A magnificent creature confronts extinction with a smile on his lips.

Terry Pratchett: Facing Extinction, BBC2; Prison Dads, BBC3; Are you having a laugh? Comedy and Christianity, BBC1

For Sir Terry Pratchett, the world’s bestselling comic author since the Eighties, the defining moment of his life has nothing to do with books.
It happened while shooting a conservation film on a jungle trail in Borneo, 30 years ago, when he came face to face with a 300lb orangutan called Kusasi.
Any fan of Pratchett’s Discworld novels, set on a magical, medieval planet populated by wizards, witches, dwarves and trolls, will know one of the chief characters is an orangutan — a university librarian who says nothing but ‘Oook!’

 

Touching: Author Terry Pratchett showed viewers an entertaining and moving journey to Borneo in Facing Extinction

His huge affection for the creatures made Terry Pratchett: Facing Extinction a touching as well as highly entertaining watch. Pratchett is incapable of phrasing anything, even the most tragic sentiment, without a touch of humour.
‘I’m a writer,’ he introduced himself. ‘I’m known among other things for having Alzheimer’s. I suppose many people will assume I’m about to go the way of the dinosaurs. I try to ignore my inevitable extinction and just carry on living my life.’
He was returning to Indonesia in the hope of seeing Kusasi in the wild again — and of holding back the illness that is slowly eroding his memory, slurring his speech and making it difficult for him to perform everyday tasks such as tying his shoelaces.
In a spectacular pointed hat that made him look much like a barking-mad wizard, this loveable and inspiring man went wading through swamps, sailing up jungle rivers and hacking along trails.

Redoubtable: Politician Ann Widdecombe stood up for Christianity in Are You Having A Laugh?

His insights were often poetic: flying over landscapes that once had been virgin rainforest but now were palm oil plantations, he mused: ‘This is what the Garden of Eden looks like when money is involved.’
He didn’t find Kusasi, but he did see the ape that has replaced him as the local dominant male, an orangutan nicknamed Tom. And he was clearly living out his own, brave philosophy: ‘For anyone facing their personal extinction, my advice is to live every last precious moment.’
That philosophy was one the young fathers in Prison Dads needed urgently to learn.
In their teens and early 20s, the inmates at Glen Parva young offenders institute in Leicester are five times more likely to be parents than other men their age.
This documentary had none of the glamour of the current BBC1 drama, Prisoners’ Wives. The most frustrating case was a 20-year-old called Michael, who called himself a full-time criminal: this was his third prison sentence.
He had two babies by two different women — one of them, a sad-eyed teenager called Josie, was willing to forgive him anything, if he would only commit to an honest family life.
She had discovered Michael had made another girl pregnant, shortly after she gave birth to their son, Rhys. ‘I wanted the ground to just eat me,’ she said. But she kept visiting Michael in jail, and on the day he was released she sat at home with his mum, waiting for him. He didn’t bother turning up.

 

Religious japes: John Cleese and Eric Idle in comedy hit Monty Python And The Holy Grail

Another young dad, Max, was 22 and serving five years for a street brawl that left a man badly hurt. Max had slowly come to understand that his destructive behaviour had hurt the people he loved most — his girlfriend Becca, 20, and their son Freddie.
On his first weekend visit home, Max was shocked at how much work it took to care for a toddler. But at least he seemed willing to try.
Speaking of triers, on Are You Having A Laugh? the redoubtable Ann Widdecombe was attempting to understand why most stand-up comics take it for granted that their young audiences are all atheists — and that Christianity is a fair target for any joke, however scabrous.
I’m a Christian and, like Ann, I get fed up of people assuming that, if I’ve got a sense of humour, I can’t have a faith.
But it was impossible to take this documentary seriously once I’d realised that Ann’s shrill voice sounds exactly like Monty Python’s screechy old biddies. You’d have to laugh at the idea of Ann announcing stridently, ‘He’s not the Messiah. He’s a very naughty boy!’