Marc Warren is doing well at the moment, isn’t he? He appears to have cornered the market in portraying mordant, otherworldly characters with perverse blood-lust — maybe after realising that Tamzin Outhwaite just wasn’t going to go that final length, after all. Over Christmas we’ll be seeing him as an extremely kinky Count Dracula on the BBC. Last night, meanwhile, Warren was the lisping assassin in Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather on Sky One (Sunday; concludes tonight).

Pale, evil and decked up with eyes like Marilyn Manson — one blasted white, the other inky black, as if he were winking when a nuclear bomb went off — Warren was playing the overly-enthusiastic assassin Mr Teatime, pronounced, with Hyacinth Bucket-esque pretension, “Tayo-tie-may”.

In a nutshell, this might be your problem with Terry Pratchett — his line in sniggering, Python, bug-eyed hyperwhimsy. Personally, I think a thorough versing in Pratchett is an important part of any adolescence — along with body dysmorphia and sexual confusion — and certainly preferable to your offspring watching, say, Little Britain.

Pratchett does wordplay, after all, and mythological reference, and a neat line in narrative cliché- busting. He was also, as far as I’m aware, the person to coin the phrase “The light at the end of the tunnel might well be an oncoming train,” which is certainly, well, true.

What Pratchett doesn’t do, however, is write any character that could be successfully played in a TV adaptation by Sir David Jason. With a budget of £6 million, Sky One’s desire to get in a big name is understandable, but Jason — here playing Death’s misanthropic retainer, Albert — is merely a series of cheeky-chap winks and heavy-handed wisecracks. Possibly his over- characterisation is in response to his screen partner being Death, who isn’t exactly whooping it up, with his immobile white skull. In Hogfather Death’s reaction shots have the same problem as Darth Vader’s reaction shots — really, you might as well be getting a reaction shot from a bucket. There’s nothing going on there.

Sadly, there were similar problems with Marc Warren’s performance. Armed with an itsy bitsy Michael Jackson voice and shrill giggle, Warren had clearly tried to make his assassin a classic, creepy freak — but, in the event, overshot the mark by roughly 300 miles, and half a ton of ham. There wasn’t a lot of subtlety in the room.

Still, this isn’t to say that Hogfather is a failure. Given ample opportunities to bale out during its four hours of running time I did stick with it to the end, albeit with the assistance of sherry. But then, who is watching anything sober in these merry times?

Well, anyone who caught Born Equal (Sun, BBC One), I should imagine. This wasn’t a drama one would have felt comfortable viewing while wearing a flashing Santa hat — dealing, as it did, with a series of nerve-shredding scenes in the lives of people at vulnerable times.

You know it’s not going to be an evening of laid-back chuckledom when Robert Carlyle turns up, snaking around a homeless hostel, eyes like a gun, or a knife. Equally, watching the fragile Anne Marie Duff as a homeless, pregnant, battered wife is apt to have the viewer writhing on the sofa in fear.

Duff played Michelle as a raw nerve, as fingernail bitten down past the quick — Carlyle gives her stolen roses which, vaseless, she puts in the sink, and cries “No one ever given us flowers.” Her scenes with her older child, Danielle — the impressive, wide-eyed Gemma Barrett — were real, tender and painful, and had the definite aura of something that would win awards. Duff really is, on her day, one of the best actors this country has.

In another narrative strand, we had Colin Firth as a City boy who dabbled in charity for the homeless. Hopelessly naive, his first attempt to “rescue” someone ends up with a needly, homeless 16-year-old kissing him and Firth, alarmed by the complication in his life, winds up standing in the middle of a street, bellowing “F*** off! F*** off! What more do you want?”

The direction — by the award- winning writer/director Dominic Savage — was fresh, bordering on beautiful. Savage often shot Duff, for instance, with her face hidden; letting her neck or her back tell the story just as well. The ending felt a bit clichéd — Carlyle suddenly snapped and stabbed Firth, possibly because there doesn’t seem to be a director alive who can employ Carlyle without him suddenly snapping and killing someone — but, in all, it was a strong, clear-eyed piece of drama.

But not something you'd necessarily want to watch on your return from a euphoric night out at the Bingo.

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