Aidan Smith’s TV picks

Published on 24/06/2012 00:00

This week Aidan will be watching …

PICK OF THE WEEK Line Of Duty

Tuesday, BBC2, 9pm

The day he’s due to collect an officer-of-the-year award, Tony Gates (Lennie James) apprehends two robbers while skiving off work to have lunch with his mistress. Too good to be true? The anti-corruption unit certainly think so. “No one’s that good,” mutters cop-buster Adrian Dunbar, who’s just recruited Martin Compston after the latter wouldn’t help cover up a botched anti-terrorist raid resulting in the death of an innocent man. These two have got their work cut out: Gates is an expert at massaging crime clear-up rates and there are plenty on the force who look up, and suck up, to him, among them Paul Higgins, best known as The Thick Of It’s Jamie MacDonald, a man who definitely didn’t do ingratiation. Gina McKee and Vicky McClure also figure in Jed Mercurio’s highly promising drama.

BEST SPORT

Euro 2012 Live

Sunday, BBC1, 7pm

It’s the quarter-finals, England’s traditional exit-point, but traditionally there has been hype, jingoism, a nation over-expecting. This time no one really fancied them so could they go further than any side in white shirts since Euro 96? Italy stand in the way. Their tournament traditions are to start slowly, fly under the radar and, when no one’s looking, sneak the trophy.

BEST COMEDY

Alan Partridge

Monday, Sky Atlantic, 9pm

Subtitled Welcome To The Places Of My Life, this is Steve Coogan’s broadcaster buffoon on a new channel for a guided tour of his native Norfolk – the “Wales of the East”, as he would have it. The last series of Partridge on the BBC fell short of the usual brilliance but the recent autobiography and those beer-sponsored online shows seem to have revitalised him.

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  I’VE always had a soft spot for the flatlands of England, down the right-hand corner, and this is entirely because two absolute and indisputable heroes of my goggle-box childhood, Spike Milligan (for Q5) and Oliver Postgate (Noggin The Nog), resided there and I was fortunate enough to interview both of these great eccentrics at home before they died.

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