Shameless (Channel 4)

In Search of Mozart (Five)

Sheila wasn't pleased that lodger Karen was turning her house into a brothel by entertaining men for money. "It's just a normal family home," said Sheila, interrupting one such sex session.

It would have been easier to have believed this statement if (a): she wasn't beating Karen's client around the head with a large black dildo and (b): Sheila's husband Frank, standing at the bedroom door watching, wasn't wearing a dress and woman's wig.

This was just a normal night in the Gallagher household in the award-winning Paul Abbot-created series. The writing duties so far this third series have gone to Daniel Brocklehurst, who's maintaining the same rumbustious style.

The episode opened with Frank, a man for whom work is a four-letter word, singing What's New Pussycat? down the local pub. After that matters spiralled into a sexual frenzy of would-be lovers and disappointed bedmates.

Lip, for whom the expression "quick jump" has nothing to do with an athletics competition, wooed his new woman with flowers. Gay brother Ian found a new boyfriend and Marty's job as an odd job man brought him to the attention of a merry widow pensioner. "Everything's in working order and I've had a bath," she assured him.

But the main cause for concern was Karen. "She's my little sister," said Kev. No, he was corrected, "she's a prostitute".

One good thing came out of her activities. Sheila was turned on by the noises from the neighbouring room and the general "lick me, spank me, let me call you mummy" tone of the conversation.

"You can't deny a woman essential needs," Sheila told Frank, brandishing one of the alarming sex aids she employs on him in the bedroom. But he drew the line when he returned home to find Karen was on a double date. "She's got two of them in there, you've got a lot of catching up to do," Sheila told an alarmed Frank.

How different to life in the Mozart household, as recalled in the new three-parter In Search Of Mozart. There were chunks of his music, pretty snow-covered Austrian scenery and information about the child prodigy's early years.

His father took the boy genius to show off his composing and keyboard talent at palaces and courts in 75 towns in eight countries. All the travelling and playing took its toll. The boy complained his fingers ached from so much composing.

He was born in Salzburg, then a walled town known as "the pisspot of Europe" because it was crowded, the streets were filthy and it rained a lot. Sounds like a few British towns I could name.

Young Wolfgang was a dirty little boy too. Letters home to his mother were full of toilet humour with references to farting and other bodily functions.

"My arse is burning like fire - what can it mean?," was typical of comments in his correspondence. It's the sort of thing you expect to hear in Shameless, not from a great classical composer.