On TV

'I DON'T believe I'm hearing this," said Noah the gay footballer. Come off it, I felt like saying to him, remember this is Footballers' Wives - the ultimate in flash and trash, where anything goes.

Anything, that is, except football action on the pitch. A dressing room or shower scene is the closest you'll get to ball play. The Earls Park team are great at playing the field but as useful on the pitch as putting Long John Silver in goal.

Chairperson Hazel, who has the look of a woman that eats babies sunny-side-up for breakfast, had the measure of the Sparks players. "You make me sick," she told them. "I hope one day, when you can't kick a ball any more, yours shrivel up and drop off."

She was appalled at their behaviour on a golfing break in Spain where one of the sexy tequila cadets claimed she'd been raped by a footballer at a wild poolside party.

Conrad had willingly let these pink PVC-clad young ladies help him with his swing. "Who do you want to handle your wood - a 14-year-old Spanish lad or one of these?," he asked, as the spirited girls approached bearing alcoholic gifts.

In Noah's case, he'd have preferred the lad. He's come out of the closet and admitted he's gay. It was difficult to deny after he was seen on close circuit TV having sex with a male guest at a party.

He's now joined The Church of the Found which claims it can "turn him" into a heterosexual. But not before fellow player Darius inquired about the ins and outs of gay sex: "What do you do sexually? They never taught us at school". Clearly he didn't have a public school education.

Back home, the results of what Conrad does in bed with every available woman were appearing. Amber and Tanya both gave birth to his babies (allegedly, but more of that in a minute).

While Amber screamed and hollered in a birthing pool, Tanya laid back and thought of England - the England team, I suspect - while a Caesarean was performed. She didn't even remove her make-up. I'm surprised she wasn't on her mobile or buffing her nails during the operation.

There's a chance that the infant Troy is actually her late husband's (that's Frank, the bloated Brummie with the dicky ticker that she killed with too much sex).

Perish the thought, said Tanya, and arranged for her baby to be swapped with Amber's infant. Her accomplice smothers the baby in fake tan to give it Amber's dark complexion. It's the little details that count, don't you think?

This is the sort of situation at which Footballers' Wives excels. No storyline is too outrageous or distasteful to explore. The writers have lost none of their ability to take a serious situation and reduce it to trash TV of the highest order.

The 90-minute opener concluded with a scene so utterly sick and horrific that you could only gasp at the sheer cheek of it.

Lady Salsa, Sunderland Empire

THIS show gives new meaning to the term "all singing, all dancing". From the moment the curtain rises, we are assaulted with the sights and sounds of Cuba in all their resplendent glory. The band strikes up a tune and soon everyone is shaking and gyrating to the pulsating rhythm. At the centre of it all is Lady Salsa, an actress named Trinidad Rolando on whose life story the show is based.

When Rolando descended the steps, surrounded by adoring men, I must admit to having been a bit wrong-footed. Without any disrespect to her, I had expected someone impossibly slim and beautiful like the rest of the cast. Instead, she's a pretty normal-looking older woman - it only seemed a little unfair that she had such a lot to live up to. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Lady Salsa has a largely narrator's role, with the main vehicle being the lithe and lovely dancers.

We travel through Cuba's history from its discovery by Columbus 500 years ago to the 1950s, when it became a playground for rich mafiosos. From her home in the mountains, Lady Salsa seeks out the bright lights of Havana, where she meets stars like Carmen Miranda at the Club Tropicana. She even chats to the revolutionary Che Guevara, who encourages her to pursue her acting dreams.

The story is interesting enough, but really just a canvas for the sizzling music and dance, which are well worth the ticket price.

l Runs until Saturday. Box office 0870 6021130

Sarah Foster