Thursday 25 October 2007
8:00pm

Following the success of their Book Club and Summer Read strands, Richard and Judy’s latest mission is to raise awareness of child literacy. This programme, showing in Channel 4’s Lost for Words season, previews 19 titles from both established and up-and-coming authors. It also features interviews with some of the nation’s best-loved literary talents, including Philip Pullman, Jacqueline Wilson and Anthony Horowitz. An audience of children put their questions to the writers, and stars such as comedian Ricky Gervais and the cast of Heroes explain why reading is important to them.

TV presenter, June Sarpong, has quit Channel 4’s T4 slot after six years of service.

June will be replaced by Rick Edwards, Steve Jones, Miquita Oliver and Alexa Chung will remain on the show.

A source commented: “June feels she’s been doing the trendy teenage stuff for long enough. She’s after something a little more serious to get her teeth into.”

Tuesday 23 October 2007
10:00pm

Brat Camp returns with a new focus: the mothers. They are all very different kinds of mothers, but whether they are career mums, hippy mums, single mums or traditional mums they all have one thing in common: their daughters are totally out-of-control brats. Desperate to repair their floundering relationships, four mothers and their tearaway daughters have all agreed to be dropped in the Arizona desert for a bout of intense wilderness therapy. The objective is to get the daughters back on the straight and narrow, but will the mothers learn that they need to reform too?

Tuesday 23 October 2007
9:00pm

A staggering one in five UK children leave primary school unable to read properly. Last Chance Kids is a three-part documentary series, showing in the Lost for Words season, following one primary school and its dynamic head teacher as they make the decision to eradicate illiteracy. Lynna has gone back to basics, and brought in an expert in synthetic phonics. At the outset, a quarter of the children were totally illiterate and couldn’t score highly enough on tests to be given a reading age. Can Lynna and her team ensure that every single pupil is reading by the end of the year?

Wednesday 24 October 2007
10:00pm

After Michael Jackson was acquitted of child molestation, he disappeared, wandering the globe for two years. Writer Jacques Peretti wanted to find out why, and in so doing, learn what really drove Michael Jackson to such self-destruction. Peretti tracks down the people inside the Jackson story who have never agreed to talk on camera before. They talk frankly about the details of the darkest moments in Jackson’s life. What emerges is a story radically different from the one the public know: a picture both darker, more complex and more morally ambiguous than anyone could have imagined.

Monday 22 October 2007
11:05pm

Comedy Lab , Channel 4’s unique comedy showcase that unearths the stars of the future, is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a new eight-part series, showing over the next week. Karl Pilkington is best known for the world-record-breaking podcasts that he does with friends Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant where he is frequently told that he is an idiot. Karl left school with one GCSE: an E in history, which he doesn’t remember taking. After years of ridicule, he has decided to find out just how intelligent he is with help from Germaine Greer, Will Self and even David Icke.

Monday 22 October 2007
10:35pm

Russell Brand, the UK’s most talked-about comic, returns to Channel 4 for the next six nights to contemplate the world around him. Russell delves into an eclectic mix of topics including love, childhood and holidays. Supported by archive footage and his own reminiscences, Russell will act as guide as he discusses seemingly generic topics, makes phone calls to unsuspecting targets and introduces specially shot segments. In the first episode of the series, Russell draws on his own personal experiences to discuss the complexities of childhood, its innocence, confusion and fear.

Monday 22 October 2007
9:00pm

Channel 4’s Edge of Endurance season - three powerful films about people pushed to the edge of their endurance in extreme circumstances - sees climber Joe Simpson travel to the treacherous North Face of the Eiger to tell the story of one of mountaineering’s most epic tragedies. As a child he was inspired by the story of Toni Kurz, a brilliant young climber who, in 1936, died on the Eiger in the most horrific circumstances. In this gripping, action-packed adventure film with a difference, Simpson finally confronts his demons on the Eiger and rediscovers the thrill of the climb that makes him feel so alive. From the makers of Touching the Void .

Monday 22 October 2007
8:00pm

Lost for Words , the childhood literacy season on Channel 4, begins with a Dispatches investigation into why so many of Britain’s children can’t read. A fifth of youngsters leaving primary school can’t read and write properly. Reporter Alex Thomson investigates how this failure has come about and shows that with the right teaching methods virtually every child in mainstream schooling can be taught to read. Focusing on the effectiveness of the various methods currently employed to teach children to read, Thompson also explores the wider societal impact of poor literacy rates.

Holloaks own Tony Hutchinson ends up racked with guilt in a few weeks times after he sleeps with Mercedes, sister of his girlfriend Jaqui.

Tony has an explosive row with Jaqui about his secret son Harry, and Mercedes just happens to be there to console him. Of course all he had to do was mention the adult movie he once starredina nd she was all his!

Watch Tony and Mercedes do the dirty on Tuesday November 6th at 6.30pm on Channel 4.

Friday 19 October 2007
10:30pm

What do you do when your girlfriend leaves you to marry Duncan from Blue (Duncan James, appearing as himself)? You decide to outshine them on their wedding day, that’s what. Plus One follows the best efforts of Rob Black (Rory Kinnear) to secure a beautiful woman as his wedding guest in an attempt to get his own back. And, extraordinarily, things begin to look promising. But life never works like that… does it? This is the third episode in Channel 4’s Comedy Showcase season, starring some of the UK’s best established and up-and-coming comedic talent.

Thursday 18 October 2007
11:00pm

Samuel Preston of The Ordinary Boys embarks on a personal journey to delve into the world of Voodoo, “the black sheep of religion”. His adventure begins in the UK, where two practitioners fill him in on some of the basic principles of Voodoo; he visits a healer, who performs a ritual to cure his insomnia; and he meets an African priest, who explains the historical background that gave rise to Voodoo’s sinister reputation. But with these experiences leaving him frustrated, he sets out for the West African republic of Benin, the only country in the world where Voodoo is the national religion.

Wednesday 17 October 2007
11:45pm

Emmy Award-winning writer/ producer Aaron Sorkin’s provocative comedy drama tackling the contentious, rarely-seen world of network television comes to Channel 4, starting with a double bill. Behind the humour of producing the popular late-night comedy sketch show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is a world of backstage politics and romances, and a very delicate balance between creative talent, on-air personalities and network executives. Starring Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, Amanda Peet and Judd Hirsch.

Thursday 18 October 2007
9:00pm

On May 3 this year, Madeleine McCann went missing. What has really happened in the 168 days since Madeleine was last seen? Dispatches sent a team of five of the UK’s best-qualified criminal investigators to Praia da Luz. Led by retired Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Stevenson, who headed the investigation into the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002, their goal is to review the Portuguese police investigation. With testimony from observers who witnessed events in the crucial early days, they differentiate between the fact and the wildly speculative media fiction.

Thursday 18 October 2007
8:00pm

Children never used to come into contact with any man-made chemicals. But today children are exposed to tens of thousands, and no one knows for certain what these chemicals are doing to them. Sarah Beeny counts the chemicals in the products the families of ten children from around the country use regularly. She tests the child that comes into contact with the most to see if chemicals are being stored in their body, and replaces all the products the family use with chemical-light alternatives to see if she can reduce their chemical count.