TV highlights: Sat 10 – Fri 16 August

Paul O’Grady’s Working Britain (Thu, 9pm, BBC1)
The Conservative/Liberal coalition, says Paul O’Grady: “Has no idea what the common working man and woman are doing. They have led privileged lives at public schools and have never been on the shop floor.” Not sure whether this two-parter will be required viewing for Call Me Dave and Nick Clegg, but it’s certainly an interesting, and very personal, examination of working class life in Britain: in fact, he wonders what that term even means these days. But in previous generations, things seemed clearer, as Paul traces his family roots through his childhood in Birkenhead to miners and relatives of those who were on the Jarrow marches. Visiting a call centre in Glasgow and being a ticket collector on a bus, Paul demonstrates how the sense of community and pride in work unified a class of people, as well as asking whether we have lost that in today’s Britain.

Crazy About One Direction (Thu, 10pm, C4)
Massively popular boybands are nothing new, but there’s something about the way that One Direction have harnessed social media that’s made them frighteningly huge. This documentary gives an insight into a phenomenon that’s a bit baffling for anyone over 20. The lads, rejected X Factor solo artists assembled into a band by Nicole Scherzinger, have an astonishing 15 million Twitter followers. And for the girls interviewed in this part-sweet, part-alarming doc, their online “relationship” with Harry and company means so much. A retweet or, dream of dreams, a reply from the boys sends fans delirious with happiness, while social networking sites allow Directioners (as the fan family calls itself) to mobilise rapidly upon a sighting of the boys. Most of it seems innocent fun, but no parent could hear of fan messages like “I’ll kill myself if you don’t tweet back” without feeling uneasy.
Talking of obsessive interest in pop stars, it’s no fun at all for an ex-Atomic Kitten in My Cyberstalking Hell: Liz McClarnon (Mon, 10pm, C5).

That Puppet Game Show (Sat, 6.45pm, BBC1)
This is a hoot. Finding people gifted enough to present a big ticket Saturday night light ents show is clearly proving tough for the BBC (hi Gabby!) so they have hit upon a brilliant solution: get in some muppets. (Not the human kind on this occasion). The Jim Henson Company provides the host and presenters on a wacky gameshow where two human celebrities – in this first episode, Katherine Jenkins and Jonathan Ross – complete bizarre tasks to win money for charidee. If you’ve ever wanted to see a puppet host instruct La Jenkins to squeeze a series of cloth hot dogs that shout out the lyrics to The Proclaimers, then this is the programme for you. The show’s host is Vernon Kaye-esque dimbo Dougie Colon (pronounced, he says, “Cologne”) and other funny turns include terrifying PE instructor Miss Jemima Taptackle, who puts Jenkins and Ross through their paces in a game called ‘Punch Your Own Lights Out.’ Daft fun.

Big School (Fri, 9pm, BBC1)
Major sitcoms have had a torrid time recently: any new comedy gets approximately 0.35 seconds chance before the world and his wife is taking to Twitter to give it a kicking. So 100 bravery points go to David Walliams, who has written this new comedy about a hopeless secondary school, in which he himself stars as the deputy head of science, Mr Church, a timid fellow with an awful permed hair-don’t. The arrival of the new French teacher, Miss Postern – played by Catherine Tate – sends Mr Church’s lonely heart a-flutter. Standing in his way is a love rival in the shape of Philip Glenister’s Mr Gunn, the PE teacher. It’s traditional, tittersome fare that harks back to a simpler age of comedy, but with three fine stars, and classy support from the likes of Frances de la Tour and ‘The Thick Of It’s’ Joanna Scanlan, it is none the worse for that.

Benefits Britain 1949 (Mon, 9pm, C4)
The Welfare State gets a bad rap; it’s impossible to open a newspaper without reading about scrounging-this and layabout-that. We forget that it was set up post-War with noble ideals: to look after people who needed it, and wage war on want, illness and ignorance. Here, three people on benefits – disabled Craig, pensioner Melvyn and gobby Karen, who is on the sick – see what life was like for claimants in 1949, the first year that the welfare state came in. Poor Craig discovers the system in the 1940s didn’t regard a little bit of spina bifida as good enough reason for financial help, while Melvyn is packed off to an old folks’ home quick-smart, whether he likes it or not. So that’s… not good. On the other hand, Karen is such a rotter that it’s quite fun watching her get what’s coming to her, 1949-style. Provocative, rather sour stuff, but it pushes the right buttons.

Also this week
A new fifth series of Dragons’ Den (Sun, 8pm, BBC2) sees interior designer Kelly Hoppen and internet innovator Piers Linney come on board as dragons. There’s an incredible documentary about, how to put this, a Costa Rican nutter called Tarzan: The Man Who Swims With Crocodiles (Sat, 8pm, National Geographic). He does, you know. Fightback Britain (Mon, 8.30pm, BBC1) is a consumer affairs series with Julia Bradbury and Adrian Simpson tackling criminals, including a woman who caught a washing-line knicker-thief thanks to night-vision cameras. And joining in the fight on rather more serious crime, Natasha Kaplinsky and Mark Williams-Thomas (the detective who exposed Jimmy Savile) follow police as they capture a sex offender in On The Run (Tue, 9pm, ITV). And finally, the cutest show of the week award goes to The Burrowers: Animals Underground (Fri, 9pm, BBC2) in which Chris Packham checks out subterranean furry-faces including rabbits and badgers.