SOME well kent faces have been known to bridle at being called national treasures, as though it was the fame equivalent of being measured for a shroud. Not Mary Berry. She hugs the title like a puppy, vowing to cherish it all its days.

There was a puppy, lots of dogs in fact, in Mary Berry’s Country House Secrets (BBC1, Wednesday, 8pm). Filmed at Highclere Castle (aka Downton Abbey), this was Mary’s star vehicle, created for her by the BBC, partly as a thank you for not taking the money and running to Channel 4 with Bake Off, but mostly because she is box office.

A mix of history, interviews and cooking segments, Country House Secrets was something of a cut and shut job, with an Upstairs Downstairs chassis, Antiques Roadshow wheels, and a Masterchef horn. The only reason it did not collapse like a clown car was its host, a lady one can imagine turning up to Count Dracula’s castle and having him gurgle with pleasure as she compliments him on his darling coffin collection.

Highclere’s “secrets” mostly amounted to some of the staff having fish and chips with the lady of the house on a Friday (much to the surprise of one bloke who had never been invited), and the revelation that the Downton kitchens are a studio-built set because the Highclere ones are too far away from the dining room. Crumbs, I do hope the Russians weren’t watching. Next week she visits Scone Palace in Perthshire.

If having your name in the title is a sure sign of national treasure status then the third series of Michael McIntyre’s Big Show shows the diminutive grinner truly is in with the bricks. Never sure what to make of young McIntyre. In theory, his routines about bus queues and pasta suppers are face-achingly twee, yet I find myself being jollied along into laughing. I’d never admit to that in public, though.

True to shameful form, I was chuckling throughout his Saturday night show as Ed Balls took part in “Celebrity Send to All” (McIntyre sends jokey message to all a victim’s contacts and awaits responses), a plumber was woken in the middle of the night to take part in “Midnight Gameshow”, and a woman who liked cats and could sing a bit became the “Unexpected Star of the Show” after a Candid Camera-style set up. It’s a variety show that doesn’t have a bad bone in its body, and in these cynical times that is why it works.

Channel 4 countered Michael McIntyre’s Big Show with Guy Martin’s WW1 Tank (Channel 4, Sunday, 8pm). Another name in the title, another national treasure, albeit this one is still on the edges of mainstream. How to describe Guy Martin for those who wouldn’t know him from a bend in the road? One, he rides motorcycles very fast. Two: he looks like Wolverine. Three: he’s hard core northern. Not Aberdeen northern, Grimsby northern.

His USP as a TV presenter is his natural manner. On the upside, that means folk respond well to his genuine friendliness and curiosity. On the downside, he has a lot of annoying habits, like repeating his astonished responses to questions several times, like some Foghorn “I say, I say” Leghorn.

He was suitably agog at the story of how the British invented the tank and how the vehicles helped hasten the end of the First World War. His mission to recreate one was heavy on the spanners, which is just what Guy likes, and took him from former battlefields in France to a lab where he could enter a computer-simulated model of the tank he was going to build.

And he did build it, only for police to scupper a plan to drive the tank through Lincoln, the city where it was invented, due to safety concerns. Even Martin can’t win over them all.

Finally, one for all the middle-aged, not so single any more, ladies out there. There was Casualty (BBC1, Saturday, 9.10pm) bumping its way as usual through the grind of an A&E shift. Suddenly, the tale shifted backwards to the time when Glen, Robyn the nurse’s fiancee, the one who was dying, scarpered from the altar. Turned out he had been found by Dillon the doctor, who happened to know someone who was a dab hand with a scalpel and could buy Glen enough time to see his baby daughter (didn’t I mention her?).

Guess who the hotshot American surgeon turned out to be? Only Christine Cagney (Sharon Gless), of Cagney and Lacey fame. Cagney was Queen Bee before there was a Queen Bey, and on the strength of her appearance on Casualty she has lost none of her sass. An American national treasure if ever there was one, imagine if she teamed up with Mary Berry. Mary and Chrissy. A Mary Chrissy Christmas. You’re welcome, BBC.