TONY ON TV: Mum’s the word in new six-part Mellor drama

TV ads can be fun, but they also mangle the English language.

Heading up out of town, past the now demolished Chad HQ on Newgate Lane, there’s a massive billboard for the Toyota Aygo which says “Go fun yourself,” which years ago would have meant an exam resit.

Then there’s ‘Rev’ star Tom Hollander losing his faith in the Queen’s English with his voiceover for Expedia’s nonsensical “travel yourself interesting” while VV Polo completes the triple treat of own goals with its jarring “Drive confident.”

Other annoying ads, but for different reasons, include the Azera one in which the poor guy pads off into the rain pretending to get a real cup of coffee for his girlfriend who whispers and waffles on for a barista-style brew (her older sister does the throaty twitterings for holidays abroad with Trivago) while Barry Scott takes the honours as he bangs on about ‘Cillit Bang,’ which I find doesn’t always do what it says on the label.

That claim can’t be levelled at the Commonwealth Games from Scotland, which has shown the BBC, and the city of Glasgow, at their best giving viewers excellent, wall-to-wall coverage of sporting wins and losses on BBC1 and BBC3.

The Games end this Sunday, but before then there a chance to see a different view of Glasgow in ‘The Secret of Our Streets’ (Friday, BBC2), which takes a look at Duke Street, Britain’s longest, with its elegant Victorian tenement blocks that residents battled to save 40 years ago when they came under threat from the city council. This engaging three-part series, which started out in Edinburgh, ends its north of the border travels next week as it stops off in Aberdeen.

As the TV schedules return to normal over the summer holidays, there’s a mix of old and new with a double treat for fans of ‘Who Do They Think They Are?’ on BBC1, starting with a look back in ‘10 Years, 100 Shows’ in the company of Jeremy Paxman, Len Goodman, Bruce Forsyth and Natasha Kaplinsky among others as a curtain raiser for the 11th series. This opens with BAFTA award-winning actress Julie Walters tracing her roots back to County Mayo in western Ireland while other names lined up to uncover their past include Brian Blessed, Twiggy, Billy Connolly and Mary Berry.

If you’re missing that “baby buzz” in ‘Call the Midwife,’ then make sure you catch ‘In the Club’ (BBC1), a new, six-part drama from Kay Mellor (‘Fat Friends’) whose finely-honed script shows that when it comes to birth -- whether you’re a schoolgirl living in a high-rise council flat or a 46-year-old rich business woman -- your life will never be the same again.

This can be seen as the six pregnant women -- housewife Diane (Jill Halfpenny), schoolgirl Rosie (Hannah Midgley), newlywed Jasmin (Taj Atwal), businesswoman Roanna (Hermione Norris), midwife Vicky (Christine Bottomley) and blog writer and teaching assistant Kim (Katherine Parkinson) -- from varied backgrounds, meet at the local parentcraft class, but each have issues of their own.