GLASGOW can be a grim old broad at times, but my goodness she scrubbed up well in Patrick Melrose (Sky Atlantic, Sunday). Between the city streets standing in for gridlocked Manhattan and Rogano posing as a Fifth Avenue restaurant, the place was looking good and feeling groovy.

But then almost everything was glam in this adaptation of Edward St Aubyn’s novels. Patrick, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, is a drug addict descending to the depths of wretchedness. But being from the top drawer of society and having a bob or two, his benders took place in luxury hotel suites. Forget Trainspotting and think Brideshead with heroin.

Sounds ghastly, but the novels and this adaptation are savagely funny, elegant, and heartbreakingly tender. As we saw Patrick venture to New York to pick up the ashes of his father, the screenplay by David Nicholls hinted in flashback at what made him such a grade-A screw-up. The author of One Day must have had a tough job squeezing the five novels into five one hour dramas, but on the evidence of this first one devotees will not be disappointed. Cumberbatch, a producer on the show, was never off the screen. You won’t begrudge him a minute, though. While at first seeming to play Patrick like Sherlock on crack cocaine, he soon showed the full range of his acting chops.

Being a wholesome sort your reviewer has never dropped acid, as I believe the young folk say, but one imagines the experience is not a million miles away from watching Midsomer Murders (STV, Sunday, 9pm), the crime drama set in a fictional English county with a murder rate straight outta Compton.

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The main victim had been on a Jane Austen-themed holiday when she met her fate. (Local legend had it that England’s Jane passed through one of Midsomer’s villages in 1801. Unlike many, she made it out alive.) Included in the timetable was a party, to which DCI Barnaby and DS Winter went along to gather intelligence. Naturally, they did so in period costume. I expect Maryhill CID do that sort of thing all the time.

The dressing up and a sub-plot involving drones made for a perfect storm of ridiculousness, even for Midsomer Murders. Just what is needed on a Sunday evening.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, Take a Hike (BBC2, Wednesday, 8pm) took a look at the history of hill walking in Scotland. Cameron McNeish was the guide and on one of his walks he had a new start with him in the shape of Sam Heughan (he’s in a televisual programme called Outlander, m’lord).

Parts of the programme covered familiar territory (walking is good for the mind as well as the body, etc), but there was plenty that was news to this viewer, including how the working class took up hillwalking during the Depression as an escape. Back then, the method of getting to the hills, if there was no bus, was to hitch-hike. McNeish duly had a go. Having no success he tried the old trick of faking a limp. Still the cars flew past. Rotten lot.

McNeish showed himself to be a canny interviewer. With the right guests, the format could easily stretch to a series.

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Right, aprons on. First, take a pound of Dragons’ Den. Stir in a few ounces of The Apprentice, add a dash of that tasty French bloke from First Dates, and hey Bisto you have Million Pound Menu (BBC2, Thursday, 9pm). Each week, two budding restaurateurs get a chance to see their ideas come alive in pop-up premises to which they invite along investors. Among the first contestants looking for start-up cash was Scotland’s Ewan Hutchison. He was already running a successful street food business, Shrimpwreck, but had a dream of bringing fancy fish finger sarnies to the nation.

A lot of faffing around had to be done to fill the hour, and there was not much drama. Compared to Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares this was thin gruel. But the magic ingredient looks likely to be Fred Sirieix and that accent of his. Reckon opening night is romantic and fun? Not so, said Fred, 25 years in the restaurant game. “It eez like a batt-ell, blowd, sweat and tee-urrs”. If nothing else, Million Pound Menu will turn up the heat on his new career as presenter.

Fancy something different? Try Atlanta (BBC2, Sunday, 10pm) , a new comedy drama created by Donald Glover, a writer, actor and singer whose new video, This is America, has made him hotter than a Christmas day oven. Glover plays Earn, who wants to manage his rapper cousin in the hope of making some cash. Funny, sharp, and hugely shocking at times, these half hours are like nothing else on TV at the moment. Even Midsomer Murders.