PICK OF TODAY’S TV

BEYOND PARADISE, 8PM, BBC1

SO FAR, this show is doing a wonderful job of balancing intrigue with whimsy, and the beautiful location of Devon is a delightful substitute for the Caribbean, with fewer lizards but plenty of colourful characters. Tonight, a family of four have disappeared into thin air, dinner half eaten, TV and lights on. As part of the investigation into this baffling mystery, which Humphrey (Kris Marshall) likens to the ‘Mary Celeste’, the clumsy DI is attacked by a chicken and we meet many more of the locals, including a neighbour of the missing family who’s played by Ruth Madoc, in her last screen role — the HiDe-Hi! legend sadly died in December last year. We are also introduced to Margot’s eccentric admirer, ship builder Marvellous Harris

(Phil Daniels, with a thick west country accent), whom Margot (Felicity Montagu, pictured far right with Dylan Llewellyn, Zahra Ahmadi, Marshall and Sally Bretton) describes as ‘mad as a barb wire badger’. It might come as no surprise that the early verdict on Humphrey is that he, too, is ‘a bit mad’.