On TV

Cold Blood (ITV1)

Grand Designs (C4)

AT least Jamie Oliver's departure made someone happy. As the scourge of the turkey twizzler packed his bags and got behind the wheel of his camper van, wife Jools was sobbing that she didn't want him to leave for his culinary trip of Italy.

On the other hand, members of the paparazzi outside his home were smiling. "You've just made that cameraman 50 grand," Jamie told his missus as photographers snapped away. One woman's unhappiness is another man's exclusive picture, as they say.

Celebrity chef Oliver wanted to get re-inspired, feeling his cooking had become as stale as last week's loaf. The wisdom of undertaking the odyssey, especially in his unreliable 1956 camper van, was soon brought into question.

"At the moment I have loads of smoke coming out of the back so I've decided to go a bit faster so I can't smell it," he said.

It emerged that he'd filled the wrong thing up with oil. "I'm not a mechanic, I'm a chef," he said by way of excuse.

Matters didn't improve when he arrived at "the worst campsite in Europe" during a stopover in Sicily. As for the place itself "to say I'm in a rough area is an understatement", declared Oliver, pointing out "two women trying to beat the crap out of a young lad".

The locals resisted his attempts to cook fish in sauce. They felt the fish was fresh enough not to need anyone mucking about with it and adding things.

Brian Wicklow was not a man to mess with in the psychological thriller Cold Blood. This serial killer was behind bars but police were desperate to discover where he'd buried the body of a young girl he'd killed.

Wicklow was a genius at playing cat and mouse mind games. Matthew Kelly, on leave from light entertainment shows, made a convincingly scary serial killer. Cop Jemma Redgrave was hopelessly outclassed by him, while the plot device of having her childhood friend (John Hannah) as a convicted murderer who'd shared a cell with Wicklow was a coincidence too far.

For one awful moment in Grand Designs - and I felt awful for even thinking it - I thought that the 78-year-old widow building her dream home wasn't going to make it to the end of the programme.

A fall left her with a broken leg, although she recovered and we left Pat Becker living in her curved house on a hilltop in Devon.

Presenter Kevin McCloud didn't entirely approve of all aspects of the design but, like me, breathed a sigh of relief when Pat was safely in residence.

The house was constructed of polystyrene blocks slotted together and filled with concrete. "Super Lego" as McCloud said.

Ill-fitting windows cost her an extra £50,000 and the build lasted 15 instead of the projected six months, but she refused to criticise anyone. "I'm not in the blame game, I have a house that's worth it," said Pat charitably.

Triple Bill, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Sunderland Empire

ACCORDING to some, this is commercial fare aimed at ticket sales rather than cutting edge dance. After ten years in charge, artistic director David Bintley is being criticised for wasting his talent on a largely unappreciative audience outside London.

As the man responsible for putting BRB on the map and building the audience which thronged to Wearside on the opening night, one suspects it's not Bintley who is dancing in the wrong direction. Yes, these three pieces are old familiars. Kenneth MacMillan's Solitaire (1956), Ninette de Valois's Checkmate (1937) and John Cranko's The Lady and the Fool (1954) celebrate the best of British ballet. There's every opportunity for a history check and an eye-opener for ballet virgins.

Viktoria Walton dances intriguingly as The Girl in Solitaire, featuring Malcolm Arnold's music, which has gone on to become the theme for TV's What The Papers Say. Checkmate's air of impending doom and red and black dancing chess pieces still resonates with desire and destruction. James Grundy's athletic First Red Knight earns applause and it should be noted that Bintley himself returned to the stage at Birmingham to play the Red King, who is hounded to death by opponents. Jonathan Payn takes the role here.

The audience goes home happy with the delightful The Lady and the Fool, which draws laughter thanks to the antics of the clowns Moondog (Iain Mackay) and Bootface (Kosuke Yamamoto). The muscular Mackay puts his skimpy costume at some risk as he wins the heart of society beauty La Capricciosa (Elisha Willis) and outrages society. An uplifting, if somewhat long, night.

l Bintley's Hobson's Choice runs until Saturday. Box Office: 0870 602 1130

Viv Hardwick

STEPTOE RIDES AGAIN

See Saturday's Northern Echo