What's on the box this week?

STACKING THE SHELVES (RTE 1, Wednesday). 'Stacking the Shelves" is about the Irish commercial traveller from the 1950s to the present day and gives a unique insight into the development of the grocery trade in Ireland from the small shop to the giant retail outlets. The film deals with the decline of a generation of shopkeepers and with it the loss of a vital area of social interaction. It is told through the eyes of an retired commercial traveller and features interviews with retired shopkeepers and one of the last family run cash and carry"s still holding their own sucessfully MP O"Sullivans of Cork. For another glimpse at a disappearing world of not so long ago Ireland, this one is a must. THE THIRTIES IN COLOUR (BBC 4, Wednesday). A four-part series depicting a decade that erupted into colour. During that time, polychromatic photographic technology came of age and, in the years 1931-37, three important processes - Dufaycolour, Technicolor and Kodachrome - were patented and brought to the market. Many of the early colour documentary images were shot by intrepid travellers, cultural anthropologists, professional photo-journalists and documentary film-makers who traversed the globe in the years just before the Second World War. Featuring interviews with the surviving film-makers, and those who knew them, as well as contributions from anthropologists and cultural historians who specialise in the period, the series gives a unique insight into an age before mass tourism, the spread of Western cultural values, global industrialisation and, most pertinently, the destructive power of a world war - one that utterly transformed the destiny of individuals and nations all over the world. The first episode looks at the work of socialite Rosie Newman, an amateur film-maker who used her high society contacts to secure extraordinary access to the social elite. Between 1928 and her retirement in the Sixties, Newman criss-crossed the globe and, along the way, she managed to shoot some of the most important colour documentary footage of the period. HARLEY STREET (ITV, Thursday). Paul Nicholls and Suranne Jones along with Shaun Parkes run the modern GP practice, 195 Harley Street. While all three doctors are dedicated to their GP work at 195, they do have other interests. Robert divides his time between the practice and the white knuckle thrills of a London A&E where he does locum Registrar shifts for his friend, Tom Ellis. Martha is a psychologist who juggles the demands of her busy career alongside being a single mum to her twelve year old daughter, Tess (Rosie Day). Ekkow is a renowned plastic surgeon, and a mastermind in his field. In a nice medical filler-in while we await the new season of ER, Harley Street is undemanding stuff - a clone of 'The Clinic" that does ably hold the imagination. BONEKICKERS (BBC 2, Tuesday). Professor Gillian Magwilde and her team of archaeologists uncover another compelling mystery this week, as the high-risk exploration of secret Celtic chambers beneath the Roman Baths unlocks a love story past and present. The ancient and tragic tale of Celtic warrior Queen Boudicca and Roman soldier Quintanus is unravelled in the present by Gillian and Ben, who confront their own unresolved relationship amidst dark, claustrophobic chambers. When an Earth tremor at the Roman Baths dislodges highly toxic gas and the area is evacuated, Gillian has the opportunity to prove to her team that Boudicca was captured and imprisoned by Quintanus. The team"s excavation uncovers 1st-century Celtic metalwork, a jawbone and an Iceni coin bearing the face of Boudicca. Gillian is positive that these are remnants of the Celtic villages described in an ancient text. MOVIE OF THE WEEK: FASCINATION (RTE 2, Friday). Only a few weeks after her husband"s mysterious death, Jacqueline Bisset returns from a cruise with handsome Stuart Wilson in tow. Her son Scott is suspicious - could his mother and her new beau have murdered his father? A good whodunnit with a few neat twists.