Credit Crash Britain: Property — The End of the Affair?/Beat the Bank

BBC Two, 7.30pm/8pm

The bad news first. For the past ten years, property prices have risen inexorably and helped to fund a consumer spending spree. In the third programme examining the impact of the credit crunch, Max Flint investigates the property market today and asks whether we would have been better off renting all along. Now to slightly more cheerful news. In Duncan Bannatyne’s Beat the Bank, a young couple have to decide where to invest £10,000 of their money after listening to pitches from experts in wine, antiques and contemporary art. The hope is that they will get a better rate of return in three months than the interest on offer from a bank. And the answer is . . .

Apparitions

BBC One, 9pm

This new exorcism two-parter does for the Roman Catholic Church what Spooks did for MI5. Here Martin Shaw — a Jesuit priest — fights the Devil. As one does. “If you believe that Satan is a rare and exotic presence in our lives,” he tells the Cardinal, “then you are in the wrong religion.” And lest anyone has the temerity to giggle, he also points out that: “Laughter and ridicule are its first line of defence.” Mea culpa. Tonight, a girl is worried that Dad might be possessed. He growls in Albanian, bleeds from the eyes and watches football in the pub. In the circumstances, what actor could resist the chance to grab a crucifix and shout: “THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!”, or some such.

Cutting Edge: Rich Kid, Poor Kid

Channel 4, 9pm

Zac Beattie’s film is a jewel that deserves to be inundated with awards. He has filmed two teenage girls who live alongside one another in South London. One of them, 15-year-old Alice, comes from a privileged background. She goes to a private school and talks dismissively about chavs. The other is 17-year-old Natalie, who lives in a flat with a mother who suffers from depression and a brother with speech difficulties. They rely on state benefits. The girls discuss their attitudes towards money and their preconceptions of one another . . . and then they meet. What happens next may well restore your faith in humanity.

Lead Balloon

BBC Two, 10pm

I had forgotten just how wonderful this series is — albeit wonderful in a deadpan sort of a way. The director Lindsay Anderson (If . . . , O Lucky Man) said once that the key to success was in the casting, and that is certainly the case here. Tonight, Magda (Anna Crilly), the surly East European help, moves in with the family because “boiler is leaking gas”. She partitions the fridge like the Berlin Wall and poisons the son with her carthorse sausages, while Mel (Raquel Cassidy) — the wife who usually manages to keep it all together — gets splendidly drunk. I laughed out loud, which woke up my mother- in-law and startled the dog.

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