Madonna and Mercy: What Really Happened, 8pm, Channel 4

If ever two people were less destined to meet, it’s Madonna and Mercy James. At least, that’s according to presenter Jacques Peretti who travelled to Malawi in an attempt to uncover the truth behind the recent adoption saga.

So on the one hand, we have the 50-year-old Queen of Pop - a “single mum from New York”, who co-founded the Raising Malawi charity with Kabbalah leader Philippe van den Bossche. And on the other, we have a four-year-old “orphan” who’s been offered a “better” life overseas. Except, of course, Mercy isn’t really an orphan because her father is still alive - but who cares about technicalities like that when the most famous woman in the world bowls up with wads of cash and a maternal glint in her eye?

Last night’s documentary made for uncomfortable - and often confusing - viewing. And, as is so often the case with this kind of programme, it posed more questions than it answered. Is Madonna saving Mercy from poverty or depriving her of her culture and country? Was her adoption an act of charity or immoral and wrong? And what’s Kabbalah got to do with it all?

Peretti seemed keen to press home his theory that the whole thing smacks of white colonialism: just as 19th-century Christian missionaries headed into Africa armed with Bibles, Madonna and the gang are setting up children’s centres in Malawi that promote their “loony religion”.

But when the cameras were allowed inside Mercy’s former home - the Kundanani Orphanage - Peretti found it nigh-on impossible to find fault with the set-up. Madonna has pumped $12 million (£7.2m) of her own money into Malawi - and if that means hundreds of otherwise poverty-stricken children are getting a high standard of care and education, what’s the problem?

Of course, Mercy is now safely ensconced in Madonna’s world - so only time will tell how life pans out for her and whether she thinks her new mum was right to adopt her. Is a life being hounded by the paparazzi better than one spent in a remote village in Africa? I’m not sure I could answer that - could you?