Precious Babies (ITV1) First Love, Second Chance (ITV1) No Angels (C4) - The process of IVF treatment is stressful and traumatic enough, I'd have thought, without having to bother with cameras following your every move.

But the appetite of ordinary people for sharing their lives with the rest of us - whether we want to be there or not - continues with Precious Babies, which follows couples desperate for children undergoing IVF treatment.

The programme certainly highlights the sacrifices would-be parents have to make, along with the pain and the anguish of trying to conceive by this method. You could only admire the honesty of the two couples featured in the first instalment.

Six years ago, when Emma was expecting their son, husband Alastair learnt he had cancer. He was left sterile after chemotherapy, although beforehand his sperm had been stored for later use. They'd been allotted two tries on the NHS, which made it sound too much like a game show for my liking. Their first had failed, sending them back to the bottom of the waiting list.

Doctors told the second couple, Lindsay and Barry, that there was no reason why they couldn't have children, but it had never happened. They'd waited two years for IVF treatment.

At various times, it was the men who were found in floods of tears. For Alastair, all the time spent in hospital revived memories of his cancer treatment. For Barry, there were tears of joy when one of his wife's eggs was fertilised.

There was a happy ending for both couples. Lindsay is 34 weeks pregnant. Emma has given birth to a son.

The makers of First Love, Second Chance request that the ending of their programme is not revealed, so I can't tell you if Gill and Mark find love the second time around.

They'd last seen each other 18 years ago, after a holiday romance in Torremolinos. Since then Gill had become a single mum and Mark had been married and divorced.

Things didn't start well. They hardly recognised each other on meeting up again. The older Mark didn't tally with her memory of a good-looking 18-year-old lad. And his memory couldn't recall the details of their previous relationships.

They moved in with each other - in separate beds, I should point out - for a trial period. They met each other's friends. Both owned up to secrets they'd kept from the other. Finally, they had to confess their true feelings in video messages to each other.

This is a more serious twist on Blind Date, with the main difference being that the participants know each other. It also makes for watchable TV as you see friends reunited and encountering all the horrors you'd expect after so many years apart. Memory, after all, plays strange tricks on all of us.

Dating can be hell as the nurses in the returning drama No Angels will testify. Anji's annoyed because CCTV has been installed in the store room, ruining her romantic moments. "It's the only room with a lock on it. Where are we going to go for a shag?," she asked. She could always ask a bedridden patient to move over.

High Society, Darlington Civic Theatre

WITH such a well-loved plot, the production is all about performance and whether the songbook contains the jazz boogie-woogie beat of the 1956 film or opts for the smooth, high-kicking style developed for the show since the mid-1990s. The latter rules and while older fans will mourn the Louis Armstrong-Bing Crosby swing, the addition of Cole Porter classics like I Love Paris, Just One Of Those Things and Let's Misbehave are still cracking entertainment.

Graham Bickley stars as Dexter Haven - returning to wreck the second wedding of his ex-wife - the fiery Tracy Lord, a Long Island ice maiden who learns some lessons in love. Katherine Kingsley is the first touring Tracy I've seen who can sexily sing, dance and act and this is one performance society will treasure for some time. Paul Robinson, no slouch in the song and dance department, is the Spy Magazine reporter Mike Connor who gives us a sniff of Sinatra as his character woos the drunken Tracy on the eve of her wedding.

The set of a white shiny latticed gazebo would give the mighty Tommy Walsh, of Ground Force fame, palpitations. But it's cleverly marshalled by director Ian Talbot and choreographer Gillian Gregory for the needs of the 12-strong ensemble and nine main cast, including Liza Goddard, making her musical debut as Mother Lord.

Viv Hardwick

Runs until Saturday. Box Office (01325) 486 555

Published: 16/03/2005