Television
5 MAY
DRAMA
9.00pm BBC1 Catch up via iPlayer
For my money, The Responder was robbed at last year’s Bafta TV Awards, coming away empty-handed despite four nominations. It’s a Class A crime drama, the kind that puts a thumbscrew on its characters — mainly stressed Liverpool cop Chris Carson (Martin Freeman) — and keeps turning. I’m not sure why watching decent, compromised people go through hell feels so worthwhile but writer Tony Schumacher has a knack for it that puts this up there with Sally Wainwright’s Happy Valley.
At the end of series one, Chris somehow managed to extricate himself from the nightmare around a stolen bag of drugs, but not in a way any HR department would endorse. Now, within moments, we’re back in his pressure-cooker world as a night-time response officer alongside Rachel Hargreaves (Adelayo Adedayo). Chris was once an inspector and his former oppo Debs (Amaka Okafor) — still a high-flyer — leans on him for a slightly dodgy favour involving the arrest of a drug dealer. It doesn’t go to plan.
PROPERTY
Dream 8.00pm C4 Catch up via C4 streaming
NEW SERIES
Ceramicist Keith Brymer Jones is often moved to tears on The Great Pottery Throw Down, but when he and his partner Marj Hogarth bought a derelict 160-year-old chapel in Pwllheli with the plan of moving in “lock, stock and kiln”, it was the terrible state of the place that threatened to make him cry.
Capel Salem had stood empty for 14 years, apart from pigeons who had deposited a load of toxic poo, while the building also had dry rot. Turning it into a home and a working pottery, while being mindful of its aesthetic and history, is challenging, though Brymer Jones promises “there’ll be no PVC windows or doors”. Or tears?
INTERVIEW
8.30pm BBC4 Catch up via iPlayer The much-loved Palin talks to John Wilson about the creative influences and experiences of his youth, in this engaging series first broadcast on Radio 4. It’s no surprise The Goon Show was one of them, which he loved, although when his father heard the voices, he thought the radio had broken. Michael decided that “some people couldn’t suspend their seriousness” enough to enjoy the comic silliness which, of course, was equally fundamental to Monty Python. He also talks about meeting Terry Jones at university and his work with John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and Graham Chapman. BBC4 also has repeats of three Palin documentaries this evening.
DRAMA
9.00pm ITV1 Full series on ITVX Nothing about this drama is subtle, so after the focus on Dr Matthew Nolan’s (Richard Armitage) vegan meal equated to it having been poisoned, it’s no surprise that lingering shots of a champagne glass result in him being drugged.
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