What's on the box this week?

'Croke Park Lives' (RTE 1, Tuesday 22nd December) - A backstage look at Croke Park on the day of the All-Ireland Football Final last September. On the pitch, a ferocious battle for the Sam Maguire. In the stands, 82,000 spectators cheer and weep. And behind the scenes, Peter, Pat, Robert, Shakila, Lenny, Pauline, Frank, Séamus, Amy and their 2,000 colleagues make it happen. They cook, they steward, serve and police, pump up the balls and prepare for the pitch invasion. They race around, wait patiently, stay cool in the face of medical emergency, watch security monitors like hawks and occasionally lose the rag. And they tend the field of play as if it was the most precious surface in the world. 'Croke Park Lives' takes the viewer into the kitchens and canteens, reveals the secrets of the event control room, slips into briefings and down tunnels, into a place we've never been before, backstage at the All-Ireland. _____________________________________________________________ 'The Hairy Bikers Celebrate The 12 Days Of Christmas' (BBC 2, Wednesday) - A one-hour special in which the famous song is interpreted through the medium of food, as only Simon King and Dave Myers know how. For A Partridge In A Pear Tree, it's a stuffed partridge; Five Golden Rings inspires them to cook a gut-busting breakfast for construction workers on the London Olympics site; Six Geese A-Laying sees them dressed up as pantomime dames, and they join a bunch of winter swimmers for Seven Swans A-Swimming. The bikers' foodie journey through the song ends with a Christmas feast for pipers and drummers as they put up a giant Christmas tree for a full-on 'hairy' Christmas celebration. _____________________________________________________________ 'A Child's Christmasses In Wales' (BBC 4, Thursday) - Ruth Jones stars in a charming seasonal single comedy drama evoked by Dylan Thomas. For young Owen Rhys, growing up in a terraced house in 1980s South Wales, Christmas is a rather less poetic affair - though just as eventful. Every Christmas, the peace and quiet of Owen's house, where he lives with his pessimistic father and his obsessively tidy mother, is shattered by the arrival of three family members: Owen's two uncles and his cousin, Maurice. In a series of glimpses from three Christmasses across the decade, Owen and Maurice grow from boys into young men, while his dad and uncles seem to regress to a childhood of sibling rivalry and Owen's mum watches in despair. The years change but the Christmas routine remains the same. Dad and his older brother, Hugh, bicker and undermine each other; Hugh's son, Maurice, and Owen are forced into competitive games which play out their respective fathers' rivalries; the youngest brother, Gorwel, the black sheep of the family, arrives late, hands out bad presents and usually destroys the bathroom; while Owen's mother, Brenda, tries to prevent everything from going to pieces. _____________________________________________________________ 'Teens, Toffs & Tiaras' (Ch4, Thursday) - The London Season was once at the heart of the upper classes, providing the opportunity to meet the Queen and a marriage market for the young daughters of Britain's most privileged. Today, it remains one of the last bastions of British elite society, surviving into the 21st century thanks to its committed and determined organisers. Jane Treays' observational documentary follows the exclusive London Season over six months during 2009, with unprecedented access to its organisers as well as some of the hand-picked debutantes themselves. It is a whirlwind of satin dresses, pearls and a sumptuous ball. The girls model clothes and hats, take a trip abroad accompanied by a Royal, and learn the all-important lessons in protocol: the art of curtseying, letter-writing and instructions in how to greet a princess. ____________________________________________________________ 'Ads Of The Decade' (ITV, Sunday) - From dancing eyebrows and talking meerkats, to a car made of cake and the world's longest waterslide, this documentary is a celebratory countdown of the 20 greatest commercials to grace TV screens over the past decade. Find out how technology lent a hand in bringing Gene Kelly back to our screens, how a Sunday league football ref came to book Jackie Charlton, and who was actually in the monkey suit in the now infamous drumming gorilla advert. The ads include the Barclaycard Waterslide, Budweiser's True/Wassup, Cadbury's Drumming Gorilla, Guinness's Tipping Point, and the Volkswagen Singing in the Rain. ____________________________________________________________ Movie Of The Week: 'Pacific Heights' (RTE 1, Saturday) - Michael Keaton put the frighteners on Melanie Griffith in this tense John Schlesinger thriller about a middle class couple who lie on their financial statement in order to buy an old Victorian house in San Francisco, planning to renovate it and rent it out. Unfortunately, they select as a tenant Carter Hayes, a psychotic real estate bargain hunter who plans to drive Patty and Drake into foreclosure proceedings and then buy the house cheap. As a comment on the greed culture of property investment, this one's a real winner.