Reviews

Lovely episode in which Hacker is persuaded by Party hacks and luminaries, he must 'do something' about education to avoid defeat at the next election - or ejection, from Downing Street, as it would become.

The answer: abolish the Department of Education (now Department for Education - some powerful Prime Minister changed its title after 1988). Sir Humphrey is, of course, appalled. Jim Hacker, advised by his political adviser, or Spad as we now call them, wants parents to be free to choose which schools their children go to. When asked whether this is a good idea, Sir Humphrey blithers and blathers.

'Which school did you go to, Humphrey?' Hacker asks him.

'Winchester' 'And who chose that?' 'My parents...' He claims they were discerning, whereas ordinary parents wouldn't know where to send their kids.

Eventually, Humphrey finds a way to stymie the plan by threatening political embarrassment. Funnily enough, political embarrassment stymies many plans: the British Government showed no interest in protecting the Windrush generation of immigrants to the UK whose status was queried....until a Commonwealth Conference here, led to potential embarrassment to the late Queen. They then sat up and took notice.

Yes, Prime Minister and its' distinguished predecessor, Yes, Minister, continue to bear relevant satirical fruit 35 years after first being shown. It should almost form part of an induction package for any incoming Government.

For those of us who are accident prone, this beautifully plotted episode together with the previous one - The Chop - offers the prospect of redemption.

Brittas, having been sacked, has a job as a petrol pump attendant and as would be expected, creates chaos, concentrating on meaningless superficiality, rather than selling petrol - causing frustration and anger, especially to a tanker driver with a delivery for the Leisure Centre.

After being sacked, Gordon goes onto the Centre with a gift for former staff, he is surprised how busy it is, meets Alan the slightly grubby new manager, who nevertheless does seem to know how to run it. And bangs a Swiss Clock with moving parts - his gift - into the wall of the staff room.

The incident with the drill flying off and landing between the new manager's legs, ensuing gas leak, the spark from the motion of the clock causing a fireball as the Centre explodes while Alan is in Town, is like a cartoon jigsaw, each piece neatly fitting in place.

Having chased Gordon around the Centre, the furious tanker driver who blamed him for all his problems at the petrol station and thereafter, hooks him to a stake, which amazingly helps him hold the roof up as it collapses around him, until like a latter-day war hero he walks through the dust to waiting emergency services and camera crews with Ben, Carol's son and some others he's rescued.

It's a lesson for us all. You don't have to be heroic to be a hero, nor a clown to be a fool. Sometimes, with luck on your side, you can do the right thing and push many of your personal deficiencies aside.

Doing the right thing the wrong way almost always leads to disaster. In this case, Brittas does the wrong thing the right way and achieves some sort of salvation - with tabloids clamouring for him to be reinstated as Manager. As long, one would assume, as their readers don't need to visit a leisure centre.

An epic, expensively made episode with true pathos at its end. In the end, anyone whose heart is in the right place, deserves some sort of credit.

I rarely award ten out of ten, after all, life is imperfect, nothing is actually worth the ultimate reward - apart from England winning the World Cup in 1966, my first kiss, the iconic inscrutability of Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner and Tottenham Hotspur winning the double - that's not cream, by the way, it's soccer - or football to us Brits.

This is the darkest episode of the series but amongst the best. Brittas with his anally retentive attitudes, understandably checks the lavatories for cleanliness and finds a key to a locker behind one - and the key to another locker, behind another.

The keys belong to gangs, including one from Bolivia - a beautiful country which shouldn't be judged by the ham actors playing Bolivian gangsters in this episode - doing a drugs deal with a local gang. One case from the locker contains £650,000, the other, the drugs.

Both are taken to Gordon's office where Helen is told to find her new prescription - which clearly has an uplifting effect on her.

Meanwhile the gangs, thinking each has double-crossed the other, have a shoot-out, Brittas gets stuck to a chain saw, which amazingly goes mad and carries him into the sports hall, where he cuts through the Zimmer frames of elderly exercisers.

At his trial, the gangster he'd given a squash trophy to and told of his dream, provides perfect redemption and enables the jury in to find him not guilty.

He is guilty of a breathtaking comic performance, so tongue in cheek, it almost protrudes into the leisure centre pool. Carol for-sees the carnage - but can't prevent it.

During these time of greater sensitivity, such a plot would have difficulty getting past the chainsaws of script editors and producers. In 1992 it was hilariously, side-splittingly funny - and still is, today.

Re-watching this episode, it contains sufficient belly-laughs for an equivalent theatrical piece to cause audiences to 'roll in the aisles' as they used to say. It's more difficult rolling on a settee in front of the tele - especially if, like Gordon Brittas, your feet are stuck in concrete, though you could, perhaps, roll your upper torso whilst your feet remained firmly stuck.

As our anti-hero, or rather delusional misfit, continues to fire on all cylinders, his mobility in this episode is constrained by the Rotary Club burying his feet in quick setting, long-lasting concrete.

As he sits in his dinner jacket and bow tie, having been unable to get home, it appears clear something is wrong: he leans from one side to the other as if his feet were - well, stuck in concrete.

These balletic movements are so hilarious, it's lucky laughter is generally conducive to positive health, rather than sudden obliteration.

As usual, Gordon blames the problem on something else - in this instance, sick building syndrome. A scientist, Mr Hansen, tries to uncover this strange phenomenon, but sadly, having had his computer smashed and being flattened by a rock climber falling on him in a fairly assertive way, is unable to offer any evidence against the building.

In a nice scene, Laura has a heart to heart with Brittas and tells him he never listens to anyone, then proves his lack of perception, comprehension and understanding by giving him a test: his lack of social skills are demonstrated as wife, Helen, shows inferences aren't always what they infer.

Sadly, this Empire will never become a Commonwealth, Brittas will always be imperious - doing the very worst things for the very best reasons.

All sitcoms take a while to find their feet, characters have to be established and situations gauged according to expectations of their perceived behaviour in order to be funny.

It's said comedy can either have believable characters in unbelievable situations, or vice versa. One of the joys of The Brittas Empire is that it has one exaggerated character in situations that are pretty-well unbelievable, but are made to seem believable.

This first episode of series two is a great example of the ensemble of actors gelling to hilarious effect; Brittas has been on a management course in Bulgaria and is believed to have fallen over a safety rail in a car factory and been flattened - evidence provided by his marriage ring on the only unflattened part of his body.

From a deeply Avengers-like opening of the Centre empty with no customers at all, news of Gordon's demise soon brings customers flocking in; until after his funeral, unflattened, he returns, is thought to be a zombie by Carole, seeking to take over the body of her baby, she then literally tries to flatten him in his car with a JCB.

Meanwhile Helen, having met a new man at his funeral, is about to get married after eight days.

True, some parts don't quite add up: Gordon's explanation of being locked up in the bowels of a Bulgarian hotel, having his clothes stolen - vide the thief being the one flattened wearing his ring - apparently because he complained about the size of the towels.

It's also unlikely his funeral could be arranged so quickly; it's difficult enough arranging them for those in religions that require urgent burials, due to coroners operating a cab-rank system and not giving them the priority bereaved families rightly expect. There's a subject for a black comedy - or a black cab comedy!

Now we know Gordon's foibles, insistence on petty form-filling, lack of commercial acumen or sensitivity and overriding belief in being right, it makes a situation such as this hilarious. The look on the faces of staff as he seemingly returns from the dead is delicious.

The Brittas Empire has frequently been underrated. As it gathers steam, episode by episode, it improves - and thirty years later, has aged well.

Beautifully written by Alan Galton and Ray Simpson, this 1970 vignette compares favourably with any kitchen sink drama at the Royal Court Theatre or hogging the BAFTA's at the time. Ironic, as has been said, that the remaining copy is in black and white, since the theme is the onset of colour television.

Harold and Albert share dna, but have diametrically opposed ambitions; Harold wants excitement, glamour and a little bit of - what should we say - personal attention. Albert, sitting at home all day in front of a tiny 1937 black and white television, wants a modern colour one.

As they bicker and argue about Harold's wish to buy a sports car versus his fathers preference for a modern tv, Albert pointedly remarks that the permissive society existed before the sixties, he'd apparently bought a Triumph car for £5 in the year dot and made the most of it, adjusting the gear stick more regularly than strictly necessary, so as to fully enjoy the sort of female companionship his son yearns for.

The argument gets worse, Albert leaves the house and is found wandering the streets by the police suffering from exposure.

At the hospital, Harold is told his father has amnesia, he cannot recognise him but eventually remembers the old horse, Hercules.

Upon returning home, as is often the case, Harold has sacrificed his princely sports car, which gave an amazing new look to the yard, which was to take him and a local girl, who knows him so well, she confuses his name, but falls in love with the car, to Brighton for a colour television.

Upon seeing it, Albert's memory miraculously returns.

There's a beautiful claustrophobic intimacy to scenes between the father and son, the writing is piquant, the outcome inevitable. Harold will always miss out on what he aspires to.

Danny Simons, brother of Neil, who wrote 'The Odd Couple' used to say all the best comedy comes through character.

After more than 50 years, these characters shine through; but that car didn't half look good!

I was aware of the appalling injustice perpetrated on decent, honest hard working postmasters and mistresses as were many, but nothing seemed to happen. A computer journal exposed it, Private Eye, Panorama....then, suddenly, on terrestrial television - which is continually being scorned as past its sell by date, a brilliant, powerful drama highlighting the injustice - or yes, even, evil perpetrated on innocent victims.

Not since Cathy Come Home, has a drama so galvanised the public and reduced election-conscious politicians into scrambling for answers. What could not be done in 20 years, has suddenly been achieved in weeks, with all criminal convictions about to be overturned.

Toby Jones as Bates is fabulous, I could almost imagine him taking time off with a ghostly Jack Hargreaves to present Out of Town in scenic Wales. Monica Dolan as Jo, brought more tears to the eye than Fay Wray in King Kong - but this was no story of a Monster in love, rather it was a cynical public body with over-promoted zealots at its' helm, failing to use common sense, or even pragmatism, to deal with serious computer glitches.

How any lawyer could imagine several hundred industrious sub-post office workers would suddenly turn to crime is beyond me. Like discovering the Kray Twins had produced The Sound of Music.

I liked Katherine Kelly's nuanced Angela Van Den Bogerd (not from the Von Trap family, note) and the excellent Lia Williams as Paula Vennells.

Television can still be powerful, cut the mustard and act as a catalyst for change. The best drama of 2024 in the first week of the year. And no, I don't bother checking my change at the sub-post office I go to: I trust them.

I prefer ghost stories to horror films, there again, I have a soft spot for Frankenstein and Dracula, they'd have made a great gay couple, had there been different social mores and literary convergence when they were written.

This relatively short piece, from the pen and lens of Mark Gatiss is suitably dark and scary, it contains significant Sherlock Holmes associations and unsurprisingly originated from the quill pen of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Kit Harrington (Smith) a very Victorian pre-Raiders of the Lost Ark hero, with no significant buckle to swash, bangs on the door (supposedly of Holmes before Baker Street), scared stiff, having apparently been followed by an Egyptian Mummy - Lot 249 in an auction - which Bellingham, a foppish student played by Freddie Fox as well as a modest suburb in Lewisham, London, seems intent on bringing to life.

We see the prequel from several weeks before, depicting how this arose.

The scaredy-cat student living in adjacent rooms in the Hallowed Courtyards of Oxford almost drowned, apparently pushed into the river by the Mummy, who does seem intent on causing havoc - primarily at the instigation of Bellingham. Why he should be so obsessed by Egyptology or wish to bring a 40 century old Mummy to life is not made clear, but Conan Doyle was writing at a time of heightened interest in Sphinxes, Pyramids and Mummies.

Gatiss creates a great atmosphere with several dark (both visual and narrative) scenes.

My one objection is the lack of character in the Mummy. King Kong - as different to this as chalk and cheese - nevertheless, a figure who caused fear and panic, did show emotion, bathos, pathos - even affection. With the long history of Egypt, this Mummy might have shown some character, not necessarily doing The Times crossword, but at least discovering the intricacies of Rubik's cube. Why he wanted to terrorise upstanding students in Oxford is unclear.

Ghosts do not have to be bad, although, like politicians and realtors, they generally get a bad press.

This was a charming, scary enjoyable vignette - but I suggest Mummy's form a Union to protect their reputations. They can't all be bad.

Whilst flares were widening, the Stones, Rolling (and rocking), a gang of Pythons amusing us and Dad's Army were on Parade, these great vignettes of contemporary drama were performed, cheaply, but effectively.

The issues of prejudice, perception and fairness are paramount in these three significant epistles. Cyril Shaps, a great actor, whose son went on to become Head of ITV, plays a pensioner mugged in a dark alley by two black men. The question is who did it? These - or others?

Did the community police constable, eight years on the beat in a multi-racial part of Fulchester act fairly and dispassionately? Could the two (slightly older looking, supposedly late teenage youths), both black but poles apart academically, socially and politically, one a black power student activist, the other working in a laundry, really mug Arthur?

It's quite surprising, really, that they both attend the same club, given their significant differences. Or maybe the writer, Paul Wheeler is just showing that two young black guys can be completely different?

In the third episode, we meet the model, Miss Brown, who the student is going out with, she provides an alibi and gives a feisty performance in the witness box.

It's such a shame these dramas are nowhere to be found in contemporary viewing. We have to put up with soaps, predominantly and primarily all froth and suds...

I'll leave you to watch to the end to hear the verdict. Well worth watching, too.

Whilst flares were widening, the Stones, Rolling (and rocking), a gang of Pythons amusing us and Dad's Army were on Parade, these great vignettes of contemporary drama were performed, cheaply, but effectively.

The issues of prejudice, perception and fairness are paramount in these three significant epistles. Cyril Shaps, a great actor, whose son went on to become Head of ITV, plays a pensioner mugged in a dark alley by two black men. The question is who did it? These - or others?

Did the community police constable, eight years on the beat in a multi-racial part of Fulchester act fairly and dispassionately? Could the two (slightly older looking, supposedly late teenage youths), both black but poles apart academically, socially and politically, one a black power student activist, the other working in a laundry, really mug Arthur?

It's quite surprising, really, that they both attend the same club, given their significant differences. Or maybe the winter, Paul Wheeler is just showing that two young black guys can be completely different.

In the two subsequent episodes, we meet the model, Miss Brown, who the student is going out with, she provides an alibi and gives a feisty performance in the witness box.

It's such a shame these dramas are nowhere to be found in contemporary viewing. We have to put up with soaps, predominately and primarily all froth and suds...

I'll leave you to watch to the end to hear the verdict. Well worth watching, too.

Having been promoted to senior ministerial office responsible for law and order, Gerald Overton (masterfully played by Roy Marsden) is feeling pretty chipper. There is a strong hint he is something of a ladies man, as he arrives outside his house, he exchanges a meaningful, suggestive glance with a young, attractive television journalist, played by Amanda Goodman.

Upon greeting his wife, we discover amongst the congratulatory telegrams there are poison pen letters, understandably, his wife is nervous about his new, prominent position.

Playing with his young son at bedtime before going alone to a posh dinner party, something happens that provides the novel twist at the end, which I, for one, didn't see coming.

He walks across the park to the dinner party in his dinner suit (tuxedo, to Americans) which with its' poor lighting (the park, not the suit) and elements of menace, with trees rustling and strange joggers running past, is perhaps, somewhat risky, he nevertheless, makes it to the dinner.

The beautiful candles and table settings befit a high-flying minister, one vampish guest, makes it clear he is guaranteed more than her vote. It's, perhaps, a little cliched for a handkerchief drop, picked up by Overton, to convey this and BCU's (Big Close Ups) of their eyes, to confirm it.

Mary Tregallas (Kate Harper) offers him a lift and stops the car with a view to establishing an intimate but commitment-free relationship, which he rather bravely rejects, leaving her car and walking back across the park.

Such morality was missing from the Tory Government of the time, with more indiscreet bed-hopping than in the average up-market brothel.

The critical scene - Overton bumping into a drunk who appears to mug him and steal his wallet, followed by the brave law and order minister chasing him, apparently recovering the wallet and giving him a damned good thrashing, leads to the subsequent denouement back at his house - when police arrive and all is not what it originally seemed.

This is a well-directed episode (by Peter Hammond) entirely filmed and with good, perceptive morals: don't judge a book by its cover, don't tempt fate. I might also add, snogging a Tory minister is not a great idea - this was the era of 'kiss and tell', rather different from William Tell, not something that would ever be turned into an overture, other than one of sleaze.

A rather good half hours' or so's viewing, which has aged well.

I don't want to be negative, this is a rip-roaring action adventure movie with the fascinating combination of Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood in lead roles. The war scenes are memorable, although so much dynamite is carried by the dare-devil team, theoretically seeking to recapture a senior military figure from an impenetrable castle, I was waiting for an announcement to say they were sponsored by Alfred Nobel!

The narrative was somewhat implausible, there was a British operation, Operation Mincemeat, which sought to confuse Germany with false information, this improbable scenario had more double agents than a double glazing company.

There was some tension, but no memorable, intense moral dilemmas such as in 'The Bridge on the River Kwai', I also found it longer than it needed to be and a poor comparison to a low-budget 'sleeper' made at the same time starring Lloyd Bridges, called 'Attack on the Iron Coast', originally released as a 'B' picture, but gripping, exciting and enthralling.

It was great to see Mary Ure playing a significant role, with considerable verve; tragic she died so young, aged 42. And seeing Ingrid Pitt, for once without accompanying vampires, was good.

A worthy effort to keep us on the edge of our seats, but it could have had a sharper script, made better use of the wonderful Michael Hordern and not had quite so much bang bang, pop pop, you're dead I'm not.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad we won the war. Just not sure we'd have won it quite the way this film suggests.

I watched some episodes of Crown Court 50 years ago, it's been wonderful to catch up with so many on Talking Pictures now.

There is a dearth of contemporary drama on television - none at all during daytime. These excellent vignettes captured both the attitudes of the time and the perception of juries.

In these three episodes, Lawrence Webb is accused of murdering his wife, who is suffering from terminal cancer - but could expect to survive three or four years, albeit, bedridden and in pain.

The defence is that it was manslaughter, following the wishes of his wife who was in interminable pain, only partially relieved by morphine tablets.

These long-off days when we were just entering the Common Market and Brexit might have been a washing-up powder, had different social mores and attitudes. The fact that it appeared the Webb's had a semi-open marriage with the husband cavorting with his Secretary, beautifully played in a non-cavorting way in the witness box, certainly inspired the ire of prosecuting counsel, who implied that the killing was one of convenience, rather than mercy.

The acting was excellent, sadly all but one of the cast are no longer with us to enjoy these 21st century plaudits. Bryan Izzard directed in an unusually fluid fashion (probably watched too many surrealistic Fellini or Antonioni films at the time) but it worked quite well, particularly panning along the jury, allowing the dolly to swing around the court and eventually going into a split screen during the confrontation between prosecutor and defendant towards the end.

It would have been good to have heard the arguments of the jury prior to the verdict. But their door remained closed, just as history closed the door on this era of meaningful television drama.

A great program, ethical issues which still provoke intense debate now - and great performances all around.

More than 50 years ago, when dramatic vignettes such as this and Tales of the Unexpected, were regularly screened, I may have watched and agonised with the jury, prior to their verdict. It was far from an open and shut case (of heroin).

A father and son, the two Vennings' the title refers to, are charged with smuggling £200,000 of Chinese heroin from Cherbourg.

The father is swiftly exonerated, the main story relates to his somewhat anodyne son, perceived as unpopular at uni, loved, supposedly, by his fiancée, who testifies with about as much credibility as Donald Trump before the sacking of Congress and whether he was a party to the crime.

The question for the jury is whether Vennings Jnr was aware of the hidden cache of drugs - or whether a 'professional' gang used his boat (actually, his father's boat) as a water-borne mule.

I won't give the game away - but will say there was a 10-2 verdict (the sort of score we Tottenham fans can only dream of against Arsenal).

Suffice to say, the excellent summing up by both lawyers had me humming and haa-ing. It's a bit too late to reconvene the jury, but intriguingly, as has been said, the foreman was Peter Ellis, later Chief Inspector Brownlow in charge of Sun Hill police station in ITV's 'The Bill'.

Now I wonder if he could have established the truth in this case....

What's with all the negativity here, this 1960 episode is a pastiche with over the top acting and such deep levels of cynicism, the Beverley Hillbillies could have dug a well with it.

Betsy Blake, a somewhat faded glamorous actress has died in a boating accident, Gladiator studios fanatically ambitious PR man, Jimmy (aged 23) wants her death to be used to promote the movie she's just completed, asking a supposedly poor chain-smoking author in the rather chic basement apartment next door to him, to write-up the blurb.

All goes well until Ms Blake turns up, having been rescued by a Swedish trawler and spent 90 days away, presumably discussing true cinema greats like Ingmar Bergman or Jan Troell. Her return dashes the marketing plans of the hyped-up pseudo executive with the morals of a rattlesnake - so he helps Betsy return to the condition everyone thought she was in, 90 days before.

Yes, there is an issue of a true glamour-girl (played by Meri Welles - what PR man gave her that name?) entering the writers apartment dripping from a fall in the ocean at the beginning, but having no further role in the script - other than showing that the ambitious Jimmy had pulling power.

You can take the plot - and the twist at the end - with a pinch of salt. It's a fairly garrulous and pale grey (or gray) shade of dark satire - with a little glimmer of truth about shallow ambition and meaningless marketing - such as Jimmy's stories in the Press about the living, but thought dead, Betsy's secret love life from beyond the grave - that makes it sufficiently endearing for a half hour drama.

So let's be honest, there's a lot of dross on television at the moment. In a land of the crazy, the sane are mad - perhaps. But in the 1970's there were innovative programs - even on children's television. And this, Sky, was the best - hence my 10 out of 10 rating.

Marc Harrison, as the time traveller, was outstanding, with amazing blue eyes which the extremely new special effects emphatically delivered. The theme of the series - an alien presence disrupting nature, causing it to revolt, was an apt precursor to HIV and its effect on anti-bodies and Covid, which similarly caused serious problems, agitating defensive mechanisms within bodies, which subsequently led to severe illness and death.

I'm not sure the writers foresaw all of these things, but their excellent scenario of nature fighting an unnatural presence, was an amazing and precise precursor.

Marc Harrison in the lead role is superb, sensual, vulnerable, preoccupied with problems of his age and situation, Stuart Lock and Cherrald Butterfield as the teenagers who help him, are equally good.

I missed the last episode in 1975 and have only just viewed it, now the series is available on dvd. Sure, it's dated, but as an ambitious foretaste of things to come unless we change our ways, it is unsurpassed. True, Denis Potter wrote great plays, Out of the Unknown was a super 1969's/70's series and contemporary green background special effects make Sky look somewhat anachronistic, but the essence of the series, the conflict between an interloper and nature, the destruction of most of the human race during the chaos and search for the famous, inimitable Juganet (I asked about it in a pub last night) with its' ultimate discovery at Stonehenge is unique and awesome.

Sky is a unique, fabulous, prediction-laden series which Nostradamus may not have mentioned, but we should never forget.

When Bob returns from his honeymoon in Norway - with the traditional splint on his foot, allegedly from missing a step on the aircraft - Terry is getting ever-closer to Susan, Thelma's sister. Susan, is engaged to an accountant called Peter in Canada and is due to fly home, having spent the last five years there.

Terry, the erasable bachelor - even though he married in Germany and is separated - is torn between the prospect of a life of supposed suburban bliss if Susan chooses to stay, and his more eclectic, traditional lifestyle. They joke with Bob's mother pretending Susan is pregnant, before acknowledging she will return to North America and a promising life with Peter.

The script is, as usual, wonderful, full of bathos and pathos - the married Bob, now touting a night of social and sexual adventure at a local dive, whilst in reality only fantasising about it. Whilst Terry, having experienced two weeks with Susan in Bob and Thelma's new semi on the aspirational new private estate, is almost tempted to down tools (literally) and follow in Bob's footsteps - once the splint comes off his leg. Each seemingly coveting the others lifestyle.

Society now has less opportunities for social advancement or 'levelling up' as the current Government calls it. But in those days of comic gold, there were always opportunities for advancement, engagement and fulfilment - as Terry finds with a stewardess after bidding Susan farewell at the airport.

Whatever would have been, wouldn't be. At least, not on this occasion.

I come back to Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads from time to time, it sharpens the senses, shows that Le Frenais and Clement understood social mobility and working class mores way before the Tories achieved their undeserved majority from 'Red Wall' seats in 2019, on the shallow basis of 'Levelling Up' and 'Getting Brexit Done'.

One wonders what a latter-day Terry coming out of the army into the North East of England, would think of things now - especially if he bumped into Ant and Dec (Geordies, mind, not from Sunderland).

The impeccable script contains truths that permeate consciousness in a far more measured way than Pinter's 'The Caretaker', for example. In this and in other episodes the somewhat (allegedly) saucy Deidre Birchwood is mentioned and other contemporaries from schooldays, none of whom married Andre Previn - who Terry took to be a bus conductor, at the time, married to Mia Farrow - not from their neck of the woods.

The classic scenes of Bob (Rodney Bewes) social climbing at dinner parties with his fiancé and Terry (James Bolam), an unreconstructed alpha male in unreconstructed times sharing memories of school days, their hostess living above a chip shop, Bob having a caterpillar fall out of his underpants after a fumble with the gardener's daughter, are both hilarious, meaningful and beautifully performed.

Ultimately, Thelma takes Terry's side with a put-down about snobbishness, that would have had me relocating to a flat above a chip shop from semi-detached paradise, it was so cutting.

Sadly, the brilliant writing here, in Hancock, Fawlty Towers, Steptoe, Porridge, One Foot in the Grave, Father Ted and Only Fools and Horses have been superseded by the crass vulgarity of Mrs Brown.

It's worth a journey back to the patterned carpet of the upwardly mobile semi featured in this episode just to see how good comedy can be - and was. A sort of Whatever Happened to Whatever Happened.

It's difficult complaining of social mores in times gone by, society has changed, sadly, neither Dick, nor his contemporaries are here to reflect it.

This compilation of songs and sketches works well, despite the time lapse. I enjoyed the 'old geezer' singing a famous nostalgic song; now is the time for nostalgia, I also enjoyed seeing Lynda Carter (Wonder Woman), who has a good voice. The best sketch was the park bench one - where a mortified Emery is subjected to various indignities before determining, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

We don't have videos of Laurel and Hardy onstage during their London visit, nor Max Miller at his peak. But this hour of the BBC's Dick Emery, dangerously defecting to ITV, is an iconic piece. And you know what?

As one participant might have said: It wasn't that awful....

Ralph Richardson, a quintessentially British actor, both directs and takes the lead role as David Preston, a relatively low/middle-ranking employee of a bank - though, seemingly earning enough to buy an attractive character cottage/semi in Bromley - stereotypically takes the same train to work and returns home at the same time, each day.

His attractive wife (Margaret Leighton) is hysterical on a Tuesday evening, when she proves to his disbelief, that he has not been home - or at work - for a day.

It transpires that a murder has taken place and money stolen from the social club he is treasurer of - and when his fake alibi is uncovered, he becomes the prime suspect.

The extraordinary class attitudes of the time are clearly evident: 'he's a good type, one of us...not a CRIMINAL! ' The police inspector suggests one of us, can still be one of them.

Preston's amnesia and the suggestivity of the inspector lead him to believe he has committed murder - especially when it transpires he has underlying financial problems.

There's a touching scene when he prepares his wife for life without him, suggesting her sister joins her at the house and they open a nursery.

The denouement is not very dramatic - but far better than a sudden suicide based on misplaced associative guilt.

We rarely see thoughtful plays or films like this these days, yes, it's low key - but some people, like David Preston, live low key lives.

Jack Hawkins is good as the sympathetic doctor and the blunt Major across the road, whilst something of a caricature, with a 'disgusted from Tunbridge Wells' attitude, enjoys good interplay with Preston, the doctor and the police.

The overall standard of acting is excellent. The mangle in the kitchen, cigarette smoking and traditional Dixon of Dock Green police station remind us of the era. Just in case we'd forgotten.

As David Preston did.

With such a strong cast, this directorial farewell from the highly regarded John Sturgess should have been a classic; sadly, it has a preposterous plot, lack of character development - and a ludicrous romance between Donald Sutherland, playing an IRA supporting republican, who so hates the Brits, he's supporting the Nazis, and Jenny Agutter. Their relationship develops with no proper interplay, like an empty Polaroid picture, with no meaningful significance or personal chemistry. At one point, Agutter ludicrously shoots a local suitor, who's already lost a fight with Sutherland over her.

This was supposed to show things from a German perspective, but its a pale shadow of All Quiet on the Western Front.

It depicts Michael Caine as leader of a unit dropping onto the Channel Islands to kidnap Winston Churchill, with such a stiff upper lip, he could have been playing a butler in a P G Wodehouse film, or maybe sucked ice cubes during the filming.

Sutherland is mysteriously able to tame dogs, he should have found a tree in the Marshland he was supposed to be supervising and asked one to bark up it; like him, it would have been barking up the wrong tree.

As for Jean Marsh, as the traitor who shoots the ludicrous American Colonel, spoiling for a battle (Larry Hagman hamming it up), I just saw a pig fly past (not hamming it up).

The only aspects of this baloney I had sympathy for, were the leaded and stained glass windows of the village church, damaged during battle scenes, and those remotely thinking this hogwash bore any resemblance to reality.

This is a superb film noir, not only immaculately filmed in just seven days (boy, some contract that was!), but also with some subtlety and nuance about life and death, killing and murder.

Murder by Contract, directed by Irving Lerner, written by Ben Simcoe stars Vince Edwards as a supposedly unemotional contract killer, who lives under the radar of the authorities by avoiding even getting a speeding ticket.

On one level, it's about getting money for doing a job, albeit, an immoral one. On another, it's about justification for killing. At one point Claud opines about the different numbers killed by a rifle, a grenade...or a nuclear weapon. He betrays a moral nihilism, with hints his lack of humanity emanates from his attitude towards women - irritation at lipstick on a cup, an escort also wearing lipstick, ultimately disturbed by his big hit being against a woman - about to give evidence in a trial against the gangster employing him.

Philip Pine and Herschel Bernardi play the goons minding him during the days before the hit, Caprice Toriel is excellent as the holed up witness, playing a latter day Bette Davis, insulting everyone, playing the piano, escaping diabolical plots such as exploding televisions, some of which are almost cartoon-like.

The Italian-style music by Perry Botkin, helps create contrast and avoids the maniacal sombreness a more traditional dramatic score would bring.

Although not originally a commercial success, like The Wicker Man, this is something of a cult classic.

It's aged well. Sadly Claud's early victims didn't get the chance to do so.

This 1994 episode is the last in the series, one of ITV's best comedy/dramas with George Cole (Arthur Daley) becoming a household name - although he was well-known from numerous performances spanning a 60 year career. This episode features Dennis Waterman's replacement, Ray, Glynn Edwards behind the bar of the Winchester and 'Crankie Franky', a former employee, who escapes from prison, takes Arthur hostage and tries to find out if it's true his wife, Rosie, has been playing away.

In a nice twist, it transpires that she has indeed been unfaithful - with Luigi, who Daley is about to open an new restaurant with.

Mostly played seriously, with Arthur looking distinctly miffed being locked up in his lock-up instead of enjoying a roast with 'her indoors'. Like Captain Mainwaring's wife in Dad's Army, we never get to see her.

The histrionics of Luigi's wife are rather over the top - more suited to farce than comedy drama, otherwise, the episode carries on a tradition; Daley, doing his best for the black economy, whilst continually ruing his bad luck.

It's strange how in the generation since this was made, Del Boy from Only Fools and Horses has grown in stature, whilst Arthur Daley has somewhat diminished status in the iconography of late twentieth century television.

George Cole played the role immaculately and even if this episode might, as has been said, benefitted from some reminiscing with Terry (Waterman) and some others from earlier series appearing, it still left me wanting more - though not, necessarily, from Arthur's lock-up!

I didn't see the first series, this compelling, slick, prescient opener to Series two implies I missed something good. Ben Chanan's writing and direction is unusually concise and lucid, no significant flashbacks or meandering about the bush, what is more, each character speaks clearly, instead of frequently inaudible dialogue that besets some dramas, possibly inspired by Silent Movie.

And the theme - surveillance, by whom, for whom and controlled by whom is topical. You could almost call it Dr Whom.

The performances are all of a high standard, Holliday Grainger is particularly plausible and the internal monitoring of her flat, despite her regularly using the old trick of a hair on the entrance to ensure no one has entered, is extremely creepy. I don't have surveillance equipment in my home, but after this episode, I started looking at the cat suspiciously.

I'll be watching the rest of the series; I just hope it's not watching me.