91Èȱ¬ Two Winter/Spring 2008
Programmes E-L
Empty
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Jacky (Gregor Fisher) and Tony (Billy Boyd) are two ordinary guys who work for a property maintenance company, clearing out empty or fire-damaged flats and making simple repairs.
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Despite being very different, these two have simply "hit it off". For both men, work is an escape. When they are together in an empty flat, they can go into their own little world – a place of wild flights of fancy and comic imaginings sparked by items they find or problems they encounter in each new location.
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Both poignant and funny, Empty sees Jacky and Tony explore comic possibilities in the most mundane situations before the real world intrudes with its uncanny knack of bringing them comically back down to Earth.
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RD2
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Extreme Pilgrim
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This compelling new series explores the physical elements of three of the world's great religions. Pete Owen Jones, a vicar in a Sussex parish, is dissatisfied with some aspects of his faith and sets off on extreme pilgrimages to China, India and Egypt to explore Zen Buddhism, Hinduism and ascetic Christianity.
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Pete started his career as a copy-writer in advertising. After a crisis of meaning, he found God and gave it all up to be ordained into the Anglican Church. But now, 15 years later, he feels that the Church of England is too much a faith of the head and not enough a faith of the soul, the heart or even the body. Consequently, he embarks on a quest in search of a more physical and mystical path to enlightenment.
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In a bid to get to the heart of each faith, Pete pushes himself to the limit of physical, mental and spiritual endurance. He undergoes hardship and exhaustion, bewilderment and anxiety, yet throughout he undertakes his journeys with determination, courage and wit.
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JP2
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House Of Saddam
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This gripping drama series tells the story of Iraq under Saddam Hussein's leadership, from 1979 until his downfall and subsequent execution in 2006.
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House Of Saddam focuses on the lives of Saddam's closest family and an elite few. An intimate portrait of the world of Saddam's inner circle, it charts the rise and fall of one of the world's most terrifying regimes.
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The drama takes place against a backdrop of war and the tragedies of the Iraqi people, and explores the story of Iraq's changing relationship with the West.
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It examines the dictator's passion to create a political and economic force equal to the great, past, Mesopotamian cultures, and shows how Saddam's dream turned to dust and became a nightmare for the Iraqi people.
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Lab Rats
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Lab Rats is a new comedy set in a university laboratory, starring Chris Addison (The Thick Of It).
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Somewhere in the tangle of rooms and corridors that is the St Dunstan's College science building, the occupants of the Arnolfini Research Laboratory work and, for the most part, live. The Arnolfini is used by the university for flashy-looking projects, random research ideas and as a revenue-raising lab for hire.
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The style and subjects of each episode are big, daft and cartoony and by no means restricted to the world of science. One week might find the characters accidentally
engendering giant, corridor-filling snails; the next negotiating a lab bursting with a snowstorm.
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The regular cast also includes Selina Cadell (Bremner, Bird And Fortune), Geoff McGivern (Hyperdrive), Jo Enright (Phoenix Nights), Helen Moon (Shameless) and Dan Tetsell (Extras).
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Lab Rats is written by Chris Addison and Carl Cooper, the Sony Gold Award-winning writers of 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4's The Ape That Got Lucky. The executive producer is Armando Iannucci.
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JD/PA
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Louis Theroux – The Hunters
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In South Africa, Louis Theroux explores the extraordinary world of the hunting industry. It's big business, bringing in around £1.7billion to the country's economy every year. Serving mainly American clients, the industry employs 70,000 people as professional hunters, trackers, skinners and lodge workers.
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It is also an expensive hobby: every animal hunted in the country has a price on its head.
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It costs around $250 to hunt down a porcupine and up to $80,000 for a rhino. However, Louis discovers the hunting world is not as it first appears...
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KA
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Louis Theroux – San Quentin Prison
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Louis travels to America for an eye-opening visit to the San Quentin State Prison in California.
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Built in 1852, it is chronically overcrowded and its 5,000 inmates live in a world far removed from normal society. The prison population is segregated into gangs that demand strict adherence to a violent code.
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But Louis discovers that there is camaraderie between guards and inmates and unusual relationships can flourish behind the prison's antiquated bars, including that of Deborah and Rob, a transgender couple, who live like husband and wife.
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KA
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