Whodunnit's mild at heart

Peter Davison

If there's anything new on the box at this time of year, it's usually something the schedulers have scrabbled around for to fill a few gaps in the season when no one is watching.

TV One was obviously in luck, finding a neglected Brit drama series to blow the dust off, with last night's The Last Detective (10.45pm).

Dated 2003, it's rather elderly, but on the bright side, not as prehistoric as some of the movies the channels are hauling out to tide us over Christmas and into the New Year.

And the series, based on the Dangerous Davies books by Leslie Thomas, stars Peter Davison, that British actor who, like a nice cuppa, goes with any occasion.

Davison specialises in playing appealingly apologetic, self-effacing English types. Indeed he takes inoffensiveness and elevates it to an art form. As such, he's perfect as the lead in this show, a quiet, put-upon copper nicknamed "Dangerous" by his colleagues.

This, we understood immediately, is deeply sarcastic. But just in case we didn't get it, the script thoughtfully spelled it out in block letters: "Dear Dangerous, you really have to cut this terrible habit of seeing the best in people," his frustrated boss told him as he plodded through his investigations.

The drama opened with Dangerous' first assignment, helping a sad old crim threatening to throw himself out a window.

For good measure, the suicidal one was also strapped up with a bomb - a home-made job of taped-together frankfurters and an alarm clock.

Yes, we were deep in whimsical Brit whodunnit territory here, a place where the posh folks live in the big house on the hill, landladies have hearts of gold and curlers in their hair and the eccentricity was so enforced it made your toes curl.

The main plot was standard issue stuff. A rich man with a big life insurance policy was murdered and his new, much younger, gold-digging wife might as well have had "prime suspect" tattooed on her forehead.

The script, too, was as plodding as its lead, every significant line enunciated as though written in highlighter pen and the final revelation - "the gardening boy in the studio with a magnifying glass" - was pure Cluedo.

Its most notable feature, however, was the long, lingering bodyshots of any woman who could be counted remotely attractive. Perhaps this was supposed to reflect the poor, sex-starved state of the divorced Dangerous and his equally pinched looking colleagues.

But as the camera went in for yet another head-to-toe pan of a curvaceous female, you wished Dangerous would forget the murder for a moment and arrest the cameraman for loitering with lascivious intent.

Still, the little doses of naughtiness, as daring as adding a dash of something a bit stronger to your bedtime cup of cocoa, were light relief from all the contrived whimsy.

And in the spirit of our detective, a master of making the best of things, it's safe to say there is nothing in this series which will you stop you dozing comfortably off in front of the telly.