Television: Today's pick
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Your support makes all the difference.The Ship (8pm C4) The once-mighty Swan Hunter shipyard on the Tyne was just days away from being auctioned off in 1995 when the Dutch company THC stepped in, bringing with them an order to refit a huge pipe- laying vessel. This meant rehiring labour - and Irene Cockcroft and film crew were there for this new series, the first programme of which nicely illustrates the expression "skills shortages". Skilled workers on Tyneside had long ago got on their bikes, and Swan Hunter wasn't taking people out of the dole offices, but nabbing platers and welders from other companies. We also get a vivid illustration of labour relations in post-Thatcherite Britain. Nobody wanted to be shop steward because they knew they'd be branded troublemakers and never find work again. "It's the first time I've won anything in me life," says the ashen-faced "winner" as his name is pulled from a hat.
Heroes of Comedy: Peter Cook (9pm C4) No one has a bad word to say about Peter Cook and you begin to wish for some sort of dissention. Perhaps Dudley Moore's absence is the nearest we get to it. Cook's widow, Lin, appears on camera for the first time, however, to talk about their life together.
THe film
These Three (1.30pm C4) Sam Goldwyn, when told that the play he had just bought, Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour, was about lesbians, is said to have replied, "That's okay; we'll turn them into Americans". Even so, this 1936 adaptation is far better than the explicit 1962 version. Bonita Granville was Oscar-nominated as the ghastly, spiteful pupil who spreads lies about her teacher, Merle Oberon, but Miriam Hopkins and Joel McCrea give the really classy performances.
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