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Television: today's pick

Tuesday 17 March 1998 19:02 EST
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Modern Times: Bare (9pm BBC2) If we are to believe the lifestyle glossies, clutter is cool once again - in moderation anyway. For a great part of this decade, however, minimalism has been the interior decorating style de rigueur - a supposed reaction against the conspicuous consumption of the 1980s (I'll buy that). But what is it like to live in such an austere environment? Rebecca Frayn's documentary tries to make something out of nothing and meets a couple with a flat designed by the Italian minimalist Claudio Silvestrin, which they're having to sell because it's not particularly baby friendly (they're having difficulties finding a buyer, but that might have more to do with the pounds 2m price tag), and a hairdresser to the supermodels, who is battling the architects who won't allow him to install a burgundy carpet.

First on Four (10pm C4) In the light of healthy ratings for Heroes of Comedy, Channel 4 celebrates/recycles/pats itself on the back for "discovering" such 1980s comic acts as Julian Clary, Ruby Wax, The Comic Strip and, in this opener, Harry Enfield, whom we watch metamorphose from Stavros, the mispronouncing kebab shop philosopher, into the cherub-cheeked millionaire we know and love today.

THe film

Outbreak (9pm ITV) A kind of Jaws for the Aids era - Wolfgang Petersen's sly and exciting (initially, anyway) 1995 eco-thriller follows what happened when a deadly airborne virus is accidentally transported to America from Africa. Dustin Hoffman is appealing enough as an army medic fighting both virus and the army high-ups conspiring to keep the whole thing top secret, and a particularly useful cast also includes Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Donald Sutherland and Kevin Spacey.

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