Digital, Cable and Satellite Television: Pick of the Day

DIRECTOR TIM BURTON (right) has shown with such films as Beetlejuice, Ed Wood and Batman that he has one of cinema's most idiosyncratic eyes. He brings his customary distinctive sense of style to Edward Scissorhands (6pm Film Four), a haunting and sad fairytale. Johnny Depp is moving as the boy constructed by a mad professor (played, in a neat bit of casting, by Vincent Price) who dies unexpectedly and leaves his creation with shears in place of hands. He is taken in by a suburban housewife (Dianne Wiest) and her sympathetic daughter (Winona Ryder) and becomes a media sensation.

The Barber of Seville (8pm Performance) is many people's favourite Rossini opera. This production of his lively comedy stars the talented duo of the mezzo Cecilia Bartoli and the baritone Gino Quilico.