TV highlights – Sat 4 - Fri 10 August

The Hit Factory: The Stock, Aitken And Waterman Story (Mon, 9pm, ITV1)

Stock, Aitken and Waterman sounded like a firm of solicitors: anyone who has ever bought or sold a house will wish that solicitors could do their job as efficiently and briskly as SAW did. Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman scored their first hit with Dead Or Alive’s ‘You Spin Me Round’ in 1985. They then turned Bananarama into a worldwide pop power, and by the late 1980s their Hi-NRG pop was a hit – and money – making machine. Kylie, Jason, Rick Astley, Sonia and The Reynolds Girls were among the artistes who helped them notch over 100 UK Top 40 hits and make £60million; but the 1990s saw tastes change, Aitken leave the company due to stress and their big-hitters drop them. Suranne Jones is an ideal narrator for this affectionate film about their remarkable story, which features contributors including Jason, Simon Cowell, Pete Burns and Waterman himself.

Wonderland: Young Bright And On The Right (Thu, 9pm, BBC2)

We’ve done gypsies, scutters in Essex and Hooray Henrys in Chelsea, now it’s time for a sensitive look at another group on the fringes of society: Tory Boys. This three-parter meets Joe and Chris, who are aspiring Conservative politicians at Oxford and Cambridge University respectively. The unions at Oxbridge have been training grounds for Tory politicos for generations, with all manner of rotters having cut their teeth in these fevered environments, and this series would suggest that it’s still fertile soil. The camera delights in capturing these weirdo middle-aged 20-year-olds, all three-piece suits and plummy vowels, and it’s fair to say that some of the wannabe politicians are, if anything, even more hilariously awful than the grown-up ones. A dash of poignancy is added by the fact that Joe and Chris, despite their smarmy pontificating and braying vowels, are actually state school kids, outsiders trying to break into a closed shop of privilege.

Jimmy’s Forest (Mon, 9pm, More4)

Jimmy Doherty is a terrific presenter, dynamic, fun and boundlessly enthusiastic, and male children of all ages will enjoy this four-part series where Jimmy lives in a treehouse in a Norfolk forest. His treehouse is awesome: two floors, working loo, cosy things and a laboratory, and perched between two mighty oak trees. There’s even a zip wire for speedy getaways or, well, just because he can have a zip wire. Using this big-kid dream home as a base, Jimmy talks forests, trees and ecosystems with a variety of weird and wonderful forest characters including ferreters, druids and a Neolithic history expert who turns up with a whole deer carcass, which they butcher with flint axes. This all looks like a right laugh, and there’s also some earnest but nicely delivered stuff about saving trees as well. Lovely.

Horizon: Eat, Fast And Live Longer (Mon, 9pm, BBC2)

Michael Mosley wants to live longer, feel younger and lose weight. Sounds reasonable enough. Here, the medical journalist and qualified doctor explores theories about fasting, which has been regarded as having health benefits from ancient times. “Calorie restriction is the only thing that’s ever really been shown to prolong life,” he says, before embarking on a three and a half day fast. As you do. He meets a 101-year-old marathon runner, and learns about Japanese communities whose relentless calorie control ensures that they live many years longer than the global average. It’s all to do with the amounts of an insulin-type hormone, IGF-1, that monitors human growth and can contribute to ageing and cancers if present in elevated levels. As diets go, “not eating anything” at least has the advantage of being easy to understand (if not to follow), but while this programme is excellent and interesting, you might find yourself wondering: is never being able to eat well actually worse than living a long time?

Secrets Of The Pickpockets (Wed, 10pm, Channel 4)

Organised gangs of pickpockets have descended on London for the Olympic Games, and this series shows not only a few of the tricks of their trade, but the police attempts to stay ahead of the criminals. With pickpocketing up 17% in the last two years, it would seem that the police are not winning the battle. In fairness, some of these little scumbags are so good that you wonder if pickpocketing should be an Olympic sport in its own right. So know the enemy if you’re out and about in the capital this summer, and learn more about special moves including the “block and shield” and the “two-fingered lift”. It looks like being a successful gang takes practice, dedication, cool heads, teamwork and judgement – if only these skills could be harnessed for good. In the meantime, let’s hope Plod can bang a few up; but, on this evidence, it would seem that the police are fighting the tide.

ALSO

Facebook biopic ‘The Social Network’ gets The Simpsons (Sun, 6pm, Sky 1) treatment in a snarky spoof. A Gifted Man (Tue, 9pm, Watch) is a so-bad-it’s-good US Drama about a surgeon who is visited by his wife’s ghost. Exploring China: A Culinary Adventure (Sun, 8pm, BBC2) (pictured) is presented by Ching He-Huang and Ken Hom. Embarrassing Bodies: Live From The Clinic (Thu, 9pm, C4) features a rugby player who has had a piercing ripped from an “intimate” area. And… I’ve started so I’ll finish… there is a new series of Mastermind (Fri, 8pm, BBC2) .