As last weekend's documentaries on the death of a working men's club in Bradford and the prophecies of Enoch Powell suggested, whether you are a stand-up comedian or a politician, what matters is the way you tell 'em.

Abi Morgan's feature film White Girl, the third offering in BBC Two's White season, was a reminder that in drama, too, the telling is all. In hands less expert than Morgan's, her story of an 11-year-old white girl who converts to Islam would look like the biggest fairy story you have ever heard. Instead, Morgan's ear for naturalistic dialogue, the director Hettie MacDonald's ability to film in a style both documentary and lyrical, and an exceptionally lively cast produced a captivating 90 minutes.

In other words, the telling was so good I almost forgot what propagandist tosh White Girl actually was. I have no problem with exposing a white-trash family to scrutiny. I wouldn't want one to move in next to me. But Morgan really laid it on. Stevie, the dad, played by Daniel Mays, was a bewildered, buzz-cut bully who sent his kids off on their push bikes selling his drugs. His wife, Debbie, had all the vices: alcoholism, sloth, irresponsibility and illiteracy. Her daughter, Leah, even made a supplementary list, headed by “Never remembers to buy milk”, but including “Shags shit men”. It was truly remarkable that despite everything, Anna Maxwell Martin, in one of her best performances, managed to make Debbie attractive.

She had exported her family to a council estate in Bradford to escape Stevie. She is horrified to find that it is peopled by Asians. Initially, Leah is horrified, too, and demands that her school provides her a Roman Catholic rather than a Muslim morning assembly - “Otherwise it's racist.”

But Leah is a reader and finds a child's guide to the Koran great bedtime reading. Where all is chaos at home, her Islamic neighbours sleep in neat divan beds, get milk delivered every day and are kind. The mosque smells nice and is quiet. Soon Leah, played with such grace and intelligence by Holly Kenny, is sporting a blue hijab to match her eyes. The Koran proves to be full of such wisdom that she even learns to respect her mum, and draws up a new list with, at No 1: “Always knows what chocolate bar I like.” Inspired, Debbie makes a speech of repentance (dodgily, Martin's voice poshed up for this) and divorces her husband the Sharia way by saying “I divorce you” thrice. Thus does the Prophet bring order to Britain's failing white tribe, although, actually, this quickie divorce applies only to men divorcing their wives.

There was equally watchable nonsense opposite on ITV1. The Fixer's high concept is that the state releases selected murderers from its jails to become its secret assassins. Our hero is John Mercer, played by Andrew Buchan, a young actor who compels attention by doing very little except look pissed off. He is teamed up with an idiot wideboy named Calum and a seductress called Rose; Jody Latham and Tamzin Outhwaite play the pair rather well. The Fixer is made by Kudos (Hustle, Spooks) and is the nearest ITV has come recently to finding a hit, hip show for its troublesome 9pm drama slot.

For a more serious tutorial on how form can triumph over content, you should have seen The Prime Minister and the Press Barons (BBC Four). Here were The Sun's greatest hits, including Kinnock in a light bulb (the last person to leave Britain was to turn out the lights if he won in 1992) and the paper's ungracious response to Blair's reply to a hostile front page: “Rattled”. Andrew Neil's documentary scored the great press-government matches: Northcliffe 1 Asquith 0; Lloyd George 1 Northcliffe 0; Baldwin 1 Beaverbrook 0; Wilson 1 Cecil King 0; Kinnock 0 Murdoch 1; Major 0 Murdoch 1.

The barons lose more often than they win, and Piers Morgan predicted that as circulations fall, they'll win less and less. The Page Three beauties who lobbied Parliament in “Give Us One” T-shirts do not seem to have got us a referendum on Europe. The decline of the barons' political clout is probably a good thing, although I am always a little surprised when people describe press power as undemocratic. Do papers not face daily elections as people vote with their loose change whether to buy them?

Out of the Box

The writer Abi Morgan says that White Girl was not about Islam, but about faith. Islam just happens to be the fastest growing religion at the moment. “Leah could just as easily have been drawn to Judaism,” she tells Broadcast. An interesting thought. But what about someone making a film about a girl from an intolerant fundamentalist Muslim family converting to the joys of enlightened atheism? Somehow I can't see it being made, can you?

“The verified carbon footprint of Lewis is 830 tonnes” reads a caption at the end of the ITV detective series. The cast have apparently been sharing cars and reading scripts printed on recycled paper. It is all very laudable, but you have to wonder what the late DI Morse would have thought. The Inspector Morse Society, which knows about such things, reckons Morse's old Jag used to do 14 globally warming miles per gallon.

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