WITH the exception of the fall of the Twin Towers, no recent major event has been conveyed to the world in such a sensational way as the 2004 Asian tsunami. TV news reports of the time gave us a terrifying cyclorama of images and sounds . . . the first sight of the killer wave as caught by awestruck amateur cameramen, the ensuing screams as realisation dawned, the surge of brown water through luxury holiday complexes and shanty villages, those dreadful scenes of piles and rows of dead bodies, the testimonies of survivors . . . that is still logged in the minds of everyone. So to attempt to create a fictional drama based on these events seems like folly. But such an idea does not take account of the fact that a well-written, well-made drama can capture human truths, and coax out wider ones, better than 'news'; by concentrating on individuals and smaller moments, a good drama cuts to the heart, and puts you right in the eye of the storm, so to speak, with far more ease.

The first part of Tsunami: The Aftermath was a really effective piece of work. It was skilfully written, and it had great performances, especially from Chiwetel Ejiofor and Sophie Okonedo as a couple desperately searching for their child, and Tim Roth as a creepy reporter on the trail of the 'big' story. It was also superbly paced, one of those long, quiet dramas that held you in a rapt hush for its length and readjusted your sense of perspective . . . however temporarily . . . for the better. Just one wish for next week though: I hope Ejiofor and Okonedo's characters find their child. I'd like to think there'll be a glint of light at the end of it all.

Now, imagine this scene. You're walking around a seaside resort that's seen better days when the sound of a voice singing in an aching blues style catches your attention. You turn to find a guitarplaying busker; he's getting well on in years but his long hair says he's clinging to past glories. Some of the fingers on his stiff, barely working, strumming hand look like they've been chopped off and sewn back on. He's clearly got talent though. You get talking to him and you find out that he's just playing for his next drink. Then you get talking some more and an incredible life story emerges.

Turns out that he was in a band produced by Jimi Hendrix. That he had a love affair with Janis Joplin. That he played at Woodstock. That he was in Wings.

But in the shadow of the highs lay drink and drugs and a portent of downfall.

It's a yarn that could grace a cracking novel (although you'd probably, in fairness, if you were to write it, leave out the bit about Wings). Because the life story of Henry McCullough, from Portstewart, Co Antrim, has a real epic quality; biblical, kind of . . . this being Would You Believe, it's a tale, ultimately, of spirituality and redemption. (And McCullough found his on a chicken farm. ) But a half-hour slot did not do it justice.

Take the Janis Joplin story . . . we were told it was a "long-running romance", but the programme was done with it in about a minute.

I've read too many trouble-inparadise tales, seen The Wicker Man and Westworld and other utopia-gone-wrong films too many times, to know that Oilean: Atlantis, a documentary about a community of 'screamers' who lived on a Donegal island in '70s, would only lead to tragedy. There was no reason why it should have, of course, but I felt it would, and it did. The screamers lived a lifestyle based on ideas of letting out repressed feelings through tantrums. A film-maker who had previous dealings with the 'Atlantis' community said they were the "most bitter and angry people I ever met"; archive footage of them, captured in 1979, made them come over really nuts, and Burtonport residents interviewed described how bemused they were by their presence in the locale. But the one screamer they did manage to catch up with in 2006 seemed like a sane and lovely person. It made it all the more poignant then to find out that her son, Tristan Murray, was murdered by Farc rebels in 2001, after the community had uprooted to Colombia.

I was expecting (and guiltily hoping for) the worst in the first episode of The Secret Millionaire.

The premise is: filthy rich person lives undercover a while in a deprived area, decides who's most worthy of his patronage, gives some of his squids away. I thought we might have been in for another Bum Fights: a cult US show from a few years back in which homeless people fought each other for food.

And I was right to expect the worst, but in a different way to what I thought . . . most of the programme was really dull and worthy. But then minted Ben Way came to dole out his money, some tinkly piano music rose up, the recipients were visibly moved . . .and so, despite myself, was I. Just the tonic in a harrowing TV week.