Sunday Telegraph from London, Greater London, England • 173

Preview A GUIDE TO THE WEEK'S TELEVISION AND RADIO Raise the Red Lantern (1991) Sunday, C4, MEDHURST One of the landmark successes of recent Chinese cinema, this emotionally intense drama centres on the clash between an independently minded young wife and the claustrophobic. patriarchal culture of the family she joins through marriage. Gong Li is brilliant in the central role, while the sumptuous imagery conjured up by the director Zhang Yimou is unforgettable. 200 00000 Kissed (1996) Key Largo (1948, Friday, C4, Monday, BBC2, 11.45am12.25-1.55am Humphrey Bogart is perfectly cast as a A film about disillusioned war veteran who encounters criminal intrigues 111 the storm-lashed Florida necrophilia was hardly likely to avoid Keys. Lauren Bacall's role as a grieving widow and this doesn't allow her to exercise her sultrier side.

controversy, -budget Canadian but Claire Trevor is outstanding as a raddled. story of twisted desire alcoholic gangster's moll. The gangster i in faced several question is the wonderful Edward Robinson. censorship problems before being released Speed (1994) in Britain. Yet it Monday, BBC1, received huge critical Star charisma often has little to do with acclaim, and conventional acting ability, and you won't deservedly so, since find clearer proof of that maxim than Keanu it manages to be Reeves.

The camera loves him, and this disturbing and roller-coaster action picture makes the most of complex rather it. Reeves is a dumb hunk of a cop saving the than stooping to city from a mad bomber (an excessive Dennis sensationalism. Hopper). Sandra Bullock also stars: this is the Molly Parker gives film that made her a box-office draw. a remarkable performance as the Casablanca (1942, young woman Thursday, BBC2, erotically obsessed Casablanca's status as a perennial favourite with the dead, while derives from its ability to please several the director Lynne audiences at once.

Romantics can revel in one Stopkewich's chilly of Hollywood's great love matches, those who and stylish visuals are prefer tougher stuff can enjoy the war and startlingly original. espionage elements of the plot, connoisseurs of acting can lap up Bogart. Bergman and the impeccable Claude Rains, and the nostalgic can relish the fact that, ves. on this evidence at least, films really were better back then. 27 May-2 June GILES SMITH ON TELEVISION The co-founder of Ugly a post-modern model agency based in north London and specialising in models that are the opposite of models puts it this way: 'I don't see anyone as ugly, I see everyone as I'm sure Channel 5's documentary on the agency, Ugly, on Wednesday, would go along with that wholeheartedly, even if the graphic which brackets the commercial breaks involves, rather pointedly, the back of a bus.

Sophie Dahl pushed back the barriers of fashion modelling by not resembling a teak-stained drinking-straw. But her labours are as naught compared with the parametercrushing being done by some of the 900 models on 'Why is it Ugly's books among them girners appear, Del. who perhaps shares to the untrained a dentist with Shane MacGowan and is eye, to be described as Ugly's first the same international supermodel'; Treacle who, at 75, recently became the face of Snappy Snaps; and Big Jon, who is big. Del walked into Ugly as a courier. 'He took his helmet off.

I said. "Incredible! Don't move!" Now he is the only model to have worked on campaigns for all three of the major jeans companies Calvin Klein, Diesel and Levi. The whole vibe of him is quite Certainly they think so in Germany. Del savs, dressed me up as a hamster and made me run about in a great big wheel in a The programme spends time with Del, and also with Big Jon, who specialises in size. Lying down, he would occupy roughly the same area as a three-seater sofa and, before the agency got to him, was securely employed in security.

It is hard not to be impressed by the commitment of the agency's manager, who had to find the courage to approach Big Jon he was minding a celebrity in a restaurant at the time and say, you ever heard of Now Big Jon gets to feature in boy band videos and to test mattresses. And then there's Treacle (not his real name but a childhood nickname which, as it were, stuck), who is an expert in girning and shares with Kevin Keegan and Alice Cooper, among others, the mildly disconcerting habit of referring to himself in the third person: eg 'Every day's a bonus for As well as being able to fold his lower lip over his nose, Treacle is bald and thus, for people who are really easily amused, represents something of a two-for-one bargain. It comes as no surprise to learn that he has worked with Chas and Dave, nor to hear that he was recently commissioned to perch on a lavatory at a busy traffic intersection, reading the Sun and (naturally) girning. It's obvious that Treacle has his own unique comic gifts, and a rare energy for exploiting them. But, to speak generally for a moment, I have never quite seen why baldness was intrinsically funny, any more than I can see why girning is.

Hats off, obviously, to anvone who can suck their own evebrows, but at the risk of inspiring wrath among the girning community why is it that all girners, at full girn, appear (at least, to the untrained eve) to be pulling the that all same expression? I was also unable to work out whether this programme was, in the final analvsis, an examination pulling of the Ugly agency, or a commercial for it. Big Jon had no doubts: 'All you producers and directors out there Ugly agency. Just ask for Big But that's post-modernism. Jack Dee isn't ugly, but he is miserable, as he reveals every Friday on Jack Dee's Happy Hour (BBC1), a programme which, as the host likes to point out at the start, is neither happy nor lasts an hour. It is, however, fun to watch.

Following the great unlikelihood of his hugely endearing performance in Celebrity Big Brother, Dee now seems to have found the perfect format for his absence of enthusiasm. In one of the weekly set-pieces, he accepts a stranger's invitation to join them for a day or night out at a sing-along version of The Sound of Music, for instance, or at a beginners' polo session. The resulting reports on his discomfort are extremely funny, but also generous, in a way for which television comedy involving 'ordinary people' is not famous. Dee also recently produced a very good value monologue on the topic of meat paste, pointing out that the only word in the English language more terrifyingly vague than 'meat' is the word 'paste'. He's on a streak, it seems to me, though I don't think he would put it that way himself.

For late changes to schedules, please see page 2 in the main paper THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH MAGAZINE 27 MAY 2001 61.