Bring back Play for Today, they cry. Are you sure?

“Bring back Play for Today” — how often has that cry gone up among those of us of a certain age? 

Probably not that often, seeing as most of you have a life, but now and again, someone despairing of standards in television drama makes the suggestion. 

Memories of Play for Today invariably turn out to be rose-tinted. Certainly, some outstanding works broke the mould — Abigail’s Party, Scum, Nuts in May, pick your own. But let’s be honest, there was a lot that was the drama equivalent of knitted porridge, the kind of worthy, miserablist fare that then transferred seamlessly to the afternoon play on Radio 4. 

If you were looking for the next Blue Remembered Hills, you would not have found it in Play for Today: Never Too Late (5, Thursday). Written by Simon Warne (Doctors) and Lydia Marchant (EastEnders), it had a cracking cast in Anita Dobson, Nigel Havers and Tracy-Ann Oberman and a decent enough if rather tired storyline. 

Cynthia (Dobson) has spent the last few years growing old disgracefully and plans to carry on that way. Unfortunately, gravity was not playing ball. After a couple of falls, daughter Amanda (Oberman) placed mum in a retirement village/old folks’ home, the kind of place where you can paint your room any colour you like as long as it is white, and no noise is allowed after 9 pm. 

Life becomes more interesting when Cyn discovers an old flame, Frank (Havers), living next door. Cue buried feelings and secrets resurfacing as the pair, who used to sing together on the club circuit until Cyn opted for marriage and motherhood, slow dance down memory lane.

Comedy-wise, we are strictly in Benidorm country from the off, with jokes that don’t whisper in your ear so much as punch you in the stomach. “You wouldn’t believe the gorgeous pair of tits I saw today,” says one resident, a birdwatcher by the name of Brian (also the name of Dobson’s partner, Brian May, in real life; I trust he was in on the joke).

Havers hardly had to stretch himself to play an old smoothie chops, having most recently done the same turn on Coronation Street, but who’s complaining? I’d watch Oberman (Friday Night Dinner) in anything. It was Dobson who was the eye-opener here, though. At first, her character was a broad-brush, comedy version of Ange in EastEnders, all shoulder pads and sharp edges, but she soon moved towards something far softer and more interesting. 

Never Too Late was amusing by accident rather than design, one to file under so daft it was funny. It was at least refreshing to see a piece about older people that didn’t revolve around abuse or assisted dying, even if the writers had traded one set of cliches (depressed inmates) for another (wacky pensioners). And yes, One Foot in the Grave did it all first and far better. But any comedy that features not one but two jokes about plantar fasciitis can’t be all bad. 

I have a theory about Bullseye (STV, Sunday), which is back on screens after a successful reboot last Christmas.

The dates it originally aired roughly coincided with Mrs Thatcher becoming prime minister and Tony Blair taking over the Labour leadership. Between those two milestones, the darts quiz functioned as a fount of working-class resistance to what was being handed down from Westminster, deindustrialisation, mass unemployment and all. Or maybe it was just a bit of a laugh, handing out speedboats to people struggling to put food on the table. Oh, the irony. 

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Anyway, Bullseye is back, with former cricketer Freddie Flintoff in place of the late Jim Bowen. The two have much in common, starting with instant likeability. Flintoff (no mean darts player himself, as he showed in a round for charity with champion Luke Littler) ran the show with competence and good humour, resisting the temptation to play it tongue-in-cheek, which would never do. It’s darts; it’s serious. 

Representing Scotland were Gail and Jojo from Dumfries, who kept up a proud national tradition of being shown the door in the early stages. All the old favourites were there, including Bendy Bullies, tankards, and the catchphrase, “Stay out of the black and in the red, there’s nothing in this game for two in a bed.” I’ve never understood that one: in what game do you actually get something for two in a bed?

In the final, Bully’s prize board was gloriously naff. Who wants to win a carriage clock or a kettle-and-toaster set? Was the shop out of cuddly toys? I’d like to think the “indoor skydiving experience” was a nod to speedboats past. 

Aobh and Jake from Belfast won the lot, plus a sizeable cash pot and a not-too-shabby £10,000 holiday voucher. No surprise to see this just-slick-enough show comes from Potato, makers of The Chase, but I’m not sure it’s worthy of a primetime 8 pm slot.  

You would be hard pushed to find a classier drama this week than Trespasses (Channel 4, Sunday-Wednesday). Fans of Louise Kennedy’s novel will have needed no persuasion to fall hard, again, for this tale of love across the divide. 

Set in a small town near Belfast in 1975, Lola Petticrew played Cushla, a teacher in a Catholic school by day, barmaid by night, who finds instant kinship with Michael, a Protestant barrister (Tom Cullen). It scarcely needs Cushla’s alcoholic mother (Gillian Anderson) to tell her what a risk the pair are taking.

It was a well-worn tale, with some parts easier to believe than others, but it drew added force from the backdrop of the times. The production captured the mood and look of the era magnificently. All that murk and drizzle, platform boots and long hair (the men), and Tiger Feet at the school disco. 

With each performance better than the last, it was hard to choose a standout. Great to see some of the Blue Lights lads make an appearance, Martin “Stevie” McCann among them. Petticrew is a star in the making, and Cullen, so good in The Gold, is excellent as always. But it was the performance of Anderson, also an executive producer, that was likely to stay longest in the memory after this evocative and lovingly rendered tale was over.

It was hidden away in the late-night STV schedules, in the usually woeful after-the-pub slot, as if on some secret mission of its own. But to those who stumbled across it, The Americans was a prize find. Starring Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as a pair of KGB sleeper agents living (and working) in Washington DC, it ran for six award-winning series and did for spy dramas what Russell’s The Diplomat would later do for international affairs. 

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Running for some of the same period was the equally mighty Homeland, with Clare Danes as a CIA officer with the weight of the world on her shoulders. Someone high-up and clever had the idea of pairing Danes and Rhys, and the result is The Beast in Me (Netflix, available now). 

Rhys plays Nile Jarvis, a controversial New York property developer (is there any other kind?), whose wife has gone missing under suspicious circumstances. Seeking time out of the media spotlight, Nile moves out of the city and next door to a reclusive author, Aggie Wiggs (Danes). 

Wiggs is nursing a loss of her own and a serious case of writer’s block, and at first wants nothing to do with her obscenely rich neighbour and his plans for a fancy jogging path through the woods. But times change and needs must, so when Niles suggests he be the subject of her next biography, she is sorely tempted. 

Danes and Rhys spark up a storm whenever they are on screen together, the premise is intriguing (In Cold Blood meets Succession meets What Lies Beneath), and for most of the eight episodes, The Beast in Me is irresistibly binge-worthy. The classy cast is matched behind the camera with Jodie Foster and Homeland creator Howard Gordon among the producers.

If you can get over a jumping of the shark partway through, the story gets back on track by the end. More of a problem is the violence, coupled with Danes’s character going from 0 to 11 on the overwrought scale and staying there.