The Return (ITV1) The Welsh Great Escape (C4): A WOMAN puts on make-up as though she's going somewhere special. Lizzie Hunt is - this is the day she's released from prison after serving ten years for killing her doctor husband with a broken bottle.

"All I want is my boy back," she said, although it was a remote possibility as the terms of her licence didn't allow her near the teenager.

The Return followed alcoholic Lizzie's attempts to stay off drink and win round her son, a task hampered by increasingly vivid flashbacks of what really happened the night of the murder.

The drama benefited from Julie Walters in the central role. Given a lesser actress, this could have degenerated into melodrama or simply a bad thriller. Walters illuminated every scene in which she appeared - and she was in most of them - and helped retain the interest in this slow-moving drama.

The final twist was a satisfying one that few will have guessed in advance. Equally surprising was The Welsh Great Escape, which recounted a breakout by 70 German PoWs in the dying days of the Second World War.

Bridgend residents, who were children during the war, and several prisoners relived the escape.

Camp Number 198 in the small Welsh town was reserved exclusively for officers. As Gerald Price, nine at the time, recalled: "They marched as if they were going to occupy us, not be put into confinement."

The Germans were determined not to stay under lock and key for long in the camp run by Lt Col Darling. His daughter, Fiona, recalled his chat-up line was: "Don't be formal, call me Darling."

It was stuff like this that made the programme such a treat. The whole thing was a bit like one of those Ealing comedies.

Some ideas for escaping were rejected as ridiculous. They included floating away in a hot air balloon (abandoned when they realised they'd never be able to hide it from the guards) and pole-vaulting over the fence.

Residents weren't worried by rumours of sinister happenings inside the camp. They considered the PoWs no more dangerous than patients in the local mental hospital.

Prisoners decided to tunnel out from hut nine. Their guards failed to notice that they built a false wall in the hut to hide the earth mined for the tunnel. Using Blue Peter-style ingenuity, an air pipe was made out of empty milk tins as they spent four months digging the 60ft tunnel. Sixty years later the tunnel was re-opened and was found to be virtually intact.

Chances of getting away were slim as they had few civilian clothes, no papers and little money. Some tried to steal the village doctor's car, but it wouldn't start. Fortunately three British soldiers came along and helped them jumpstart the vehicle.

Others weren't so lucky. Three escapees, disguised as miners, boarded a bus. But they didn't chat with other passengers, which was considered very un-Welsh. The driver took a detour to the police station and they were captured.

After four hungry days on the loose, four prisoners were only too glad to surrender when confronted by Miss Olive Nichol, Glamorgan Commissioner for Guides. They offered little resistance even though she was "armed only with a saucepan and a full English breakfast".

Published: ??/??/2003