Grand Designs (C4)

Make Me Beautiful, Please (ITV1)

SO what are you going to build?," asked Kevin McCloud. "A mono-dimensional contemporary space of a light and airy nature," replied DIY house builder Monty. The presenter of Grand Designs wasn't fooled for a minute. "Yes, but what's it going to be?," he insisted. "A bungalow," said Monty.

Even by the crazy standards of Grand Designs, Monty and partner Claire's proposed house was an extraordinary and risky venture. They couldn't afford a property in London so they bought a piece of land. It may only have cost £40,000 but wasn't the most sensible size or shape for a house, being a narrow strip of urban wasteland sandwiched between two houses.

Monty's design reflected this. "Creative thinking" is how he put it. And thinking dictated by planners insisting on a single-storey building with no windows on either side because of neighbouring properties. Monty got round this by installing a massive sliding glass roof on his experimental house. "Move over Thunderbird One," said McCloud on seeing this remarkable moving roof. Finance was a problem too. No bank or building society would give him a mortgage, so he had to borrow £110,000 from his father, who remortgaged his house to obtain the cash.

The joy of Grand Designs is watching people attempt the seemingly impossible. If the unexpected happens - and here, it included the arrival of building inspectors and Claire getting pregnant - so much the better. Coming in the same week as All New Cosmetic Surgery Live, ITV1's latest makeover show looked pretty tame. The five show aims straight for the jugular, being unashamedly exploitative and outrageous. Make Me Beautiful, Please tried to make out it was performing a public service. But not before subjecting 100 women, chosen from 2,000 applicants, to Pop Idol-style auditions. They spoke of what they wanted changing and why, as well as parading before the judges in their underwear.

Three contestants were selected to go to America for a total body, face, fitness and lifestyle transformation. The game show aspect was reinforced as the narrator was careful to add up exactly how much all the treatment was going to cost. At £38,000, Bernadette was the winner.

The emotional cost was high too. There was plenty of crying, not so much from pain after surgery but because the women were required to leave their families behind in England for six weeks. After going under the knife, they were treated by health and fitness gurus. They were supplied with specially prepared meals, although they cheated with pizzas and doughnuts.

What the women needed as much as physical improvement was a confidence boost. Faye hated her nose, Carol worried that she looked older than she was, and Bernie wanted to get rid of her "apron", the excess skin around her stomach after weight loss. I couldn't help thinking the money would have been better spent on psychiatric rather than surgical help.

One Touch Of Venus, Opera North, Newcastle Theatre Royal

PERHAPS the one bright light for a theatre in mourning for its chief executive, Peter Sarah, is an incredible crowd-pleaser from composer Kurt Weill, lyricist Ogden Nash and Marx Brothers humorist S J Perelman. So forgotten is this 1943 Broadway show, that it appears like the priceless treasures drawn from a carrier bag on the Antiques Roadshow. Elegance, charm, timeless sharp comedy; wistful dance numbers and the lively plot of a priceless statue of Venus coming alive and falling in love with a New York barber should have made this one of the legendary big screen musicals. The fact it isn't allows Opera North to earn some lavish praise for this British debut tour. Anxious about accents, the company recruits US-born singers Ron Li-Paz, as booming statue-buying Whitelaw Savory; Christianne Tisdale, an absolute hoot as his sassy secretary Molly Grant and Karen Coker, as the amused and wise-cracking Venus. Only Californian Loren Geeting, as downtrodden barber Rodney Hatch, has worked with Opera North before. The surrounding Brits blend into the Big Apple brilliantly. Start queuing for musical heaven immediately.

l One Touch Of Venus can be seen again on Saturday and Tuesday. Don Giovanni runs tomorrow, on Thursday, April 21 and Saturday, April 23; while The Thieving Magpie is on tonight, Wednesday, April 20 and Friday, April 22. Box office: 0870 9055060

Viv Hardwick

The Fantasticks, Harrogate Theatre

WHY, I was left wondering, has this charming but lightweight musical earned a place in the record books as Broadway's longest running musical? It's a piece of whimsy with one recognisable song (Try To Remember) and a slim story about young lovers kept apart. The two are brought together after the girl is kidnapped by El Gallo and his incompetent assistants. The path of true love proves bumpy, with the pair having to see more about the world before the inevitable happy ending. That's all there is to it, and I can understand why the show never caught on here. But Harrogate director Hannah Chissick deserves a pat on the back for giving it another go. The first-rate production does everything possible to bring the show to life. Philip Witcomb's designs are clever, with the all-important wall full of hidden surprises. The superb cast deliver both the songs and the comedy with gusto, led by Alistair Robins as the dashing if morally suspect El Gallo. Dean Stobbart and Sophie Bould's young lovers are attractive and nicely sung as they discover that there's more to life than romantic love. Stuart Sherwin as an absent-minded thespian and Tim Stedman as his Indian assistant provide most of the laughs. The Fantasticks is a curiosity that lovers of musicals will want to add to their catalogue of shows seen.

* Until April 23. Tickets (01423) 502116.

Steve Pratt