The Story Of 1 (BBC1)

The Day That James Dean Died (five)

TWO and two make four - that much I can manage. Otherwise mathematics don't add up for me. The BBC, in its infinite wisdom, wants to educate me and, knowing they can't count on numbers to pull in the ratings, enlisted Monty Python's Terry Jones to put a quirky spin on the subject.

I remain unconvinced that The Story Of 1 wouldn't have been more at home on some educational channel, although it taught me that the remote switch will take you from (BBC)1 to (BBC)2 if it's not the 1 that you want.

Jones employed all manner of trickery - bad jokes, computer graphics, animated numerals and exotic scenery - to tart up his talk relating how 1 had always been number one and "his story is our story". Nowadays he's teamed up with zero to dominate the digital world. Notice that Jones has personalised 1, called the number "he", like good teachers do to keep their students' attention.

A scratch on a 20,000-year-old bone provided the first solid evidence that 1 existed. There were 60 on each edge and equally numbered groups on the back, so someone had been counting.

Jones moved on to whole numbers, Pythagoras ("didn't he have a theory?"), a garden centre in Oxfordshire, Archimedes and the takeover of Roman numerals by Indian newcomers.

"I need to understand the binary system," said Jones as I was still trying to grasp the concept of a show threatening to turn into a Python sketch, only not as funny as the one with the dead parrot.

I did take away one thing - the Indian measure rajju is the distance covered by a god in six months if he travels one kilometre in every blink of his eyelid. You never know when that might come in useful.

The Day That James Dean Died used modern technology and forensic methods to find out the truth about the car crash in which the American actor died 50 years ago. Witnesses and friends chipped in with observations about the speed-mad Dean. Experts showed that he was going over the speed limit when another vehicle pulled in front of his Porsche Spyder, but not driving recklessly fast as claimed at the time. If he'd kept to the limit, they concluded, he'd have avoided the collision.

Most fascinating was the road safety film he made shortly before his death. "Take it easy driving. The life you save might be mine," he told the audience. If only he'd listened to his own advice.

Grimaldi, Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond

THE Eric Morecambe of his day, Joseph Grimaldi should have died a happy and contented man. The fact that he was broken mentally, physically and financially - partly by the fear of fame being fleeting chance - is an absolute gift for an experienced writer/performer like Tony Lidington.

He brings the king of clowns back to life with the assistance of a book by Charles Dickens, published in 1838, a year after the great comic's death. It may not have been one of the great author's better reads, but well-studied Lidington decorates the pages of history with glorious genius. He's too generous to consider a one-man show and soon stage manager Gary Bridgens, musical director Jack Rodrigues and members of the audience are involved in a tale involving biography, performance and Grimaldi's legacy to light entertainment. The one place that 'Joey the clown' could get away with a snatch of The Birdie Song is Richmond's beautifully restored theatre.

Co-producer and theatre manager Vaughn Curtis and director Stephen Wilkins deserve high praise for backing Lidington's idea of turning a short Radio 4 play into this world premiere stage act. Why the script hasn't been snapped up for film or TV is a mystery - it has all the elements of sex, violence and showbiz usually required. Thankfully, Lidington never allows the sadness to overwhelm the slapstick and ensures that a tiny North Yorkshire venue overshadows the best of Edinburgh or the West End.

l Runs until Saturday. Box Office: (01748) 825252

Viv Hardwick

Live in Durham, Gala Theatre

A SPELLBINDING evening of short stories by some of the region's finest writers was one of the first events at the Durham Literature Festival, which runs until October 24.

Specially performed and recorded before a live audience for the BBC Radio 4 afternoon reading slot, the shows are scheduled to air from October 10-15 at 3.30pm.

The evening featured superb stories by Alan Plater, Pat Barker, Julia Darling, Sean O'Brien and Paul Magrs.

Claire Malcolm of New Writing North explained that the North-East has always been a great place for story telling, but that the short story is a style of writing that has been undervalued by big publishing houses and the public in recent years. The regional Save the Short Story campaign has now gone national, and the aim of the show was to rekindle "the passion and flair" associated with short stories.

It certainly did that. From the thought-provoking The Three Fevers, to Pat Barker's heart-wrenching Mind The Gap, performed by Ace Bhatti, the audience was transfixed. There was plenty of laughter with Alan Plater's reading of A Short Walk on the Cutting Edge and Madaleine Moffat gave an excellent, heartfelt reading of Julia Darling's feisty elderly heroine in The Street.

Paul Magrs describes an almost obsessive love of books, which many readers may identify with, in his delightful The Great Big Book Exchange.

* More information on forthcoming events at the festival can be found at www.durhamliteraturefestival.org.

Michelle Hedger