Remember Me
And now for something completely different. You underestimate Michael Palin at your peril, and every now and then the cuddly comedy troupe member and travel presenter takes great pleasure in confounding our expectations. He brought relish to the role of a totalitarian torturer in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and deserved his plentiful plaudits for the hard-bitten drama of Alan Bleasdale’s GBH. Now the Python is again rewardingly cast against type, as the wayward central figure in Remember Me, a ghost story set to reduce us all to a nervous disposition (BBC One, Sunday, 9pm). Palin returns to his native Yorkshire to play lone pensioner Tom, whose mischievous good humour veils a secret that he keeps well hidden but is, you would guess, the explanation for the fatal defenestration of a woman at the care home to which he has relocated just hours before. This first of three episodes dishes out its clues sparingly: make what you will of the mysterious vision of a shrouded figure on an unnamed shore, and wonder why the traditional strains of Scarborough Fair have taken on such sinister connotations. These are the posers that await police detective Rob Fairholme (Mark Addy). Gwyneth Hughes wrote Remember Me and embodies the spirit of the fat boy in The Pickwick Papers who insisted: ‘I wants to make your flesh creep.’ Every moment is precision-engineered to raise the hairs on your arms and eat away into the peace of your sleep. You have been warned.
NOT TO BE MISSED
BEN FOGLE: NEW LIVES IN THE WILD Channel 5, Friday, 9pmThe adventurer is back to join intrepid souls living wild, starting in Namibia.
THE REAL TOM THUMB: HISTORY’S SMALLEST SUPERSTAR BBC4, Tuesday, 9pm
The amazing true tale of Charles Stratton, the 25-inch tall Victorian celeb.
CONFESSIONS OF A GP Channel 4, Wednesday, 10pm
Retired GPs recall the decades long gone by when doctor always knew best.