Should you be destined to write more than 60 books in life it is probably as well to get started soonest. The subject of Margaret Atwood: This Cultural Life (BBC4, Monday, 10pm) read early and wrote early, turning in a novel at the age of seven.

Atwood’s childhood is one of many subjects covered in John Wilson’s interview with the Canadian author and double Booker winner. The programme is only half an hour long but the talented Mr Wilson packs an extraordinary amount in.

His job is made easier by an Atwood on sparkling, bordering on fizzy, form. At one point she sings him an extract from a “home economics opera” she wrote at school. Such is the power of the “This Cultural Life” format. Asking artists what has shaped their creativity tends to yield surprising answers, or at least it does when it’s Wilson in the interviewer’s chair.

Atwood and her brother did most of their growing up in rural Quebec. Her parents, dad an entymologist and mum a dietician, were outdoorsy, practical sorts who encouraged their children to think for themselves and be “respectful” of the wild. The last one was particularly important given they shared the forest with wolves and bears.

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A major influence on young Margaret was George Orwell. She read Animal Farm before she knew what it was really about, and then of course 1984. Dictatorships, how they form and why they fall apart, have been a lifelong interest.

She wrote The Handmaid’s Tale while living in Berlin in, when else, 1984. Set in a theocratic regime that forces fertile women to bear children for an elite who cannot conceive, The Handmaid’s tale has become one of Atwood’s best-known works. A younger generation of women discovered it courtesy of the hit HBO adaptation with Elisabeth Moss as the servant who leads a rebellion against the government of Gilead.

While viewers of today associated the story with Trumpism and the rowing back of women’s rights, it was Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, and the rise of the evangelical right, that inspired Atwood.

She is fascinating on this and much else, from how the book finally became a television drama to her thoughts on stopping writing now that she is an octogenarian. A must for fans of all ages.

Remember when the third and final series of Happy Valley was due and viewers who had not yet seen it were urged to catch up pronto? Many were the bleary-eyed Happy Valley newbies spending their evenings and a fair chunk of the night on iPlayer. But it was worth it, right?

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Your next mission, should you choose to accept it, is to watch five episodes of the police procedural Blue Lights (BBC1, Monday, 9pm) before the finale.

Set in Belfast, the drama follows three trainees as they try to make it through their probationary period to become proper coppers. A hard enough task anywhere, but Belfast brings its own complications.

Blue Lights has been a cracker of a show and deserves its place as a word of mouth hit. There is another series on the way but do yourself a favour and get in on the ground floor now.

First thought on seeing Clive Myrie's Italian Road Trip (BBC2, Monday, 6.30pm) in the schedules was “Oh no, here we go again”. Richard E Grant, Alan Carr, Amanda Holden, Stanley Tucci, Strictly’s Anton du Beke, it might be quicker to list the celebs who haven’t been to Italy lately.

Myrie promises to take the viewer to the country’s lesser known parts, the places Italians go on holiday.

In the first episode he points his little red Fiat in the direction of Puglia and Basilicata. The first stop is Matera, scene of the car chase in the Bond film No Time to Die and a city of caves that can trace its history back thousands of years.

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I hate to break it to Clive, but Richard E Grant got there before him. No matter. The place is fascinating enough for more than one take. From there it is on to an olive farm owned by a British lawyer who sold up to live the Italian dream. He’s Scottish, natch. We really do get everywhere.

This is Myrie in holiday mode, so don’t expect any hard news angles or pointed interviews. At just half an hour each the 15 (!) episodes rattle by. Hopefully.

There might be a worse time to launch a new comedy set in the Metropolitan Police, but it’s hard to imagine one. Best of luck then to Black Ops (BBC1, Friday, 9.30pm). Gbemisola Ikumelo and Hammed Animashaun play Dom and Kay, well-meaning but clueless community support officers who land a rapid promotion to undercover work.

The Friday, 9.30pm slot is a tough one, but Ikumelo and Animashaun are a likeable pair and the cast also includes Joanna Scanlan (No Offence no less).