Faking It
C4

Omnibus: The Billy Elliot Boy
BBC2

Night and Day
ITV

You wouldn't think it, but the culinary control-freak Gordon Ramsay turns out to make a wincing, nail-biting, surprisingly nervyDoctor Frankenstein. He even hid his big bull(y)'s head in his hands while David Laris, head chef of Conran's Mezzo, observed,with ill-concealed delight: 'We've created a monster!'

Elsewhere, scrutinised by both CCTV and the ordinary type, their fabulous protégé, Ed Devlin, a 30-year-old Geordie burger-vanman-turned-haute cuisine luvvie, was cajoling his team to victory in a competitive cook-off against a bunch of pros: a fabulouslyexciting, chest-bursting finale to the first in the new series of the compulsively watchable Faking It.

As Ed's red mullet turned out delicately seared, the ravioli divinely al dente , the duck prettily pink and the chocolate fondantNigella-ishly crumbly and oozing (when the latter was declared 'a triumph' by the judges I punched the air), somehow our unlikelyhero had shed the sweetly diffident persona of cheery local burger-flipper and assumed enough skill and attitude to create allthis in a mere four weeks, from a standing start (previously his signature dish had involved beans, toast and cheese: 'You want plenty of cheese...').

When we first met gentle Ed, unfailingly polite (even when saying 'fuck', which he did a lot, it was with charm) and unable to boilvegetables without reducing them to baby mush, I wouldn't have rushed down to Ladbrokes with a fiver - partly because I madethe mistake of thinking that the burger-braiser might be one condiment short of a spice rack, though this was far from the case.

Ed soon revealed himself to be a right little Raj Persaud, particularly after his first day in Ramsay's infamously brutal kitchen: 'I'venever seen so many unhappy people. Him included. It's like hell. I'm really glad I don't have to live in his head. What's worse than death? Being Gordon Ramsay for the rest of your life.'

But, By Jove (etc)! Under David's tutelage Ed had already learned to julienne his veg (not that Ramsay had much time for froggy-style slicing and dicing: 'Who's Julian?' he inquired of his staff, who sniggered sycophantically) and after some tips from an acting coach had also stopped the forelock-tugging. Along the way he came second in a Brownie pack cookery competition(beaten by an eight-year-old) and held his own during the potentially confidence-flattening task of refereeing a football match between Ramsay's team and one from Mezzo (7-0 to Mezzo). By his third week he was in the unimaginably thrilling position of being praised by Ramsay ('That is brilliant. I'm very happy with that'), at which point his toothy grin was matched by my own. In fact, I rewound this scene and watched it three more times, just to make sure it had happened.

Then I watched the whole thing again, later, when it was broadcast. And after that I went on-line to Channel 4 to find out what has happened to Ed since winning the competition. He's still in touch with David Laris, apparently (he'd even been offered a job at Mezzo) and now thinks rather more highly of Ramsay (who had, sweetly, enveloped him in a hug when he won), but he's still flipping burgers because haute cuisine demands '100 per cent of you, 100 per cent of the time' and he's not sure he's cut out forit.

I imagine that, after this, he'll have his pick of restaurant jobs in Newcastle, even if he'll have to broaden his repertoire (though, come to think of it, there's plenty of scope for duck with beans, cheese on ravioli and red mullet on toast). This was a deeply loveable bit of television, wonderfully directed.

I think I'd rather be living my life the Devlin way around than, say, the Jamie Bell way. Jamie who? Exactly: he was The Billy Elliot Boy , the kid who beat Russell Crowe to the Best Actor Bafta last year. 'To the victor, the spoils' said the vanquished Gladiator at the time ('That poor man must be devastated,' said Jamie's mum, Eileen), but a year or so down the line it looks like the victor was simply spoilt.

Imagine you're an adolescent who is hurtled from a comp in Cleveland straight on to a movie set, directed by Stephen Daldry and acting alongside Julie Walters. Then, just as you get your first pimples, you're catapulted into the head-spinningly bonkers arena of movie junkets, interviews, award shows, photo shoots, premieres and sitting in limos chatting to Macaulay Culkin on the mobile.

And then when it's all over and your Bafta is back home on top of the telly you return to a school where everyone treats you like a freak, the girls who used to ignore you queue for your autograph, your sister still insists she's the better tap-dancer ('He's always been the favourite,' she adds sadly) and your single-parent mum won't take any nonsense from her twinkle-toed little starlet. Tough enough at 30, unimaginably grim at 14.

Daldry hasn't abandoned Bell, however. He's become a surrogate dad ('It's great. You get the film, you get the kid!') and, perhaps, a necessary male role model, so Jamie now spends five days a week toiling in Cleveland before escaping down south, lolling poolside, learning to shoot and drive the Jeep (an extra from Saving Private Ryan ) that Daldry bought him for his birthday. It's also about wearing T-shirts that say FUCK YOU, and discussing fledgling romances ('She might just want to go out with me because I've been in a film. But I don't think so') with daddy-Daldry (gay, so maybe not much help with the girl-stuff), and about leaving mum, sister and mates behind, widening the already yawning chasm (Jamie forgot to thank his mum when he won the Bafta, but she thinks it's 'good to choose your own family'). Just like David Laris and Gordon Ramsay, Stephen Daldry might just have created a monster, but unlike Ed Devlin this is one that will never quite fit in back home. 'I think I've changed,' says Bell, 'I'm a right tosser now. I think I'm a dick.' Perhaps he'd like to consider catering college.

Or what about a nice part in a soap? There's a degree of job security, a decent salary and their award shows are quite jolly affairs. And even if you don't get to hang with Russell Crowe very often, you might find yourself on the cover of Heat , or as a guest on So Graham Norton . British Soapdom provides a nice, healthy, cosy, middling, parochial, Claire-Sweeneyish sort of celebrity - just the thing to keep a former teenage film star from turning into a Jack Wilde-child.

But then along comes ITV's new soap, Night And Day , to reveal that the genre can be wildly hip and glossy, not to mention middle-class. After only three episodes viewers are still struggling to remember names and work out familial ties, but the show has wasted no time in staking its territory: there's a thumping soundtrack (right up front, not just whispering tinnily on the QueenVic's jukebox) by madly trendy artists like Goldfrapp (the title song is sung by Kylie). There are also flashbacks, dreamsequences, considerable usage of mobile phones (tragically not yet widely available in Albert Square), smart, feisty dialogueamong characters who do very unsudsy stuff like smoke cannabis and talk about sex.

There is, too, a cast of quite extraordinary loveliness (Lysette Anthony as a local hairdresser and put-upon mum? Well, quite).Even if Jamie Bell might not want to be in it, I'd bet he'll watch Night and Day - a teen-dream of a modern soap that, in its edgier, re-edited late-night omnibus edition, adults should enjoy too.

By the end of episode three, Night and Day's 16 year-old suburban bitch-Lolita, Jane Harper (dressed like a character from Clueless and pouting like Mena Suvari in American Beauty ), was missing from her own birthday party (presumed dead, and it's not looking too good for Lysette's partner Joe McGann). But even if she disappears for good there is a handful of other young lip-glossed lovelies in the wings, waiting to bring a touch of Beverly Hills 90210 to Greenwich High Street.

Looks like ITV might have a huge cult hit on its hands, in which case some time in the future we might expect to see a DavidLynch-inspired makeover of Emmerdale (providing several more log ladies to add to the wooden cast), a Baz Luhrmann-esque vision of Brookie (all-singing, all-dancing, all-fighting_), a Stephen Daldry-ish Corrie (no, come to think of it, that's already happened) and, best of all, a black and white Wim Wenders' EastEnders (Phil as a fat angel, winging it over Walford). Welcome to the twenty-first century, soapwatchers.