Sex! Ah, you’ve gone all uncomfortable, haven’t you. Blushing and wriggling in your chair. Is someone watching you read this? What if … what if they see the word “Sex!” there, right at the top? They’re going to think you’re a pervert, aren’t they? They’re going to tell all the neighbours. Your life as you know it is going to end. Maybe take this to a private room and finish it there.
Anyway, now you’ve calmed down, Channel 4 is back with a second series of Sex Actually With Alice Levine (Monday 27 February, 10pm). Shows such as these don’t normally make it to series two – a roving reporter, going on a hyper-itineraried trip around Berlin or Northampton or the US, probing gently (and with an occasional raised eyebrow) at generous interviewees who explain their one-degree-from-usual approaches to sex and intimacy, accompanied by a closeup shot of the gnarled fingers of a sex doll? But what makes Sex Actually With Alice Levine so good is her. There is nobody else in Britain who can so cheerfully go “Oh! OK so that’s my penis” in a VR sex dungeon in Berlin and make it seem like something between a fun jape and a deeply important emotional toolkit for the modern world.
