Lovesick

Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Cookery Course (C4, 5pm)

Tourettes: Let Me Entertain You (BBC3, 9pm)

A DIRECTIONLESS university graduate finds himself falling for an older woman – sound vaguely familiar? Well, before you start picturing Dustin Hoffman and singing Simon and Garfunkel tunes, bear in mind that the new drama series, Leaving, is a very different proposition to The Graduate.

For a start, actress Helen McCrory certainly didn't model her character on Mrs Robinson. “The whole subject of the drama really interested me, looking at the archetype of the older woman/younger man relationship, the Mrs Robinson role, [which has now been] changed by our society, and to try to avoid the cliches,” she says.

Leaving has TV newcomer Callum Turner as Aaron Simmons, whose life has not panned out quite as he expected. At 25, he has a degree, but no job, is still living with his parents, and to top it all off his ex-girlfriend is marrying his brother.

He reacts by getting hideously drunk at the wedding, which doesn’t go unnoticed by 44-year-old hotel employee Julie (Mc- Crory), who normally enjoys working at functions, because it allows her to experience the romance that has largely gone out of her own marriage.

She’s sympathetic as she makes sure Aaron gets to his room in one piece, butwhen he’s still a maudlin mess the next morning, Julie decides to jolt him out of his self-pity with a few well chosen home truths. Her words have the desired effect, as Aaron takes steps to sort himself out – starting with a job at the hotel.

Despite their rather inauspicious first meeting, the new colleagues begin to build a bond. “I think she’s a very empathetic and kind person as is Aaron,” says Mc- Crory. “It’s quite interesting that when Julie and Aaron start to fall in love, it’s a quietness and a stillness that they have together.

It’s a fresh-found sensitivity in their lives. They are both unappreciated in their own worlds and they are both these lonely little souls in silence who finally find each other.

“It’s not like he pushes her into the lift and it’s all heaving breasts, that’s not how it happens and that’s what is so sweet about it, it grows into something else.”

But just because their relationship starts gradually, it isn’t without any risks.

Obsession, that’s what the story is about, she says. “Two people become obsessed and with that obsession, all reason is lost.

Some people when describing love call it a sickness, a disease that you can’t cure yourself of.”

THE world’s sweariest chef on telly at 5pm? Blimey – either he’s on his best behaviour, or C4’s editors have spent a lot of time in post-production pressing the “bleep” button.

But here he is, doing a Delia. She famously gave the nation culinary lessons in her series How to Cook, and now Ramsay’s going to do the same.

Despite spending his professional life working in or setting up some of the world’s top kitchens, he’s scaling things back here to teach us how to make 100 simple, accessible and modern recipes. And he’ll be doing it every weekday. Expect tips on the likes of baking, roasting and slow cooking along the way.

LAST year, BBC3 broadcast I Swear I Can Sing, a documentary about Ruth Ojadi, a 25-year-old with an amazing singing voice who was all set to study music at university until she was diagnosed as having Tourette’s syndrome.

The programme followed her attempts to get back on stage.

Ruth is also appearing in the three-part series Tourettes: Let Me Entertain You, hosted by DJ Reggie Yates. She will appear alongside five other Tourette’s sufferers who are all talented singers or musicians.

What’s perhaps most remarkable about them is that when they're playing or performing, the ticks and outbursts that are the symptoms of their condition suddenly disappear