HOW to sum up the man, the phenomenon, the Weegie legend that is Limmy? Many have tried to explain the allure of the writer/filmmaker/podcaster/comedian/add your own job title, it will probably be right, but few have succeeded. If you like his brand of surreal humour you adore him; if you don’t, well, try the shop next door.

Since no one else is quite up to the job of solving the puzzle, it seems reasonable to let the man himself have a go. That seems to be the reasoning behind Limmy’s Other Stuff (BBC Scotland, Friday, 10pm), in which, by way of an introduction to himself and his career, he shows us the various videos he made before and after the telly years. Or maybe someone just called him up and said, “Here’s half an hour, mate. Fill it with anything you want.”

As Limmy puts it: “I’m going to take you on a wee self-absorbed trip down Memory Lane.” First stop is 2002 and The Birthday Card, the first video he put online. In it, Limmy has a conversation with himself about whether a card that says it is from the boy band Blue really is from the boy band Blue. The back and forth sketches became a regular thing, the jump cuts between the two shots becoming smoother over the years (these first ones are brutal). From there the wander takes in such curios as Yes or No (later reworked as a Question Time sketch with bells on), his first professional commission as a filmmaker, This World, and on to various vines and You Tube material.

He says that he has “pretty much” finished with telly stuff and is now concentrating on live streaming, which he describes as “basically just sitting in front of my computer coming up with ***** to make people laugh. Back to where it all began, really.”

Don’t be fooled by the self-deprecation.This half hour is a masterclass in the art of making something out of nothing. It appears easy come, easy go, but there’s an obvious, ferocious determination to get things just right. The piece at the end is a case in point: deranged and dull or insanely clever, you decide.

In 2012 the former cricketer Freddie Flintoff appeared in a documentary about his move into boxing. In it he revealed that he had bulimia; caused, he believed, by media taunting about his weight when he was younger. Making himself sick was something that happened a “while ago” and he now appreciated that the only way to lose weight was to train more, eat less and eat the right things.

Scroll forward eight years and Flintoff has successfully reinvented himself again as one of the presenters of Top Gear. A TV natural, his breezy, have a go nature accounts in large part for the show’s successful bounce back after the Chris Evans dip. So all fine, nothing to report on the bulimia front, then?

Sadly no, as we see in Freddie Flintoff: Living with Bulimia (BBC1, Monday, 9pm). The film opens with the sportsman disclosing that he is still making himself sick. “I’ve done it this year,” he says. It is a stark, admirably frank introduction that sets the tone for the hour to follow.

Despite living with the condition he knew nothing about it beyond his own experience. He had never discussed it with a doctor, or met any man who said they had bulimia (of the 1.5 million people in the UK with the condition, a quarter are men). Both of those mountains he climbs here.

He can recall exactly the coverage that tipped him into bulimia. In one article in The Sun he was dubbed “England’s vast bowler”. Even today, as he shows, you can type “fat” and “Freddie Flintoff” into a web browser and out pour pictures of him in heavier days. It clearly hurt then, and continues to follow him around now.

Throughout the film he veers between seeing similarities between himself and others, and insisting that he is different from them because he has a grip on the condition, not the other way around.

But as we watch him working out at the gym – he goes at least nine times a week – or on an exercise bike at home, pedalling till the sweat forms a puddle on the floor, it is clear this is not the case. Question is: will he realise it? A deeply impressive film from a very likeable guy. You'll wish him well.

Starter for ten, though it has nothing to do with University Challenge. Which popular satirical quiz show has racked up 59 series and returns this week for the big 6-0? The last run of Have I Got News for You (BBC1, Friday, 9pm) struggled at the start. The virus meant guests and team captains Ian Hislop and Paul Merton had to appear via a streaming link. That, plus no audience, added up to zero atmosphere. Anyway, the virus was hardly a laughing matter. Then along came Dominic Cummings and his novel eye test, and the show took off like a rocket. I do hope someone thanked the Dom.