What to watch this Easter? Limmy's Homemade Show and more reviewed

As families remain locked inside this Easter, Aidan Smith reviews the options for diversion on TV

Limmy's Homemade Show. Photographer: Brian Limond

Brian Limond’s comedy is far removed from Monty Python’s Life of Brian, even further away from Brian Conley and a million miles from the door-slamming, trouser-dropping farces of Brian Rix.

Limmy’s Homemade Show

The Scots funster who performs as Limmy is in what we used to call the post-pub slot, back when we were allowed out to pubs, but he has none of the usual accoutrements, such as Holly Willoughby doing something rude with fruit.

And yet by accident, design, limited budget, his weird world view or a combination of all four, he’s created a show for our lockdown times.

There he is stuck in his kitchen and wondering what life is “aw aboot” and, more urgently: “What do the numbers on the toaster mean?”

There he is throwing teabags at a cup and gambling his happiness – and yours and the world’s – on them going in. There he is seeing gurning versions of himself, slightly more like Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, in mirrors. He’s going mad. Just like we are.

In Limmy’s Homemade Show (BBC Scotland), he’s virtually housebound. On the odd occasions when he ventures outside he gets mugged (more like self-mugged). When he mentions “haun-dryers” you think ‘this man is right oan the money’.

Amazingly, he came up with the idea for this odd and original programme two years ago, which means he must be able to see into the future. So Limmy, answer me this: When, oh when can we get oot and aboot again and back to the pub?Ellie Undercover: Nudes4Sale

I couldn’t help thinking back to Limmy’s favourite kitchen device during Ellie Undercover: Nudes4Sale (BBC3/iPlayer). While girls wearing less and less clothes arranged themselves around their homes, in their kitchens and splayed out across shiny work-tops, the toasters became a sanctuary, upon which to gaze without embarrassment.

There was no embarrassment among Ellie Flynn’s subjects who can get rich selling nude photos and videos online. Lauren, 22, claims to earn £35,000 a month from what seems like prime lockdown opportunism. Maybe we’ll all be at it soon.

Her house is all tasteful greys. Fifty shades, indeed. Come to think of it, so’s Limmy’s. On you go, fella, sell that boady of yours. Seriously, though, this doc must have alarmed parents with daughters who spend all their time on TikTok – it did me – for there can’t be much of a jump from that to OnlyFans, which promotes the “work” of these young exhibitionists.

Boring office jobs or no jobs available of any sort brought some of the girls here, while for Sasha, 20, it was a combination of strict Christian upbringing and having a revealing photo sent to a boy she fancied being leaked round the school. Vengeance, she said, was getting the lads to pay for further shots.

But a Scottish girl, Hannah, admitted she’d flashed pics at 15, three years under the minimum age requirement. Why do it? “To make money and wear designer clothes, to be successful ... big.” Flynn, testing out the checks, was able to get round them easily using her cousin’s ID. Scary stuff.

Liar

So farewell, Liar (ITV), a whodunnit so tedious it managed to make us not much care how the hunt for the killer of the vile Andrew Earlham was concluded, just that – jeezo – it would be.

This was just the latest crime drama to visit grimness on a British seaside town. These shows are always the same. During the intro you admire the beach, the promenade, the prettily-painted terraces and then – yeuch! You find a jellyfish in your sandwich or drop your stick of rock in some donkey poo. Broadchurch, The Ice Cream Girls, Southcliffe and now Liar. Most have been on ITV. So, be careful, Portobello and Dunoon, if you’re invited to become a prime-time location – check the small print about the kind of show planned.

Will there, for instance, be improbability heaped on far-fetchedness layered with contrivedness? The first series of Liar was decent, but no-one thought to say ‘there’s nowhere for the characters to go’. A second run will be a bridge, or a pier, too far. This would be, notwithstanding the setting, jumping the shark.

If a shark had chased Earlham up the beach that might at least have explained how, having been chucked into the sea, he’d managed to untie himself and swim back to the shore in his suit. The detective, Karen Renton, had been shark-like in her relentless pursuit of Laura Neilson right up until the moment when she decided “stuff it”.

One more thing – could dramas lay off the drones now? They love directly-overhead camerawork for its sense of deep foreboding, but this has become a cliche.

Anyway, Derbyshire Polis are bound to win the Bafta for Best Use of a Drone for their harrying of lockdown flouters.