TV highlights 18/10/2011

A Culture Show Special: The Booker Prize 2011 7pm, BBC2 Tonight's episode focuses on this year's version of the regular wheeze in which the programme asks the burghers of the Perthshire village of Comrie to run the rule over the Booker shortlist. The authors visit Comrie to make their cases and field questions before the villagers cast their vote. It's an engaging idea, but it would be nice if contrivances like this appeared as well as more serious literary programming on television, rather than instead of it. Andrew Mueller Fame In The Frame 8.30pm, Sky Arts 1 Lauren Laverne sits for this week's artistic reimagining. A self-proclaimed advocate of "no-brow" culture, her choice is apposite: Vladimir Tretchikoff's much maligned Chinese Girl. Artist John Myatt attempts to supplant Laverne's porcelain features into the work, while still maintaining the strange, greenish glow of the original. The idea of investigating both the artist and the subject through this rework is a promising one, yet Fame In The Frame seems curiously undercooked; we learn little of either Tretchikoff or Laverne that is truly illuminating. Gwilym Mumford Romanzo Criminale 9pm, Sky Arts 1 The Lebanese and his gang have a foothold in the drug business in Rome, but still have a lot of work to do when it comes to imposing their authority across the city. They're still somewhat inept and undisciplined, but increasingly ruthless and violent. The real problems come, though, when they discover they are being crossed by their business partners. As a drama it hasn't quite clicked – the emphasis is on narrative rather than character, so it often fails to wholly engage – but it feels like it has legs and warrants further viewing. Martin Skegg Behind Rebel Lines 9pm, Current TV Public dissent, civil unrest – whichever way you look at it, 2011 became the year of the protest. The Guide's Andrew Mueller gets an insider's view of the campaigns and stunts that pushed British politics from the voting booth and on to the streets. Granted access to a number of self-proclaimed pacifists and anarchists, Mueller tries to find out what motivates them. And, as a group of activists launch themselves at an arms fair in London's Docklands, he goes along to witness first-hand just what direct action can achieve. Nosheen Iqbal Mary Queen Of Frocks 9pm, Channel 4 Time to open Mary's first shop: a high street fashion store catering for women, not girls, stocked with her own Mary Portas Collection. But with the critics sharpening their talons, and the world's markets sliding into the sea, will she be able to hack it? As Lord Sugar's own wide-eyed ingenues could tell her, the second those doors swing open, you can bet on sod's law rearing its cackling head. But – spoilers – this is all academic. It happened; critics and public loved the gear; and we can all sleep soundly. Let's face it: this is Mary. There was never any doubt. Ali Catterall The Kid's Speech 10.35pm, BBC1 In 1993, Michael Palin gave his name to a centre for stammering children to help young people who suffer, as his father did, with a stammer. Palin is among those who appear in this fly-on-the-wall documentary, in which three kids (quiet Reggie, perfectionist William, both 10, and literate 14-year-old Bethan) attend an intensive course that it is hoped will free them from the agonies of this condition. There's no miracle cure, but amid the exercises, the aim here is to recognise strategies and move forward hopefully. John Robinson