He's back, at the double

CASUALTY (BBC1) - The programme for people who abhor violence on television but dig patients having fits, bleeding to death, and those pornographic minutes while an accident just waits to happen. This week travellers Evie and Jim are devastated when their baby daughter breaks her leg. Yet, once in casualty, Evie discovers that her own condition is a great deal more serious, something she has kept a secret. Watch and weep.

PRIEST (BBC2) - Brilliant. A Catholic priest (Linus Roache) arrives to work in Liverpool. He must cope with his own homosexuality and the impotent knowledge, obtained in the confessional that a young girl is being sexually abused by her father. And it is a combination which will crack him.

Jimmy McGovern's film is a masterpiece to move you to tears; compassionate, questioning and ultimately uplifting. Mass, the following morning, for members of the faith, will take on a deeper meaning and for its practitioners, a greater respect.

TOMORROW

WITNESS: THE LIE DETECTORS (C4) - Lies in all their shades and sizes are explored by three private investigators. The doyennes of fibs include 74-year-old Zena Scott Archer who compares the death's-head hawk moth - which tricks its way into a bee hive to steal honey - with humans. A second detective explores matrimonial deception and how to exact a fitting revenge. ``There's a certain very mean pleasure that comes with telling a lie and getting away with it.'' While former MI5 operative Gary Murray explores the daily deception of Britain's secret services. I suppose, they could tell us the truth, but what if they then had to kill us?

THE CLOTHES SHOW (BBC1) - The Bride of the Year is chosen, but will she wear white? Purity isn't actually on the list of criteria to be weighed up by Caryn Franklin and her team of judges as they work out who'll get the freebie. My bet will be on the best looker or the one in the wheelchair. Elsewhere, Jeff Banks wanders around then talks excitedly about charity buys, while Ms Franklin reappears to quiz weather-girl Sian Lloyd on her collection of macs and umbrellas; as predictable as rain on the Fair fortnight.

MONDAY

Film 95 (BBC1) - What does Barry think of the new Bond movie? Bazza's face may now resemble one of his crumpled pullovers, but his critical skills remain as sharp as a Bupa surgeon's scalpel. Steady with the first incision, Barry, the patient must pull through! Will Goldeneye come up with the carats or will Barry do what Blowfeld never could? Also under the knife is Basketball Diaries starring Leonardo Di-Caprio while director Rob Reiner talks about The American President - the movie. Nobody wants to be seen with the real thing!

Cracker (STV) - Fitz starts getting anonymous love letters from a woman who thinks he is perfect. Simple enough to solve. To the blind asylum, Penhaligan, and don't spare the blue flashing lights! Yet the most popular telly programme today has never been about whodunnit, but whytheydidit. But as this is the last ever story in a popular cop show which has already killed two lead characters, the question has to be - just who is next!

PORKPIE (C4) - It could be you! It could be Porkpie Grant! In fact it was. The penniless pensioner, lollipop man and former regular at Desmond's barbershop is the lucky man with the six magical numbers. But just how can he cope with spending his new - found wealth? The death last year of Desmond's star Norman Beaton plunged fans into mourning, Ram John Holder as Porkpie might just bring them back.

TUESDAY

NAKED (C4) - The kind of film that leaves you to crawl to bed on your belly. Bleak, depressing, but shot through with a bizarre humour which can only come from the magic tricks of director Mike Leigh. Johnny (David Thewlis) is the homeless anti-hero, a monster with a heart which beats but occasionally, as he prowls the streets of London. One scene in which he meets a drugged up young Scots lad looking for his girlfriend, is simply breathtaking.

THE ART MARATHON (BBC2) - Just who the hell is all this art being created for? The Derry group seek answers to this important question as they quiz the artist Anthony Gormley who plans to erect a monumental steel angel over a hill outside Gateshead, but hasn't asked the public what they think. ``You're saying it's not a collective work in so far as people who live here haven't had a say in what it looks like - well, quite right they haven't,'' said Mr Gormley. Oh, charming!

SOLDIER, SOLDIER (STV) - The King's Own Fusiliers are being shipped out to South Africa, so after Colette wins at bingo she persuades Joe that Cape Horn would be the setting for their wedding and asks Donna to be her bridesmaid. Can she make it? What about the offer as a backing dancer on TOTP to promote the lads' best-selling single? We haven't seen so much drama since Manuel left Fawlty Towers to ask ``Whatzamatter You!''

WEDNESDAY

THE HUNGER ARTIST (C4) - It may be tucked away deep in the darkness of the graveyard shift but Bernard Rudin's wonderful short film is well worth the wait. Adapted from a Kafka short story, a journalist goes in search of a professional faster, an artist who starves himself to earn a living. The 50-minute film was critically acclaimed at this year's Edinburgh Film Festival (winning a coveted Herald Angel) and this showing marks its television premiere. Another Scottish triumph.

n.007.......The Return (STV) - Bond is back! All hail the tuxedoed one! You could waste 100 words on ``shaken not stirred'' descriptions of Pierce Brosnan's reinvention of the world's most famous spy in Goldeneye. Or explain how it was a life-long ambition to drive an Aston Martin in a high-speed chase. But it is a lot nicer to simply say: ``Welcome back!'' Mariella Frostrup does just that at the British premier, showing teasing clips from the new cracker and the classics it should live up to.

MODERN TIMES: MAN SEEKS WOMAN (BBC2) - It was always said that a woman over the age of 40 had more chance of being killed by a terrorist than finding marriage. It wasn't true. But it felt true. However in Britain today it's the single men who have the problems. Susanna White's film follows three men and their fortunes on a string of dates. Pete aka The Italian Stallion lives in a bed-sit in Slough but owns a Ferrari, Porsche, and TVR in a bid to woo the women. Sad, sad, man!

THURSDAY

SECRET LIVES: EDWARD VIII - THE TRAITOR KING (C4) - Royalties dirty laundry chokes up drain as a documentary crew continue their investigations into the shameful truth about Edward, Duke of Windsor, a renowned supporter of fascism. This week's programme answers the following intriguing questions: Was he guilty of treason? What was his relationship to Hitler and how was he involved in the fall of France? The case for republicanism rises from this programme like a prime-time advert.

THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE (STV) -- Superb slasher movie which casts Rebecca De Mornay as the nanny from hell. A gynaecologist commits suicide after he is accused of sexual abuse by his patients. His young widow decides to track down and destroy the woman who was his first accuser, working her way into their lives as the nanny. See, money doesn't make you happy, that'll teach them to look after their own weans.

n.REDCAPS: BLOOD, BEER AND TEARS (BBC1) - The adventures of the Royal Military Police take a nasty turn when two soldiers and a civilian are attacked by a group of young men and ``glassed''. Cpl Horne staggers to the nearby medical centre literally holding his face back on. Question: what was the TV crew doing at this point? Answer: Running after him, salivating. Still, all makes good telly, doesn't it?

FRIDAY

CHILDREN IN NEED (BBC1) - THE BBC's Children in Need returns for its 16th television marathon and Terry Wogan has been exercising his vocal chords in preparation for seven hours of live music, entertainment and fund raising for the BBC's own charity. Joining him on the show will be, for the first time, Gaby Roslin from The Big Breakfast. While stalwarts such as Rolf Harris, Frank Bruno and Annabel Giles lend a hand.

The music this year includes Wet, Wet, Wet (Am I legally allowed to say that?), Chris De Burgh, Supergrass and Tucker and Garvey from Soldier, Soldier. Even our Tel will be performing a version of his 1978 hit, The Floral Dance, oh, we can hardly wait. Still it's nice to be nice, so dig out your wallets and pledge, pledge, pledge. Excuses such as: ``We already buy lottery tickets'' will not be accepted. Especially not from Anthea Turner.

NOT THE NINE O'CLOCK NEWS (BBC2) - A chance to see the best sketches from the sharp-edged satirical show which launched the careers of Rowan Atkinson, Griff Rhys Jones, Mel Smith and Pamela Stephenson. Hang on, Pamela Stephenson, what career? Being Mrs Billy Connelly doesn't count. This should be a novelty for all the students of comedy who were kids in 1979 and so were sent to bed before the show even started. Well, what goes around, comes around and those great gags have been recycled ever since.

EUROTRASH (C4) - The Word is dead! Long live Eurotrash! Just when you thought bad taste had been skelped on the bottom by the ITC and send to bed without any supper, those lovable masters of dirty nonsense and the most French men you will ever meet return. Antoine De Caunes and Jean-Paul Gaultier ignore all their salacious views of European porn starlets to travel to Japan as part of world tour. Here they encounter a restaurant that specialises in aphrodisiacal dishes made from animal genitals and meet the weather girl who gives the forecast wearing a metal bikini and bunny ears. Now that's what I call television.