Ugly House to Lovely House with George Clarke, C4, 8pm
GEORGE is joined by leading architects to help transform some of Britain’s most unloved houses into desirable properties. In the village of Claverdon, Warwickshire, Steve and Celine are embarrassed by their 1960s A-frame house. Having remained untouched for nearly 50 years, it is stuck in a time warp and is falling apart. George Clarke enlisted the help of architect Graeme Williamson to drag it into the 21st century.
Australia with Julia Bradbury, STV, 8.30pm
ANYONE daydreaming about a new life Down Under may be even more tempted after this week – BBC2 begins new series Australia: Earth’s Magical Kingdom tomorrow and tonight Julia continues her 7500-mile journey across the continent with a tour of Western Australia. She meets millionaire boatbuilders and surfers in Perth, then moves north along the coast to Broome, where she enjoys a day at the races. Finally she ventures deep into the Outback to find out about life with an Aboriginal family.
60 Days on the Streets, C4, 9pm
BRITAIN is in the grip of a growing homelessness crisis – it’s been claimed that more people are sleeping rough than at any time since the Second World War. To learn more about the problem and put faces to some of the statistics, former soldier Ed Stafford is spending 60 winter days and nights with no money and no shelter on the streets of Glasgow, Manchester and London. He’ll experience the realities of homelessness, and find out whether some rough sleepers are “fakes”.
Draining Alcatraz: The Impossible Escape, C5, 9pm
LOCATED on an island in San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz was one of the most notorious prisons in the world, and supposedly inescapable. It inspires movies including Escape from Alcatraz and The Rock, but what made it so tough to break out of? This documentary finds out by using cutting-edge visual effects to drain the waters away and reveal some of Alcatraz’s secrets. But the island isn’t the only area of interest in San Francisco Bay – the dried floor has been scarred by epic earthquakes.
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