, the Majestic's auditorium is empty and the atmosphere is set for a ghost story which actually happened to Westwick's family. But who is the mysterious figure that flamboyant leading lady Maria Cavenna sees in the Grand Circle?

I have to admit that I found the first half of the play rather slow, while the characters and their relationships were established and the history sketched in. But the second half grew into full-blown melodrama, with haunted bedrooms, peculiar odours with no visible source, and a plague of rats. Over-enthusiastic use of the smoke machine enveloped most of the stalls as well as the scary ghost, and prim Evelyn Collier surprised everyone by brandishing a severed head as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

It's very easy for this brand of gothic horror to descend into farce, but the talented cast kept the titters at bay. Light relief was provided by Lynette McMorrough as Lady Constance Westwick, playing a variety of 'common' roles indicated by a change of hat.

Andrew Ramsay did very well as understudy to Brian Blessed, who is suffering from a chest infection.

Until Saturday. Box Office: (01325) 486555

Sue Heath

Published: ??/??/2004