Nighty Night (BBC2): THE doctor doesn't bring good news. "The lump is malignant and we need to start treatment immediately," he tells his patient.

"Why me? Why me?," wails a distraught Jill.

Her husband Terry leans over, lays his hand comfortingly on her arm and says: "Let's keep it in perspective - it's me that's got the cancer".

As you might gather from that little encounter, Nighty Night, the latest import from BBC3, is a black comedy. So dark that you need a miner's lamp to see it.

This tasteless comedy may not appeal to everyone, encompassing, as it does, characters suffering not only from cancer but MS, asthma, halitosis and bad perms.

At the centre is the gloriously dreadful Jill, created (like the series) and played by Julia Davis. She is a monster as compellingly awful as Beverley in Abigail's Party. Someone without morals, manners, tact or, for that matter, any redeeming features.

No sooner has husband Terry been installed in a hospital bed for chemotherapy than Jill is off to the dating agency, on the grounds that it's no use both of them being depressed.

Her requirements are a male between 18 and 71, no shorter than 6ft tall but not so high as to be freakish. As she puts it, "I don't want anyone who could find work in a circus".

Her blind date - and, quite frankly, the man she meets would do better if the person meeting him was blind - is Glenn (Mark Gatiss) who has a perm and an unfortunate personality, which he describes in the agency data as "Scottish".

"Four years I've been registered," he tells Jill.

"With the disabled?," she queries.

"No, the dating agency," replies Glenn.

Jill runs a beauty shop where the staff include asthma sufferer Ruth, who arrives for work breathless. Jill displays all her qualities as a caring employer by telling her: "You know my feeling about asthma - take a deep breath and get over it".

By the end of the first episode, Jill has set her sexual sights on Don (a bearded Angus Deayton), a doctor whose dancer wife is suffering from MS. I fear she may be needing more than a wheelchair once Jill decides to get her out of the way.

She has opted to speed up things by telling the vicar that Terry has died, even turning up for work in the beauty salon next day decked out in widows' weeds.

"He died in his sleep during Watercolour Challenge," she recalls.

What a way to go - and what a comic treat we have in store over the next five weeks of Nighty Night.

Diana Ross, Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle

AFTER all these years, you might think Diana Ross would be showing signs of wear and tear, but as the diva made her way through the adoring crowd to take her place on the central stage, she looked as slender and glamorous as ever. With an amazing feather head-dress perched on her head, her wild hair halfway down her back and a glittering sheath gown she was every inch a superstar, and a packed arena paid homage.

Ms Ross took the stage at 8pm and delivered two-and-a-half hours of pure dynamite, pausing only to dash into a temporary dressing tent alongside the stage to slip into yet another sparkly frock.

Her voice seems richer and more rounded than in her Motown days, although the early hits were given an airing to the delight of her audience. Nobody could sit still, especially when Ms Ross left the stage to come almost within touching distance. One lucky fan was almost weeping in ecstasy when he was allowed on-stage for a few moments to dance with the goddess. Surrounded on all sides by her ardent admirers, all she had to do was turn to face them and spread her arms as if to embrace them, and they were on their feet, waving and clapping.

The Billie Holliday set just before the end was a revelation; even ill-timed whistles and shouts couldn't spoil the beauty of it.

Diana's come a long way from the skinny, simpering girl she once was. What we saw tonight was the consummate professional, confident and in control. Brilliant.

Sue Heath

Published: ??/??/2003