TV Premiere of Alison Rowat: Stanley Tucci: In Search of Italy; SAS Celebrity; Portrait painter of the year

For the first episode, Tucci is in absurdly beautiful Venice, home to some very expensive restaurants, one of which made headlines a few years ago for charging four Japanese students £970 for a meal. Yes, the police have been called.

Stanley has been told he can feast like a local just two minutes from the Rialto Bridge, so off he goes, dashing through a maze of streets, eventually stumbling upon All’ Arco wine bar. There he tries cicchetti, or small pieces of bread with yummy fillings, which he pronounces delicious with a glass of chilled white. It’s 8:30 a.m. and Tucci is just getting started.

I don’t know how easy it is to get to some of the fabulous places featured on the show, and its cooking demonstrations aren’t exactly laden with detail, but programs like these are all about the ambiance . Sit down, have a bowl of pasta, a glass of wine and relax.

Now we come to the second type of TV show featuring famous people. I say famous, but some of the faces on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins (Channel 4, Sunday, 9pm) you might struggle to name. We are here in the realm of ex-soap actors and ex-footballers, all of whom try to convince the harsh, screaming instructors that they have what it takes to join the elite military unit.

This week the focus is on leading a team: what it means, what it takes, and the most important takeaway of all, what to do when things go wrong. The tasks are challenging, with the scorching desert setting doing the contestants no favors.

Those the instructors worry about are taken for a conversation (no understatement, it’s really just a conversation), and one such meeting this week leaves the tough teachers almost speechless.

By the way, among the first recruits is a Fatima Whitbread. The former javelin champion is old enough to pass the bus, but when it comes to real courage, she leaves young people standing.

From killerball games (it’s like rugby but with a tire instead of a ball) to the realm of civility that is home to Portrait Artist of the Year (Sky Arts, Wednesday, 8 p.m.). Here, everyone and everything is lovely, so why go anywhere else on a midweek evening?

Returning for a ninth series, the format is simple: each week, take nine artists, professionals and amateurs, and ask them to paint a personality. Play the results in front of expert judges, add Joan Bakewell and Stephen Mangan as hosts and celebrities, and voila, a relaxing hour of viewing.

This week’s topics are writer and podcaster Elizabeth Day, broadcaster Nick Grimshaw, as well as her dog, Stinky Blob, and jockey Khadijah Mellah.

What’s remarkable about Portrait Artist of the Year is how the standard just keeps getting better. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish an amateur from a professional. The ‘life-changing’ prize winner can paint Sir Lenny Henry and have his work featured in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

If you fancy argy bargy before the art, there’s Britain on Strike: The Debate (channel 5, Mondays, 9pm). In preparation, the channel broadcast a documentary, 1978: Winter of Discontent, the night before. The debate itself will likely focus more on strikes in the summer of 2022 and those planned for the coming months, but 1978-79 informs so much about thinking about it that it’s worth having a recap. The debate is moderated by Jeremy Vine, so it won’t be heated at all.

Did you take last week’s advice and buy the City Slicker drama, Industry (BBC1, Tuesday, 10:40 p.m.)?

Half the time on Industry, I have no idea what we’re talking about, both the pace of the dialogue and the amount of jargon used.

Series two kicks into its stride this week as the new kids on the trading block begin to declare their independence and some of the older guards start behaving badly again (if they ever stopped). The episode ends perfectly with a classic Donna Summer tune.