The TV shows you need to watch this week: From Ghosts to Line of Duty

What are bank holidays for, if not to slump in front of some truly dire television?

It is difficult, in fact, to know where to look, such is the cornucopia of corny viewing on offer. Take Travel Man: 48 Hours in Hamburg, for example. I doubt a trip around this admittedly intriguing German city will yield that much entertainment, even in the genuinely gifted comic hands of Bob Mortimer and Richard Ayoade. Or there’s Game of Thrones, that majestic monument to silliness that, for reasons I still cannot fathom, seems to have acquired the kind of devoted following usually associated with small semi-cult series, but with mass audiences. Anyway it’s the usual dragony, kingly, semi-nude stuff.

Then there is The All New Monty: Who Bares Wins, in which a number of “celebrities” get their kit off for charity. It’s quite camp, in its favour, seeing people you’ve half-forgotten or never heard of stripping out of their An Officer and a Gentleman naval uniforms, but it promises to be truly dire. Just pose this question to yourself: who is so desperate for a fee to submit to such a humiliation? The answer to that question is: Ashley Banjo (real name apparently); Kelvin Fletcher; Alexander Armstrong; Rav Wilding; Willie Thorne; Matt Evers; Joe Pasquale (inevitably); Jack Fincham and Jason Cundy. The best bit is when they get waxed. There’s a female version on Tuesday evening, featuring Martina Navratilova, Laurie Brett, Megan Barton Hanson, Lisa Maffia, Danielle Armstrong and Crissy Rock. Coleen Nolan and Victoria Derbyshire host, and remain fully clothed.

Indeed, the only oasis of quality broadcasting I can detect on my advanced radar systems for Bank Holiday Monday is Ghosts, now halfway through its (I hope) first series. It’s basically the Horrible Histories folk having yet more fun, but this time in the form of a sitcom, rather than the usual gentle exercise in history teaching for the young. Anyway, in case you’ve not caught up with it, it’s quite witty and extremely well played by the Horrible Histories repertoire company. This week, the young couple who’ve unexpectedly inherited a crumbling Jacobean mansion, and their menagerie of accursed spirits, play hosts to a film crew. What could possibly go wrong? At least they weren’t making a sequel to Ghostbusters.

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In John Bishop’s Ireland, the foul-mouthed comedian visits Derry, which prompts the old line about “haven’t they suffered enough?” Rather like Bob Mortimer and Richard Ayoade’s jaunt to Hamburg, Bishop seems not to have the slightest connection with the bits of Ireland he visits, and that leaves the viewer with a slight feeling that the travelogue is, well, a bit rootless. There are so many of these identikit, formulaic celebrity-goes-abroad shows, half of them featuring Martin Clunes, that you might well ask whether we have now reached saturation point. We have.

Having watched the first episode of Our Dementia Choir with Vicky McClure last week, I find myself badly conflicted. On the one hand, it is an enormously valuable experience for people with various types of dementia to be given the chance to feel useful again, sing at the Albert Hall and star in their own TV show. McClure lost her own grandmother to dementia, and she is on a bit of a medical mission to see if music can help with the welfare of people living with Alzheimer’s and other debilitating dementia conditions. She’s involved professional musicians and medical researchers, and, it seems, some of those involved do enjoy a benefit – reviving old musical skills that had been thought lost.

On the other hand, dementia is a very distressing condition in any of its varieties, and it is painful indeed to see so many people so affected (there are about 850,000 nationally). Basically, and even with all the caveats, Our Dementia Choir is hard going, and you’ll need to be ready to weep as the choir come together, try to keep the nerves at bay and put on the performance of their lives. You’ve had your warning.

Vicky McClure, of course, also appears in the TV highlight of the week, of which you probably need little reminding. It is the climax of the current series of Line of Duty. There’s a whole 85-minutes’ worth to consume, and a fine duel between senior investigating officer Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) and DCS Patricia Carmichael (Anna Maxwell Martin). A talented cast, then, to complement the work of a fine writer, Jed Mercurio, who you may also recall was responsible for the excellent Bodyguard. And if that’s not enough Mercurio for you, he has a whole south bank show devoted to him soon after. Quite right too.

Travel Man: 48 Hours in Hamburg (Channel 4, Monday 8.30pm); Game of Thrones (Sky Atlantic, Monday 9pm); The All New Monty: Who Bares Wins (ITV, Monday and Tuesday 9pm; Ghosts (BBC1, Monday 9.30pm); John Bishop’s Ireland (ITV, Friday 8pm); Our Dementia Choir with Vicky McClure (BBC1, Thursday 8pm); Line of Duty (BBC1, Sunday 9pm)