Drama worth witnessing

Fans of Dorset-based mystery thriller Broadchurch who gave up through the second series’ baffling storyline, probably won’t lose any sleep that a third instalment is being planned.

However, if you can’t wait to get your fix (David Tennant and Olivia Colman are due back on ITV next autumn), you could always a try a double channel hop by switching over to Channel 4 on Wednesdays and its French offering, Witnesses.

This whodunit has a decided Scandinavian feel to it, with ever-present rain and clouds than the more usual French sun and blue skies that beckon tourists aplenty.

The holiday resort of Le Treport, in north-west Normandy, is the setting for this puzzling drama which opened with the discovery of three, un-related bodies, neatly arranged as a happy family in a new show home - a shocking discovery which mirrored a similar, unsolved crime a month before.

Insomniac detective Sandra Winkler and her sidekick, Justin, are soon on the case as is retired police chief, Paul Maisonneuve. Does Paul’s past, and name, hold the clues to this double case of murder and body exhumation, or is the answer in the original title - Témoins, a word away from Maisons témoins, the French for show homes?

Homes, in town and in the country, are also the backdrops to BBC2’s period drama Life in Squares (Monday), set in the early part of the 1900s, which charts the lives, loves and bed-hopping activities of the trendy Bloomsbury set, a group of artists, poets and philosophers, in London and in Sussex.

Eve Best, James Norton, Rupert Penry-Jones and Anton Lesser head the cast for this three-part romp, parts of which were filmed in the capital and in Sussex at Charleston - the former home of artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant and Bell’s art critic husband, Clive - which the public can visit.

Staying in the country provides the venue for the sixth series of The Great British Bake Off (BBC1, Wednesday), which returns to Welford Park where a giant tent s is the new home for 12 would-be baking champions.

If that’s too hot for you, try chilling out with the bizarre, new quiz show Freeze Out (ITV1, Monday to Friday) as Mark Durden-Smith hosts contestants competing around a giant, circular ice table.

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