It is not often you find yourself laughing at someone in admiration. Hestor Blumenthal is a nutter — anyone who aerates chocolate with a vacuum cleaner, sprays melted chocolate with a paint gun and fashions cherry stalks out of vanilla pods is millimetres away from the asylum. But it is also why his restaurant, The Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire, has been voted the best in the world. In tonight’s programme — which is fascinating, hilarious, admirable and completely barking — he visits Baden Baden to eat what ought to be a definitive Black Forest gateau. But then he returns to his lab to improve on it. “How far,” he wonders, “can I push this dessert without going outside the Black Forest bubble?” The answer, it transpires, is a long, long way.
HORIZON
BBC Two, 9pm
In a 90-minute programme, Horizon imagines what would happen if a strain of the H5N1 virus mutated just enough to make bird flu extremely contagious to humans. The result, apparently, would be a pandemic that kills one in ten people worldwide. The global economy would go into meltdown; hospitals would be overwhelmed; businesses would be destroyed by mass absenteeism; all public gatherings would be banned and — essentially — society would collapse into chaos. Efforts to contain outbreaks and swamp the local population with antiviral drugs would prove insufficient, and it would take at least six months before a vaccine became available. The big problem is that Horizon has always been a harbinger of doom. Whatever happened to the virulent seaweed that it predicted would clog up the world’s oceans five years ago?
IMAGINE
BBC One, 10.35pm
In the 1970s, there was Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman and Steven Spielberg. Thirty years on, a new generation of US directors is making original and quirky films within the Hollywood system — people such as Wes Anderson, Alexander Payne, David Russell and Sofia Coppola. Alan Yentob travels to America to meet them, and talks to Robert Redford, founder of the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, who helped to foster their talent. What does the success of a film like Sideways say about the Hollywood star system? “Movie stars have a value,” says Kimberly Peirce, director of Boys Don’t Cry, “but don’t stop us casting somebody who’s right. Write a good script, cast it well, tell a story — and people will come. The more everybody is reminded of that, the better for all of us.”
THE DEATH SQUADS
Channel 4, 11.05pm
The third and final film in this short season of exemplary documentaries about the bloody shambles of Iraq looks at the death squads who operate freely throughout the country. Up to 100 bodies a night are dumped on the streets of Baghdad — many of whom have been tortured horribly. Shia death squads, whose avowed aim is to turn Iraq into a Shia state aligned to Iran, are responsible for the majority of the killings. The film shows how they are linked to high-ranking politicians and to the Shia militia who have infiltrated police units and government ministries. Because of this, they are able to carry out their killings with impunity.
MULTICHANNEL CHOICE
by Gabrielle Starkey
IN THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL: THE MYSTERY OF HENRY DARGER
Artsworld, 11am
Henry Darger was a reclusive Chicago janitor with an amazing secret — a 19,000-page novel about a fantasy land, lavishly illustrated with intricate watercolours, which was found in his rubbish-strewn flat after his death in 1973. Here is his story.
STEVE McQUEEN
Biography, 7pm
When Steve McQueen was only six months old his father, a barnstorming pilot, flew off and never came back. His mother then dumped him with a relative while she continued to party. Understandably perhaps, he was a difficult child, but fate later intervened and he became an impassive icon of Hollywood. His first wife and children tell his early, inside story while famous colleagues offer colourful anecdotes about working with the King of Cool.
LIVE CARLING CUP FOOTBALL
Sky Sports 1 (and HD), 7.30pm
Manchester United only just beat League One Crewe with a goal in the last two minutes of extra time to sneak into tonight’s fourth round, and they have been dogged with injuries since, but it will be a shocker if they can’t beat Southend United.
DOM JOLY’S HAPPY HOUR
Sky One, 9pm
Having tired of shouting into over-sized mobile phones for a living, Dom Joly drags himself out of self-imposed retirement in the country to investigate attitudes towards alcohol around the world — well, that’s the premise of the series. But the problem of sending a comedian to cover the issue of drink is that it is not always a laughing matter.
Joly and his best mate Pete Wilkins swan off to America to start their quest, sipping cocktails in Miami and spending a wild night judging the quality of home-brewed, illegal moonshine with some stereotypical hillbillies in Georgia. So far, so funny. But they run out of jokes when they reach the dry counties of Mississippi and snigger at a couple of earnest Christians who believe hooch is the Devil’s work. And when they reach hurricane-wrecked New Orleans two weeks late for Mardi Gras, even Joly’s silly costumes can’t bring a smile to the bemused townspeople. It’s like drinking on an empty stomach: likely to leave you queasy.
BEAU BRUMMELL: THIS CHARMING MAN/ STORYVILLE: FASHION VICTIM
BBC Four, 9.30pm/10.20pm
A male-focused double bill in the Haute Couture Season. First is another chance to see James Purefoy as the famous 18th-century dandy (in a classy drama first shown in June); then a documentary investigation into Gianni Versace’s murder.
THE UNIT
Bravo, 10pm
David Mamet’s patriotic drama about the men of a special forces unit and their wives back at base continues. Tonight, there is speculation that the Russians are planning to sell nuclear weapons materials to the Iranians, so Dennis Haysbert and his squad try to sneak into the embassy to plant a bug. Meanwhile, Tom tries to finish his affair with Tiffy, but it may already be too late.
