By Tom Sutcliffe The Weekend's Television CRACKING UP SUN BBC2 STEPHEN FRY IN AMERICA SUN BBC1 THE AMERICAN FUTURE: A HISTORY, BY SIMON SCHAMA FRI BBC2 The not inconsiderable number of people who've fantasised about one day seeing Alastair Campbell in a prison cell got their wish last night, though the stay was a lot shorter than they might have wanted.

By JANE SIMON OIL may be dominating the headlines, but it's water - or rather the lack of it - that's posing the biggest threat to America's future.

By Arifa Akbar David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party, the crime fiction writer PD James and the acclaimed historian Simon Schama, are to take centre stage at Woodstock Literary Festival this weekend.

By Boyd Tonkin In print and on screen, Simon Schama's tour of the American past challenges cliches as his adopted home faces a history-making election.

By Chris Hicks Deseret News These disparate TV series all arrive on DVD for the first time this week. "A History of Britain" (History/BBC, 2000-02, five discs, $39.95).