Life class

FRIDAY night on the Chatsworth Estate and, what’s this, the pub is empty.

Clearly something is up. The residents of this Manchester area aren’t the sort of folk to curl up on the sofa with a cup of cocoa and the remote control to watch Grand Designs.

They’re likely to be out on the booze or on the rob, popping pills or downing pints, or availing themselves of the activities on offer down the local knocking shop.

Fear not. They haven’t turned over a new leaf. The landlord goes outside the pub and finds his customers filling the pavement and surrounding area. They’re having a fag.

He admits defeat. “All right, f*** the law – smoke inside,” he tells them. After that, it’s business as usual. The programme should carry a health warning in light of all the lighting up, as well as the sex, drugs and rock’n’roll lifestyles of the Chatsworth inhabitants.

Leading the way, as the series enters its sixth raucous series, is Frank (David Threlfall), head of the Gallagher clan and chief reprobate.

He’s become a father again to baby Stella, who’s threatening to go on hunger strike. How do parents Frank and Monica (Annabelle Apsion) know? Because Stella is “talking” to them, channelling her thoughts in their heads.

She informs them that if they can’t find one good man on the Chatsworth Estate, she’s not staying. “Why would anyone choose to live here?” she asks.

This doesn’t stop Frank chastising his new daughter for using bad language (something that’s commonplace on the Chatsworth). “No swearing before you’re six months,” he tells her.

Finding one good man, or woman for that matter, proves difficult. He and Monica run through a list of contenders. One is dismissed for boiling the neighbour’s parrot on the stove, another cut up his mother in the bath.

As Frank says philosophically, “One person’s good person is another man’s a***hole.”

The adult Gallagher children have problems too. Debbie is celebrating her 16th birthday and going public about boyfriend Tom, who’s a policeman. This makes them the Romeo and Juliet of the Chatsworth.

Ian Gallagher is lucky. He’s lost his memory after a car accident and can’t recall anything, including the fact that he’s gay.

Shameless has lost none of its shambolic appeal in which dozens of characters vie for attention amid all the sex, swearing and thieving. At its best, the show is laugh-out-loud funny and touching at the same time.

For creator Paul Abbott, Shameless is something of a mirror image of his early years. “It’s a real scotch broth of my experience,”

he says.

“But it’s not bleak or sentimental, it’s the total opposite – just really funny and outrageous. I hung onto the title for its irony, the kind of accusation outsiders would have chucked at my family back in the 1970s.

“To observers, we were a chaotic bunch of kids trying to bring ourselves up after both parents had walked. No doubt about it, we were a mess. But how were we to know that?”

Paul was 11 when his father left him and his nine siblings to fend for themselves, following their mother’s departure two years previously. In the crowded council house in which he grew up, writing stories was a means of escape.

Thirty years later, he turned his traumatic childhood experiences into a sevenpart drama and it’s still going.

If you want more Shameless, episode two of the new series follows on E4 at 11pm.

Trinny & Susannah Meet Their Match (ITV1, 8pm)

IN the final programme of the series, Trinny and Susannah meet the Sex Bombs – more mature ladies who love to dress to impress regardless of their age. Susannah takes one look and thinks all their nightmares have come at once.

Their ultimate challenge will be to transform the women from brassy to classy, while retaining the sense of confidence they get from their sexy attire.

But the pair won’t be getting their hands on the sex bombs until they’ve experienced their lifestyle and clothes first hand.