The Street BBC1, 9pm
The Play for Today slot was consigned to the dustbin decades ago, but Jimmy McGovern's one-off dramas, themed around the residents of a single city street, bring the same menu of social issues to the table, with the same verve and energy.
To date, Bob Hoskins, Anna Friel and Frances Barber have each made appearances in the third series of the award-winning drama. There's nobody quite so starry in tonight's episode, but that doesn't mean there's any reduction in quality as a result.
Tonight we meet Kieran Corrigan (played by Joseph Mawle). He's a full-time chef and a part-time racist, a fact he has no trouble admitting when a blind date with a business colleague he has spoken to only on the phone throws up a surprise: she's black.
"My wife left me for a black man with a gold tooth," he spits before walking out. The next day, a run-in with a Polish bus driver has him yelling obscenities on the way to work.
Coming home from the pub one night, Corrigan sees a young girl in a window in a burning house.
He's frozen with terror but his friend, Duffy, rushes in and saves the girl.
Only thing is, Duffy's supposed to be on invalidity benefit and can't take the credit, so Corrigan becomes the celebrated local hero.
The trouble for him is, the girl is Polish. Even worse, Corrigan falls for her mother, Olenka. To her, as she explains in faltering English, he is a knight in shining armour. At night he pours his self-hatred into a video diary.
McGovern said in a recent interview that he felt the sense of adventure had gone from British cinema and even theatre. But television still had it, he thought. In The Street we have some evidence that he's right.
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