The British summer is truly here, heralded by a load of crap weather and the announcement that the new Big Brother series starts on Thursday – hurrah!
If that doesn’t float your TV boat, please don’t worry, the BBC have got a few tricks up their sleeve to cater for the more discerning viewer.

If you like your reality TV a little more upmarket, then you can look forward to the new series of Mary Queen of Shops instead. Airing on Monday 9th June on BBC Two, Mary Portas, retail guru and snarky business minx visits Blinkz, surely the only plus-size retail outlet run by someone who doesn’t like fat people very much. The store’s size 10 gym-fanatic owner can’t understand why the dowdy tents she stocks aren’t flying off the shelves. Her opinion is that larger women just don’t follow fashion, but I suspect the truth is that they don’t subscribe to her warped ideas about plus-size sartorial elegance. Still, the beauty of this programme lies in just that, unearthing the nutters running businesses and laughing at them getting it wrong. I, for one, will be wholeheartedly enjoying doing it all, provided that I can TIVO Big Brother.

If you’re still deluding yourself that you don’t like reality TV, then why don’t you check out the documentary fare that the Beeb has to offer instead. Jews is a new three-parter exploring different aspects of modern Jewish life and what it means to be Jewish, by investigating life in communities and families ranging from the ultra-orthodox to the secular and atheist. The first promises to be a completely fascinating look at not only a closed ultra-orthodox community in North London, but at the story of Samuel Leibowitz, a Hasidic Jew who has multiple convictions for drug smuggling and has spent the last nine years in international prisons. The documentary spends 5 months with Samuel as he is released from prison and has to re-adjust to life within the community, where family values are crucial and the outside world is completely shunned (apart from the TV crews, that is). Part one of Jews airs on Wednesday 18th June at 9pm on BBC Four.

Sticking with the religious theme, Storyville presents the story of Father Michael Cleary, dubbed The Real Father Ted. Father Michael Cleary was the original superstar Catholic priest, hosting his own TV and radio shows, and recording two no.1 singles. He was, by all accounts, a chain-smoking, charismatic celebrity priest, but one who preached the importance of adhering to religious laws about contraception, abortion and celibacy to the last. When it was revealed that he had been having a sexual relationship with his housekeeper for some years, and had also fathered a son who lived with them, his fans were left wringing their rosary beads in horror. Storyville presents the story of documentary maker Alison Millar, who was allowed into Father Cleary’s family home to film prior to his death in 1993, and his son Ross, who the priest admitted was his son only three days before his death, after a lifetime of denial. They go on a journey to discover the man behind the persona in what promises to be a compelling and bizarre tale. Storyville: The Real Father Ted airs on BBC Four at 9pm on Monday 16th June.