Monday's best TV: Plebs, John Oliver and Secret Agent Selection

Cheeky chumps: from left, Jonathan Ponting as Jason, Ryan Sampson as Grumio and Tom Rosenthal as Marcus
ITV / Rise Films

Since Plebs is set in ancient Rome, let’s start with a spot of history. Unscrupulous property developers, flatmate politics and highfalutin concept restaurants — you may think these scourges are all totes modern but actually they date back to the year 2BC and they make excellent fodder for situation comedy in ribald caper Plebs, back for its fourth series.

Plebs fans can’t talk about the show without a naughty smile. It is silly-funny — littered with jokes about pubes, “little wees and little poos” and rhyming word play.

This light-hearted cheek has proved successful. The show’s first series won a British comedy award for best new comedy and a Royal Television Society award for best scripted comedy back in 2013. It owes a debt to Blackadder, with a nod to The Inbetweeners because of the boyish humour, and Horrible Histories, though it’s not quite as educational.

That’s not to say it isn’t clever — the show is written by Sam Leifer, who studied classics at Oxford, and Tom Basden who was at Cambridge, and they’ve put their fine minds to devising cream-pie-in-the-face gags.

Series four brings some changes to the line-up. Without giving any spoilers, let’s just say Joel Fry’s Stylax is much missed. But all the current cast look like they are enjoying themselves, especially new addition Robert Lindsay. He plays property developer Crassus, who lives up to his name. A hunger to make money and the need for a stream of new wives are what drive him. He’s a consummate villain, only instead of a cat to stroke he has a pet turtle called Myrtle.

Tom Rosenthal is still entertainingly exasperated as nice guy Marcus. He thinks he is too good for the motley crew of fools he has found himself with but is too fond of them, and too decent, to ditch them. Among said crew there’s Tom Basden’s needy Aurelius, who has daft facial hair and oozes passive aggression, calling people “bud”, and Ryan Sampson as Grumio. He is still obsessed with food, gnawing on a comedically large leg of venison. There’s plenty of physical humour here.

The first episode centres on changes in living situations, all very relatable and riven with dramatic tension, while the second sees the merry band open a “far from bog standard restaurant in an old bog”. The Corona & Toga wine bar feels like a vehicle to produce a list of rhyming dishes. The concept for the menu is stuffing stuff in stuff so there’s frog in dog, snail in quail, sausage in ostrich in partridge, wren in hen... you get the feeling the writers could riff on lists like this all day.

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Chaos ensues when the sous-chef forgets that the mouse goes in the grouse, the moose goes in the goose. This sets us up for Grumio to come over all Gordon Ramsay on Hell’s Kitchen, retorting: “I don’t want sorry.”

Our culture of reviewing everything is given the Plebs treatment too, with the line: “She’s a critic, so it’s not like anyone will miss her when she’s dead.” Noted.

Political correctness is sent up in the least woke job interview ever. First question to a beautiful young woman: “Are you single?”

There are a few groan-inducing jokes; the writers couldn’t resist a few When in Rome quips. But these likeable lads in togas will put you in such a giggly mood that you’ll forgive them the odd dud line.

@susannahbutter

Plebs airs tonight at 10pm and 10.30pm on ITV2.

Pick of the day

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

The Birmingham-born host of this satirical news round-up has been making the news himself lately.

As well as becoming embroiled in the row about fake news, and the way a local news network in the US has instructed its anchors to read scripts parroting President Trump’s agenda (Trump’s response was to call the broadcasting group Sinclair “far superior to CNN and even more fake NBC”), Oliver’s team issued a parody of the book about Vice President Mike Pence’s pet rabbit, Marlon Bundo (which was written by Pence’s daughter Charlotte and illustrated by his wife Karen).

In the Oliver version, A Day In The Life Of Marlon Bundo, the “lonely bunny” falls in love with another rabbit, Wesley, and his life changes forever. The gay rabbit tale instantly became a bestseller, raising funds for LGBTQ groups and Aids research.

Oliver’s show responds to the week’s events, employing what he calls “investigative comedy”, so it’s impossible to predict his targets.

However, the Cambridge Footlights alumnus has previously pledged to limit the number of Trump jokes. We’ll see.

Sky Atlantic, 10pm

Secret Agent Selection: WW2

Hard to categorise this living-history documentary, which retells the story of Churchill’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) while putting a group of candidates through the same recruitment tests as were used when the secret organisation was founded in 1940. Perhaps it’s like The Apprentice but with uniforms and better hair.

Before they can progress to full training there is an assault course and, believe it or not, Meccano modelling, plus some scary interpretations of a Rorschach blot.

“I choose myself,” says one candidate when asked who he would choose to follow. Another avoids barbed wire for fear of spoiling her hair, proving that she might not have the right stuff.

BBC Two

Screen time

Young Vets

Aspiring animal doctor Judy Pudifoot has a bucket list unlike most people’s; while others might aspire to place a foot atop Mount Kilimanjaro or configure a printer while retaining a droplet of life force, Pudifoot wants to spay a dog. Each to their own. She has a few procedures left to master and this evening she can tick off a couple.

London Live, 7pm

The Story of Turner’s House

Not many of us have a few million spare quid knocking around to drop on a Turner, nor do we tend to spend a significant period of time with great art. So if you have been saving up to buy an original but are still shy of the last £30.3 million, there is a way to luxuriate with one of his works for far less.

After years of fundraising and renovation, Turner’s former home of Sandycombe Lodge in Twickenham has finally been opened to visitors. This documentary observes how the battered walls of his beloved retreat from London have been restored to their early 19th-century glory — the house is described as Turner’s largest work of art.

Along the way we meet the various artisans who made it happen.

London Live, 8pm

Weekend catch up

Ordeal by Innocence

Agatha Christie has never been a fashionable author but there’s something about her plotting that leads to enjoyable television. Sarah Phelps’s adaptation of Christie’s 1958 country house murder novel is beautifully staged with a fine cast of ripe hams enduring a trial by flashback in an opulent heritage setting. Hysteria! Wisteria! Whodunnit? Watch the first two episodes before all is revealed next Sunday.

BBC iPlayer

Homeland

It shouldn’t be working but somehow it is. By rights, the character of Carrie (Claire Danes) should be beyond implausible.

She’s bipolar, a terrible excuse for a mother and has a worrying penchant for sleeping with security risks while breaking the rules to save the free world.

Then there’s the “cry face”, not to be confused with the “off meds” face. But Homeland, as daft it is, seems to suit the era of fake news and paranoid politics.

All 4

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