TELEVISION / BRIEFING: Liverpudlian turmoil

Neither devotees nor detractors of Carla Lane will be disappointed by LUV (8pm BBC1), her latest, 10-part sitcom. Michael Angelis - veteran of Lane's Liver Birds and I Woke Up One Morning - plays Harold Craven (sic), a self- made millionaire. The more he showers gifts on his wife, Terese (Sue Johnston), and three adopted children Hannah (Sandy Hendrickse), Victor (Russell Boulter) and Darwin (Stephen Lord), the less he can understand them. Terese wants to work, Hannah lives with a despised Italian, Victor has come out, and Darwin is the child 'of a founder-member of Slumberland'. Even Harold's factory workers object to his bonhomie and piped classical music. It is the archetypal Lane story - a Liverpool family in turmoil, thrashing out its difficulties around the dinner table - which you will find either heart-warming or stomach-churning.

The stalwarts of two previous Lane offerings - Jean Boht from Bread, and Wendy Craig from Butterflies - appear in BRIGHTON BELLES (8.30pm ITV), Carlton's much-hyped 'Comedy Playhouse' remake of The Golden Girls. In Christopher Skala's adaptation, Boht plays the 80-year- old mother who turns up to spoil the domestic harmony enjoyed by her daughter (Sheila Hancock) and house-mates (Craig and Sheila Gish).

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