Pick of the Day: Digital, Cable and Satellite Television

NOW HE is installed as Britain's favourite travel-show presenter, it is easy to forget that Michael Palin also has a career as a not inconsiderable actor. He showed his acting mettle in such intriguing films as Brazil and The Missionary. In A Private Function (8pm FilmFour), Malcolm Mowbray's beautifully realised comedy of manners, he plays a podiatrist in the post- war Yorkshire of ration books and the black market. He is badgered by his social-climbing wife (Maggie Smith) into kidnapping an illegal pig. This proves an ideal milieu for writer Alan Bennett's deft take on the British class sytem.

Up `n' Under (9pm Sky Moviemax), starring Griff Rhys-Jones (right), is a quirky comedy. by John Godber. In this neat adaptation of his own stage- play, Samantha Janus plays a fitness instructor trying to whip a pub rugby league side into shape.