ONE week into the new series of Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1, Saturday, 7pm) and I am delighted to report a scandal. It is not the usual dreary business about the Strictly “curse” breaking up marriages. This is a tale of a secret past, no less. No, Tess has not been outed as a Nobel-winning physicist in her youth; let’s keep the heid here, people.

This yarn involves Kelvin Fletcher, former Emmerdale actor and the salsa sensation of Saturday night. Swivelling his hips in a manner that made the young Elvis look like a nonagenarian, Fletcher and his dance partner Oti Mabuse livened up what was a very long night involving 15,000 couples (or maybe it was 15 and just felt so much more).

Fletcher’s performance was not bad for someone who said he only danced at weddings. But what was this? Last week The Sun revealed Fletch’s “secret past as a child ballet dancer”. He had lessons when he was 8. Not much of a scandal, but it will have to do for now.

Darren McGarvey’s Scotland (BBC Scotland, Tuesday 10pm) arrived in the author and rapper’s home town of Glasgow. About time, too. If McGarvey is is on a “poverty safari”, to borrow the title of his Orwell-prize winning book, then Glasgow is the biggest of beasts, its ability to chew up and spit out its own the stuff of legend and fact.

In Possil, first stop on his tour, a man can expect to make it to just 66, the lowest life expectancy of any town in the UK. “At the age of 34 I’m already halfway through my life,” said McGarvey, born six miles away. He was walking and talking presenter-style through a graveyard, but the point hardly needed ramming home. Then again, since this is not the first look at the problem, and won’t be the last, maybe it did.

The strength of McGarvey’s films lie in his determination to do his own thing. They are not straight reportage, with talking head A balancing talking head B, with a flurry of statistics on top. He talks to the people he needs to make his case. So we heard from a local GP, an addiction support worker, and, crucially, from those in the grip of addiction, ill health and poverty.

Gallows humour was everywhere, as was McGarvey’s honestly expressed frustration as he walked by burnt out cars, vast swathes of derelict land and soaked up the genera atmosphere of decay and despair. “My conflict as a person is on the one hand feeling very committed to the community, then there’s another part of me that’s like, ‘**** this man, I’m getting out of here. I’m fed up with this.” You’ll never hear anything like that on Panorama, and that’s exactly why his programme is needed.

I have it on good authority (a song on my Rosemary Conley exercise DVD) that there is no party like an S Club party. On that same note, there ain’t no finale like a Peaky Blinders (BBC1, Sunday, 9pm) finale.

This series has seen a much needed return to form, helped by Arthur going back to his mad old, bad old ways and the presence of genuine evil in the character of Oswald Mosely (Sam Claflin, terrific). Writer Steven Knight has been bringing a new generation through, but as the final episode showed, head of the family Tommy (Cillian Murphy, you beautiful man) is in no mood to hang up his razor-blade filled cap just yet.

You will notice no mention has been made of the Glaswegian “Billy Boy” character played by Brian Gleeson, who seemed to think Glasgow was half way between Cardiff and Vladivostok so bizarre was his accent. I’m going to pretend Jimmy McCavern never existed, though I have a horrible feeling he might rock up again. Buy earplugs now.

Don’t know about your Wednesday night, but mine was spent watching a particularly nasty shouting match in the Commons. Quite the evening horribilis it was. Mercifully, Doc Martin (ITV, Wednesday, 9pm) was to hand, dabbing some TCP on a wounded soul and making everything seem better.

The GMC was running the rule over the doc (Martin Clunes) because of his excessive grumpiness with patients. Not everyone thinks this is a failing. As one grateful local told him, “I know a lot of folk think you’re a tosser, but I’ll be sad to see you go.”

It is true, Doc Martin really should have been Vet Martin. Siegfried in All Creatures Great and Small was always losing his rag without officialdom getting involved. Different days.

Some might look at Doc Martin, now nine series old, with its characters as well worn as the Cornish coastline, and think it’s a baggy old cardie of a comedy drama. But just when you think you might trade it in for something new on Netflix it comes through with a shocking plot twist (literally, this week), a sharp observation, or a delightfully silly line. Less shouting, more Doc: pass that law pronto.