Veep with Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a slick political satire

TV editor Lyndall Crisp selects Veep as her pick of the week on pay television.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer lurches from one disaster to another in Veep.

TV editor Lyndall Crisp selects Veep as her pick of the week on pay television.

Veep

Tuesday, 9.35pm, SoHo

Initially I thought this series too silly but, having stayed with it, I’ve been seduced by the slick and funny script. Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld, In the Loop) is perfect in the role as the super-confident but ditzy former senator Selina Meyer who becomes US vice-president. It’s satire at its best and high farce as Meyer lurches from one disaster to another. Her faux pas are classics as she skates over the issues of the day. The bumbling, obsequious team around her is fiercely loyal and determined to keep her on track, although that’s asking a bit much given her unpredictability. My favourite character is gauche Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons), White House liaison to the VP’s office, whom no one likes. Between dashing around with the proverbial clipboard, Meyer has a few inappropriate dalliances including with her ex-husband Andrew (David Pasquesi). She feels unappreciated by the Pres but defends him at every opportunity. This double episode is from season one (season four is being filmed). In Nicknames, Meyer is upset by what people are calling her on social media, and in Baseball she gets some surprising news while listening to children sing If You’re Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands. (Think: the footage of George W. Bush getting news of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.) The series has clocked several awards, including three Emmys for Louis-Dreyfus.

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Secret Life of ...

Saturday, 4.30pm, Studio

Something of a marathon, this 3½-hour program is a series of profiles of some pretty fascinating but not always pleasant characters. Starting with Casanova, it moves on to the Borgias, Caligula, Marquis de Sade, Mata Hari, Catherine the Great and ends with Louis XIV. You may think you know them, or think you know as much as you want to know, but the producers have gathered some interesting material, much of which they swear is new.

Access 360 World Heritage

Saturday, 7.30pm, Nat Geo

How could anyone not love Venice, except perhaps during summer school holidays? Aargh. This series goes behind the scenes to look at how certain UNESCO’s World Heritage sites are preserved. In this case it’s a whole city, Venice, which for years has suffered devastating floods. But it’s not just the Adriatic Sea that is the enemy, it’s the crustaceans that come with the rising water levels and attack the wooden doors, foundations and piers. Marine biologists and engineers explain how they hope to save the canal city, which dates back to 421AD.

Full Circle With Michael Palin

Sunday, 5.35pm, UKTV

It took Michael Palin 10 months to travel the 80,000km around the rim of the Pacific Ocean beginning on the Diomede Islands between Alaska and Russia in the Bering Strait to make this series. In this episode he travels across the notorious Sulu Sea in a leaky boat to Borneo where he visits an orang-utan rehabilitation centre. Then it’s on to Java. A travel series of a very different kind, as one would expect from a former Monty Python comedian.

Hawking

Sunday, 7.30pm, Discovery

Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) stars as the brilliant physicist Stephen Hawking who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease aged 21. Made in 2004, the film starts with Hawking, a PhD student at Cambridge University, celebrating at his 21st birthday party. He collapses, unable to get up; the diagnosis is not good. With the support of his friend and later his wife Jane Wild (Lisa Dillon) he battles the loss of speech and the ability to write and goes on to produce his thesis on the big bang theory. Cumberbatch is convincing in the lead role, which he plays with sympathy. Then again, we’ve come to expect nothing less from the actor who makes every role his own. Back in 1963, doctors gave Hawking two years to live. He’s still with us today aged 72, writing books and receiving awards.

The Incredible Mr Goodwin

Monday, 9.30pm, BBC Knowledge

Jonathan Goodwin was seven when he became fascinated by Houdini and Superman. The
show opens with him standing on the edge of a quarry in Derbyshire. He’s chained to a car that’s about to be jettisoned over the edge. Will he pick the lock before he goes with it? Well, yes of course. Next he free-climbs a skyscraper, meeting the window cleaner (on ropes) coming down just as a storm rolls in. Then he sticks his hand in a steel animal trap that takes one-eighth of a second to snap shut. What all this proves is beyond me but it’s fun to watch other people’s madness.

Nordic Cookery

Tuesday, 7pm, LifeStyle Food

Hopping on the bandwagon carrying a load of successful Nordic dramas comes this cooking show highlighting the best of Nordic food. And why not? Truth be said, no dishes bar rollmops leap to mind, but here host Tareq Taylor takes us to Tornedalen, Sweden. Being right on the Arctic Circle, the summers here are short but traditional dishes go back centuries. Using seasonal foods, Taylor cooks beef rydberg followed by crepes with cloud berries and cream. This is as much a travel program as a foodie show; the scenery is spectacular as the Swedish chef travels round Scandinavia and, thanks to series such as Wallander and The Killing, some of the places will seem very familiar.

The Elaine Paige Show

Tuesday, 7.30pm, Bio

Elaine Paige hosts this very different combination of interviews, profiles and performances by people involved in musical theatre. She looks behind the curtains of West End, Hollywood and Broadway productions, sings two songs written specially for the show, mentors a student and talks to stars about the secrets of their success. In the first of six parts, Paige, 66, introduces Julian Ovenden (Charles Blake in Downton Abbey), choreographer Gillian Lynne and Olivier Award-winning American actress, singer and dancer Leigh Zimmerman.

An Idiot Abroad

Wednesday, 9.30pm, BBC Knowledge

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant are back in London splitting their sides with laughter having sent Karl Pilkington (Derek) to Egypt. There he visits the pyramids, one of the seven wonders of the world, which he doesn’t find so wonderful. A man who didn’t taste pasta until he was 21, Pilkington’s idea of a good meal is chicken and chips. Instead he gets “cock n’ bollocks”: testicles, penis and eyes. His dry sense of humour is wonderful.

Peaky Blinders

Thursday, 8.30pm, BBC First

Set in Birmingham, England, in the 1920s and based on a real gang, the second season of this period drama sees the Shelby family expanding their empire north and south. World War I is over but has left its mark; here in episode two there is much anger. Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) is in hospital after Italian mobster Darby Sabini’s gang roughs him up. Inspector Chester Campbell (Sam Neill) is his only visitor. Crime boss Alfie Solomons (Tom Hardy), who runs a bootleg distillery disguised as a bakery, agrees to work with Shelby to get Sabini (Noah Taylor). The sets are terrific, the cinematography excellent and the music — with contributions from PJ Harvey, Arctic Monkeys and the Kills — is spot-on. It’s historically incorrect in places and the accents are sometimes dodgy, but who cares?

Blandings

Friday, 6.35pm, BBC First

PG Wodehouse was a sharp observer of life. In this clever series his pen glides over the idiosyncrasies of the British upper class with wit, warmth and a sense of the ridiculous. Each delightful episode revolves around Clarence Threepwood, 9th Earl of Emsworth (Timothy Spall), his sister Lady Constance (Jennifer Saunders), his son Frederick (Jack Farthing), and the earl’s beloved pig, the Empress of Blandings.

Endeavour

Friday, 9.30pm, 13th Street

Set in Oxford in the 1960s, this police drama is the prequel to the Inspector Morse series. Here in Trove, the first episode in the second season, young Morse (Shaun Evans) has returned to work after being shot. As he watches a pageant, the feminist daughter of a prospective MP sprays the beauty queen with paint. What’s that all about? Then a man carrying false identity cards and an odd message falls to his death from a roof. Was he pushed or did he jump? Detective Constable Morse is on the case.