How many middle managers does it take to run a World Cup?

“Ian Fletcher is on a journey,” said narrator David Tennant over a shot of the manager for hire, played by Hugh Bonneville, being driven through downtown Miami for his first day as the 2026 World Cup’s “director of integrity”.

Writer-director John Morton has provided an all-new team of characters for Fletcher to manage/wrangle. Some landed well, others less so, but it’s early days. Promising sorts include the “mostly Belgian” chief coordinating attache Eric Van Dupuytrens; ex-footballer Phil Plank; sweary lawyer Nick Castellano; and Gabriela De La Rosa, “VP text and narrative”. Gabriela was the closest thing to the much-missed PR Siobhan.

The characters embraced stereotypes, some more obviously than others: the social media team, for instance, were Gen Z clones (yawn). Whatever the brief, everyone was fluent in office speak and management BS. Add to this the other speaking style perfected by Morton and his cast - the “yes, no, yes, but” bluster - and there was more than enough to get the party started. Of course, it’s the same joke, but it’s a good one. 

Bonneville is so at home with Fletcher, a man who has made a career of failing upwards, that it took only the tiniest gesture to signal what he was thinking. America, I’m delighted to say, seems to be bringing out his petty streak.

Morton set some good gags running, bleeping "Fifa" for one. All the show needs now is for the real organisers not to do anything funnier than the fictional ones. Oh, and to slip in a mention of the Tartan Army. No Scotland, no sitcom.

Easter weekend arrived, and with it the eighth series of Pilgrimage: the Road to Holy Island (BBC Two, Sunday-Tuesday). It’s a programme that always sounds awfully dull - nice, polite sorts discussing all faiths and none while yomping across the countryside - yet it works.

This year’s happy band included the dancer Ashley Banjo, Hermione Norris of Spooks, a couple of comedians and someone who had made it to the final of Strictly. The most ab fab booking of all was the actor Patsy Kensit, who described herself as an “a la carte Catholic”.

Kensit was the last to arrive. “I think it’s another comedian,” said radio presenter Jayne Middlemiss mistakenly as Patsy appeared, Omar Sharif-like, on the horizon. In fairness, she was wearing a bobble hat.

Patsy Kensit, Hermione Norris, Jayne Middlemiss, Ashley Blaker, Ashley Banjo, Tasha Ghouri, Hasan Al Habib (Image: BBC/CTVC)

Off they set on the 242-mile trek. The youngest pilgrim, Tasha Ghouri, dancer and television presenter, gravitated towards Patsy to form a Patsy-Saffy partnership (if that pair had liked each other). Patsy doled out advice like the best big sister ever. “You don’t have to marry all your boyfriends,” said the former Mrs Kerr and Mrs Gallagher.

Each pilgrim had their own reason for being on the trip, some more spiritual than others. Not to be snarky, but it can’t do any any harm to have the prestige Pilgrimage on one’s CV. Look at Harry Clark, who went from winning Traitors to Pilgrimage to his own documentary about meeting the Pope.

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More of a problem was a snoozy script. Even the tale of St Hild hurling snakes over a cliff failed to set the heather alight. Fortunately, the comedians were funny. One in particular, Hasan Al-Habib, a Muslim from London and Birmingham, we will definitely be seeing again.

It is hard to say how or why Pilgrimage works. Maybe just seeing people out and about in nature, talking seriously about life, is a welcome break from the norm. As Father Jack might say, it is an ecumenical matter.

What do you get beloved naturalist Sir David Attenborough for his 100th birthday? If you are the BBC, a suite of special programmes, including Secret Garden (BBC One, Sunday).

The first stop was a mill house in Oxfordshire, where the garden was home to kingfishers, otters, deer and bank voles. It was idyllic. I’d have been quite happy to park myself on the riverbank and watch the wildlife go by. However, this being an Attenborough documentary,“extraordinary dramas” had to play out.

So we heard about picky Doris the duck, how she was “the garden’s resident heartbreaker”. If that was too sugary for your taste, there was a scene showing Doris’s nine ducklings attracting the attention of an otter. Personally, I can do without such jeopardy in wildlife documentaries, but it usually goes with the whole circle of life territory. The Secret Garden, I’m pleased to say, was a refreshing change from all that. Airing at 6pm,  it was relatively free of peril (hungry otters and robot lawnmowers aside).

Stunning scenes dotted the hour, from the sublime (the flight of the mayflies, kingfishers feeding) to the horrific (mice running over the roof, picked out by night vision cameras). The “secrets revealed” section at the end showed how equipment usually deployed on African shoots was repurposed there to spectacular effect. Although tell that to Sam the cameraman who sat in the river for three days trying to get a sight of an otter. His (drier) colleague bagged the shot instead.

Sir David Attenborough in the five-part Secret Garden. (Image: Nathan Small/Plimsoll Productions/BBC)

While the “drama” was going on, the human residents were seen in the background, reading the paper or just pottering in the garden. Their reward was a sneak peek at the hidden world living on their doorstep. I imagine they were just as thrilled to have played host to Sir David. 

Can  it really be seven years since Scotland’s Home of the Year (BBC One, Monday) began? By now as firm a part of Scotland’s landscape as cancelled ferries and disappointing politicians, the interior design show is back for another outing, culminating in a grand final later in the summer.

That’s assuming Armageddon doessn’t claim us first, of course. Even then, we can probably expect an end-of-the-world special with Anna Campbell-Jones taking viewers through the best Farrow & Ball colours for a nuclear bunker.

For the start of the new series we were in the mysterious East, land of high house prices and teeny gardens. First on the judges’ list for 2026 was an Art Deco delight in Craiglockhart that certainly had the S-factor. “The symmetry!” cried Banjo. “Everything is perfectly lined up. Classic Basil Spence.” Turning to fellow judges Anna and Danny Campbell, he added: “Yeah, I know my architects.” Sounded like fighting talk from the Aussie. Oh good.

Danny liked the “chunky big chimneys”, while Anna cooed over the minty green guttering. Half the show had ticked by, and they had not yet made it inside. When they eventually did, every room was a model of good taste and planning. As Banjo said, even the extractor fan in the kitchen looked like a piece of art.

Back outside to check out the modern extension, Anna’s eyes spied a water feature with stepping stones. Naturally, she wanted to skip across it. The production company must have been having kittens. Betty Grable’s legs had cost a million dollars to insure; Ronaldo’s, $144 million. What price Anna’s pins? Mercifully, she made it back safely.

Time was, the Art Deco villa would have trotted straight into the final, but the competition gets tougher every year. Viewers and judges now expect so much more.

At Homegrown Hoose, a converted bungalow in Mortonhall, it was love at first sight for all three judges. Danny was impressed by the cantilevered extension, Anna confessed to “severe herbaceous border envy”, and Banjo loved that the place wasn’t “cookie-cutter”.

The Schoolhouse in Fordell, Fife, had the tough job of following that. The residents had tried their best, laying on cowboy hats for the judges to try on, bells to ping and ring (Anna again), and shaggy cushions in an eye-catching yellow. “How many Muppets had to die to make these?” asked Banjo. Luckily for him, the owners were not around to answer.

Trouble was brewing in the otherwise perfectly lovely kitchen. Danny, an architect by trade, had clocked that three windows were not aligned with the apex of the roof. “But they’ve lined up the Belfast sink, so I’ll allow it,” he concluded. Phew. 

He was in such a giddy mood that he tried a joke about the leopard print stair carpet. “One of the fastest runners in the animal kingdom,” he chuckled. God love him.