TV preview: Gaga for Dada: The Original Rebels; A League of Their Own; Brexit: A Very British Coup?

Sean O'Grady tells us what to expect from his pick of next week's telly offerings

Jim Moir's latest exercise in public education, Gaga for Dada, airs next Wednesday on BBC4 (BBC)

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Like that.

Oen ogf early Dadaist pioneers, Tristan Tzara, you see, suggested taking the words of a newspaper article, cutting each out, palcing them in a bag and tipping them out to create new sentences, new meaning (sort of), maybe new ideas. See?

I am far too bourgeois to persevere with the experiment, but clearly I did at least gain a little creative inspiration from watching Jim Moir’s latest exercise in public education, Gaga for Dada. So may you. In case you’d not noticed, this is the centenary year of the first Dadaist activity, which took place in Zurich, an unlikely spot indeed, but, then again, maybe not seeing as the little neutral enclave's neighbours were busily slaughtering each other’s young men at the time and had more pressing things on their mind.

OK, Moir, aka Vic Reeves, is no Kenneth Clark, Robert Hughes, and not even a Melvyn Bragg, but if you recall the style of unhinged comedy he created with Mortimer, he is something of a Dadaist himself, and, thus, ideally qualified to take us gently by the hand and guide us through what is, obviously and quite deliberately, some crazy stuff. In doing so he is joined by the likes of Terry Gilliam, Armando Ianucci and, most convincing of all, the artist Martin Creed. This is the chap, you see, who exhibited a work called “The Lights Going On and Off”, which comprised, yes, of the lights going on and off. Like that pile of bricks from the 1970s, it is the type of artwork that seems designed to upset bourgeois types, and especially those represented by certain newspaper titles. As Creed states, Dadaism is about “being stupid”, and there are few telly personalities who enjoy being stupid more than Moir, and he is very good at “blind painting”, for example. An engaging, witty and warm personality, Moir rummages around the works of Banksy and Bowie, and gamely restages a founding Dada performance in the original Cabaret Voltaire.

The Dadaists certainly had their moments – Duchamp’s enamel urinal “Fountain” is undeniable fun – but almost all of the stuff it inspired has failed to be funny, thoughtful, or revolutionary, in a political way. This is because there are so few opportunities for Dadaist attack. There just aren’t enough strait-laced God-fearing blokes in bowler hats around anymore. There are other potential targets, though: I’d love to watch a Dada assault on the remaining Isis strongholds in Iraq and Syria. Until we see that, Dada’s main contribution to modern civilisation has been the mindless student prank.

A League of Their Own boasts an extremely high incidence of anal humour (Sky)

Who’s had enough of Brexit? Thought so. It is strange that such a vital issue should render everyone numb with boredom anytime the details of what it could or did mean are mentioned, apart, that is, from the Prime Minister’s clever sound bite that “Brexit means Brexit”. In Brexit: a Very British Coup?, you can, if you really want to, re-live the strange and mostly very dull referendum campaign of what is, after all, only a couple of months ago, but which now feels like a different political age. A special treat is the appearance of Michael Heseltine, still a formidable presence at 83, and of foreign office minister Alan Duncan, a man once described as a “Bonsai Hezza”. Perhaps it was a concentration on trivia like that that drained the referendum campaign of much meaning.

If you like sport, dirty jokes and James Corden then the televised pub session that is A League of Their Own is for you. If not, not. It’s difficult for any TV sports quiz to be truly innovative, and there is something very tired about, say, A Question of Sport, and has been ever since David Coleman, Emlyn Hughes and Billy Beaumont stopped running it. And yet here Corden and his mates manage to break new ground with what must be the first televised watermelon fight in British history, and an extremely high incidence of anal humour. Well done, lads.

Gaga for Dada: The Original Art Rebels: BBC4, Wednesday 21 September; Brexit: A Very British Coup?: BBC2, Thursday 22 September; A League of Their Own: Sky1, Thursday 22 September