ON reflection, it was not the best idea to do the ironing while watching Wanderlust (BBC1, Tuesday, 9pm). Within the first minute actors Toni Collette and Steven Mackintosh were taking this off and unbuckling that, all the while the bedroom lights blazing, shameless as you like.

I didn’t know what was producing more steam, the pictures on the screen or my trusty Russell Hobbs, but after almost ironing my left hand I switched the appliance off for safety’s sake to concentrate on what was happening between Joy and Alan, therapist and English teacher respectively.

Not really. That sort of ooh-er missus, “Where’s Mary Whitehouse when you need her?” reaction was, one assumes, what was hoped for. Widely trailed as a work that would push boundaries where they had never been pushed before so soon after the watershed, one newspaper was so appalled at the prospect it printed a handy guide to the naughty bits, complete with screen grabs and timings, just in case you missed them.

In reality, Nick Payne’s drama came across as a swish comedy of sexual manners, adapted from his play, and ably performed by two fine actors. Though it was difficult to believe mousey Alan had ever landed the glamorous Joy (you can take the actress out of Hollywood…), they were convincing in their bedroom boredom. “I don’t want to have the same old sex,” said Joy, looking around for a chandelier to swing from and finding none. Given what is available on television these days it was mild, even rather dull. That said, it would have been more at home on BBC2.

For all the hype surrounding Wanderlust, Vanity Fair (STV, Sunday, 9pm), and Press (BBC1, Thursday,9pm), the week’s best new drama was far and away Mother’s Day (BBC2, Monday, 9pm). Unlike the others, Nick Leather’s drama, dealing with the IRA bombing of Warrington the day before Mother’s Day in 1993, had the tragic and unwanted advantage of being true.

Leather chose to focus on the parents of Tim Parry, 12, one of the two children, the other being Johnathan Ball, three, who were murdered that day. In particular, he looked at the relationship that grew up between the Parrys and a Dublin mother who started a peace campaign as a result of her horror over Warrington.

There was scarcely a moment in this 90-minute piece when one did not feel like howling, either in sympathy with the Parrys, or with rage at the bombers. With three central characters, Wendy and Colin Parry (Anna Maxwell Martin, Daniel Mays), and Susan McHugh (Vicky McLure), Leather was able to explore several ideas sensitively and in depth, including the different ways people grieve, and why one child’s death receives a lot of attention while another’s might pass by almost unnoticed outwith the family. As Mrs McHugh was to learn, and as one man reminded her forcefully as she went door to door in Dublin to publicise her cause, more than 130 children had been killed in the Troubles before Warrington.

Leather, who won a Bafta for 2017’s Murdered for Being Different, knows that God is in the dramatic detail, and it was the smallest moments here that were the most unforgettable, as when the Parrys entered Tim’s hospital room to find every inch of him bandaged save for a toe. Mum almost ran to caress it. Heartbreaking, but superb.

If you were in the mood to learn anything last thing on a Sunday, The Imitation Game (STV, Sunday, 10.05pm) showed that when it comes to impressions, Cheryl Cole and Sir David Attenborough are this generation’s Harold Wilson and Frank Spencer. Both the Geordie singer and the naturalist popped up several times as host Alexander Armstrong gave four mimics, Luke Kempner, Jess Robinson, Rory Bremner and Debra Stephenson, silly things to do. The producers had borrowed from almost every other game show, their debt to I’m Sorry…, and Blind Date particularly evident.

It took a while to get going, and 45 minutes was pushing its luck, but what made this worth catching was Kempner. His talents previously confined to Murder in Successville, truly a star was born on mainstream television last Sunday. He was so good that in the Blind Date round, when one contestant had to choose the real Christopher Biggins from a line up of Bremner, Kempner and old CB himself, Kempner won. From Andy Murray (brilliant) to Donald Trump, there did not seem to be any voice that was beyond him. He did eventually reveal one weak spot: his Bowie was not much cop. He should try to ring the ch-ch-ch-changes on that.