Sally Wainwright knew from the age 13 what she wanted to do for a living - write for the telly that she and her mum adored. She eventually made it, going on to create the best television drama of the decade in Happy Valley, but there were some detours on the way - including driving a London bus.

The writer talks about roads taken and not taken in This Cultural Life: Sally Wainwright (BBC4, Wednesday, 10pm). In the latest in his series of half-hour interviews, John Wilson wonders if it was the passengers, and the chance to people-watch, that attracted Wainwright to the buses.

No is the short answer. “The passengers were quite challenging sometimes,” she recalls. There was, however, lots of time to read during breaks. Time enough for the complete works of Chekhov and Ibsen in fact.

Though television was Wainwright’s first love, she started out on Radio 4’s The Archers. She was young, 24, and a woman, both of which made her a rarity in the profession at the time. It could be a tough gig, as she discovered during five years in the male-dominated writers’ room for Coronation Street. But it honed her skills and led to what she calls her “first big 9 o’clock show”, At Home with The Braithwaites, about a woman who wins the lottery but doesn’t tell her family.

The drama was a hit, drawing in 8-9 million viewers, and ran for 26 episodes. Wainwright was on the road that would eventually lead to Scott and Bailey, Last Tango in Halifax, and of course Happy Valley.

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After three series, Wainwright sent her heroine Catherine Cawood (played by Sarah Lancashire) into retirement in a finale hailed as brilliant by critics and fans alike.

She is back working after a break, on what she didn’t say. Unlike police officers, writers don’t get to retire early doors, which is great for fans and, one suspects, just fine with Wainwright too.

The return of Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby (BBC2, Sunday, 8pm) brings with it a change of personnel. Taking the place of Giles Coren alongside Monica Galetti on the luxury travel show is Rob Rinder. If we can all just take a moment to mourn Giles’s departure from one of the jammiest jobs on telly … Right, that’ll do.

The first stop for the new pairing is Kasbah Tamadot, a five-star retreat in Morocco. Set among the Atlas mountains it is a stunning location.

As is the drill, Monica and Rob have to work while they are there - Rob cleaning out the stables, chef Monica checking out the kitchen - but they get to stay in the fabulous accommodation.

Word comes through to the staff that the boss is going to be dropping in on one of his regular visits. Who could this mystery guest be? Super rich, world traveller, bit of an old hippy? No, it’s not Edina from Absolutely Fabulous.

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Levison Wood. Sounds like the handle of some fictional adventurer setting out to criss-cross the world righting wrongs where he can. The reality, as we see in Levison Wood: Walking with Orangutans (Channel 4, Sunday, 8pm) is not too far off.

The army major has walked the Nile and travelled to more than 100 countries, taking photographs and writing books along the way. In this new series he explores the world’s last great wildernesses to find out how wildlife is faring against that ever-encroaching creature, man.

Not well is the depressing answer as Wood arrives in Borneo in search of orangutans. Their rainforest habitat has been ripped up to feed the seemingly insatiable demand for palm oil and the orangutans have fled deep into the forest. Simply getting to them requires a long trek across land and water in brutal humidity.

First stop on Wood’s journey is a palm oil plantation, where he speaks to some of the labourers doing gruelling work in dangerous conditions for little pay. One says he would rather work in tourism but there are not enough jobs.

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Wood’s next stop, a sanctuary for orphaned orangutans, is a heartbreaker. Young apes usually stay with their family till the age of seven. Here, their parents killed by poachers and developers, it is humans who teach them the skills they will need to survive when they eventually leave.

There are some shocking sights to come as Wood and the crew hack their way through the jungle. One in particular leaves Wood, a chap one assumes has seen a fair bit on his travels, shaken, depressed and angry.

As Wood says, it is easy to feel powerless in the face of what is going on out there. But he is determined to end on a positive note by suggesting ways in which viewers can help. “It’s really important that people do have some hope,” he says.

Next on his itinerary are the worlds of desert lions and polar bears.