Turn Back, Turn on and Tune Out

Channel Four’s Tuesday night of turning back the clock had sex, tears and tedium, says Danusia Osiowy.

Steve is a normal guy living a normal life with a fondness for lager, kebabs and his sofa. A father and husband, he boasts a squidgy gut, three chins and some quality man breasts. Enter Dr Una: an oriental petite pistol, who tells porky, fat-titted Steve why else one shouldn’t eat all the pies. In Turn Back Your Body Clock (Channel 4, 8.30pm) we learn that a typical night sees him polish off endless crisps, five pints of bitter, eight gin and tonics, and four whiskeys. But if ever the guy needed a drink it was now. Flipping out her pink tape measure and taking his bulbous stats Dr Una grimly delivers the verdict: Steve was in the first stage of alcoholic liver disease, his heart was beating "sluggishly", his sperm was abnormal and his estimated life expectancy was 65. Over an eight week regime he was going to have to give up booze, fags, sugar and caffeine, then pleasure his wife to orgasm. Small wonder he cried. He panted, he puffed, he hammered the gym and even made his wife cum. And by then end you just wanted to shake the poor guy’s hand. Over 30 minutes the sexy new Steve had lost four stone, had healthy sperm, and a satisfied wife. He had turned back the clock, and with a new predicted death age of 77, he had an extra 12 years in which to deprive himself of all those things he likes.
They were also turning the clock in That Will Teach ‘em – Boys vs Girls (Channel Four, 9pm). Sprayed quiffs, gelled spikes and 30 spotty faced teens were sent back to a 1950s grammar school to finally sit their O-Levels in the last of this tedious series. The boring build-up to the final five minutes is slightly eased by the deputy head master: a fantastically frog-eyed, chubby and rather pink character, whose persona was made for Hogwarts. Matron also had her moments, memorably when she tells one of the achingly cool teenage boys to stop playing with himself during a dorm inspection. By the end of the drawn out 57-minutes, it is clear that, even if the boys did excel at science, the girls have easily out-performed them all round. But what most distinguished the boys from the girls were the comments from the kids at the end. Asked what life lesson she had learned at the 1950s school, one girl looks forlorn as she recalls tough timetables and strict revision. Asked the same question, a boy solemnly replies, ‘I never thought I’d see a pigs bladder explode over my best mate, It was crazy shit actually, but kind of cool.’