Heart and soul

Tonight #BBC2 repeats one of the loveliest bits of TV in recent years: #Marvellous by #PeterBowker and starring #tobyjones

Do catch it if you haven't: it's playful, funny and wise, a biopic with touches of self-referential works such as American Splendour but with a proudly British sensibility.

I interviewed Pete a few times during my time at Broadcast and he was always a kind, funny, generous and smart interviewee - which shines through in this and his other work such as The A Word.

As I signed off at Broadcast, It got me thinking that rather than list the *best* shows I saw in my 13 years there, I should celebrate some of those with the most heart. 13 of them, in fact, including Marvellous.

Detectorists (BBC4, 2014-2017) Toby Jones again, in Mackenzie Crook's sublime bucolic comedy whose characters I refuse to believe are not real people. Substitute University Challenge for Only Connect and you basically have the early-morning banter in the Broadcast office.

Young @ Heart (Channel 4, 2007) Profoundly life-affirming documentary about a choir of elderly people. It's officially impossible to watch a man wheezing his way through Coldplay’s Fix You in tribute to his recently departed bandmate without breaking into a puddle of tears.

Broad City (Comedy Central 2014-2019) Fresh, silly, filthy, surreal, wise, humane and anchored by the best friendship on TV. The message of the final shot of this series, scored to Lizzo's Juice, was that these characters' relationship was but one of the hundreds, thousands, millions of female stories of friendship out there.

Home (Channel 4, 2019-2020 and hopefully beyond) Rufus Jones' accidental immigrant comedy is a timely tale, shot through with kindness and heart.

Community (NBC, 2009-1015) Genre-hopping comedy that takes the sitcom ground zero of ‘strangers stranded together’ to the extreme. Like the oddest episodes of Seinfeld but with room to put the hugs back in.

Grayson’s Art Club (Channel 4, 2020) The best show to come out of lockdown from one of the UK’s sharpest presenters and interviewers of the public.

Sex Education (Netflix, 2019-present) Taking its cue from the Ezra Furman songs on its soundrack, this is the funny, sexy, honest, odd, equal-opportunity show we all wished was on when we were teenagers.

Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing (BBC2, 2018-present) Yes, middle-aged men travelogues are two-a-penny but I could watch this pair ponder the meaning of life and falling over all day.

The Good Place (NBC, 2016-2020) Philosophy goes primetime, its moral quandaries shot through with absurd sight gags. It's amazing how much plot it burned through so quickly while still finding new plates to spin.

The Great British Bake Off (BBC, Channel 4, 2010-present) Less a competition, more a group hug with recipes. The anti-Apprentice.

Horrible Histories: We’re History (CBBC, 2015). Series five's closing song’s epic sweep, from the Stone Age to the 20th century, is all the more bittersweet for being the swansong for the original cast and team.

Joe Pera Talks with You (Adult Swim, 2018-present) Short and sweet, modest and beautifully scored: small-town wisdom hasn’t been this well captured since Northern Exposure.