John Bishop’s Australia (BBC1, 9pm)

BACK in 1992, an unknown 25-year-old Liverpudlian called John Bishop was working as a sales rep for a drugs company. With a steady girlfriend, a good wage, a company car and a sideline as a semi-professional footballer, he seemed to have it all.

But he felt he was at a crossroads. He didn't want to just get married and have kids like his mates. Nor did he want to turn 45 and still be in a company car. The lure of Australia was too good to resist, so he decided to leave the girl of his dreams, pack his bags and go Down Under in case he never got another chance. During that personal journey, he rode a bike through Australia and back to his home town.

"I feel like I went to Australia, but I didn't," he explains of his original journey to Oz. "I went to a road in Australia and stayed on that road, very rarely went off it. I wanna go back and see the Australia I didn't see."

Bishop's journey from rep to acclaimed funnyman is as compelling as his Antipodean jaunt. He is still surprised to his rise to success as a stadium-filling stand-up. "I'm living a life now that I couldn't have even dreamed of living when I was 25," he explains. You could have sat me down and given me a piece of paper and said, 'Come up with the most outrageous job you think you'll be doing when you're 47', and it wouldn't be a stand-up comedian. I couldn't have come up with that."

Using his original diary as a guidebook, Bishop meets a range of extraordinary characters, and experiences true natural wonders. His latest trip involves a breathtaking 2,500 km journey from the most populated city in Australia to Cairns.

"This time I need to see all that Australia has to offer, from its amazing landscape to its unique people. I also want to discover how the man I am today compares to the man who came here 22 years ago."

Jamie's Money Saving Meals (Channel 4, 8.30pm)

GRANTED, this series got off to a slightly shaky start, with superchef Jamie Oliver coming in for some criticism for underestimating the average family on a budget's store cupboard contents (it's all well and good livening a cheap dish up with a sprinkling of organic chervil, but who has a pot of that living on their back shelf?) – it led to some people quite rightly calling his price-per-portion figures into question.

The once-Naked Chef is trying to get back on the boil as he brings his series to a close with a quartet of flavoursome but thrifty dishes. He demonstrates how chicken drumsticks, which have more flavour than breasts but come at half the price, are perfect for a curry, before rustling up a Mexican omelette, giant vegetable rosti with poached eggs and crispy Cajun fishcakes, and a somewhat unusual-sounding “snake in the hole"... not to be hissed, obviously.

RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2014 (BBC2, 8.30pm)

THE Royal Horticultural Society's annual event in south-west London is engaging even to those on the fringes of the gardening world. This first of three programmes from the event features a celebration of 50 years of Britain in Bloom, with presenters Monty Don, Rachel de Thame and Joe Swift previewing the show before the gates open tomorrow. Monty takes a look around the newly planted kitchen garden and discovers what Henry VIII would have demanded for dinner; Joe gets a flavour of the large show gardens, and Rachel reveals the winner of the coveted Rose of the Year title.