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One of the pleasures of viewing episodes of "Morse" years after their first release, is seeing actors and actresses who are now world-famous, in roles sometimes very different from those for which they are now best known.

In this episode, the first two suspects in the murder of their former business partner (played by Tony Steedman) are played by Richard Wilson (who was famous as grumpy Victor Meldrew in "One Foot in the Grave") and Sean Bean. In prison alongside them is a wrongfully convicted former schoolteacher played by Jim Broadbent. Sue Johnston played Sean Bean's screen wife.

This particular episode is perhaps frustrating for viewers interested in the intellectual development of an investigation, as the true murderer is revealed only in the last minutes by a flash of information only fleetingly revealed to the viewer beforehand. Nevertheless, it is interesting to watch Morse and Lewis each doggedly pursuing their own lines of enquiry. At the same time they are dealing with a brash, high-flying Detective Sergeant, and eventually bring him to earth with a bump, each in their own fashion.

Over the years, several actresses have played Agatha Christie's creation, Miss Jane Marple, spinster of the parish of St. Mary Meade. Their portrayals have generally ranged from understudied to vapid. Margaret Rutherford's performance was unquestionably the most forceful and feisty, though perhaps not very close to Agatha Christie's character as intended. Likewise, "Murder at the Gallop" is rather a pastiche of scenes from a Hercule Poirot novel, "After the Funeral", rather than being a single Miss Marple novel.

Also featuring were Robert Morley, playing, well, Robert Morley, and Duncan Lamont in his usual role as a surly underling.

The film is a departure from most films, even for the period, in being shot in sharp-focus black-and-white.

Plotwise, in "Murder at the Gallop", Miss Marple first witnesses the apparently natural death of a wealthy man while trying to rattle a charity collection box at his home. Her suspicions aroused, she subsequently investigates in blunt fashion, and discovers the dead man's sister, also murdered. Even though the police are now involved, she continues to poke and pry; and it turns out that Miss J. T. V. Marple was a champion horsewoman in her youth.

The final uncovering of the murderer lacks the usual drama, and is arrived at through a literal process of elimination, the other suspects having themselves been murdered.

Still, "Murder at the Gallop" is generally an enjoyable, fast-paced romp.

This was one of the most successful Carry-on films. Although the setting (the late days of British rule in India) might have been thought provocative, the sheer unreality of events and deliberately self-deprecatory humour would be guaranteed to defuse any arguments over the subject.

One of the secrets of success of the Carry-on films was their mixing of "straight" acting and quotes with absurd situations. The formal dinner scene at the Residency as it is reduced to rubble by the Khasi of Kalabar's artillery is perhaps the longest and most memorable of these sequences.

The straight-acting "farcical" scenes are probably funnier than some of the more contrived comedy sequences, although the film has its share of memorably quotable one-liners.

There were remarkable performances by British comedians Roy Castle in his only Carry-on appearance, and Terry Scott, who had previously had only a cameo appearance in "Carry on Sergeant".

It is perhaps a shame that Britain does not have something like the American Congress's official list of historically significant works of art. If there were, this show deserves framing as an iconic series of performances.

"The Secret Policeman's Ball" was the second benefit performance for the charity, Amnesty International. It followed the earlier "Pleasure at her Majesty's" in 1976. The Ball featured a most effective mix of old and new blood; from the old stable, several of the Pythons, Peter Cook at the height of his comic and satirical powers; from the new stable, Billy Connolly and Rowan Atkinson.

There were some old favourites among the acts (the "Four Yorkshiremen" and Python's "Cheese Shop"), but some of the new acts and sketches were inspired. In particular, Rowan Atkinson's sardonic "Schoolmaster", and Peter Cook's "Entirely a Matter for you", written specially for the occasion.

There is a minor musical landmark, with Pete Townsend (of the Who) reportedly forced to play acoustic rather than amplified for the first time in his life, alongside classical guitarist John Williams.

In later years, the subsequent Policeman's Balls were seen as a showcase for new talent with the result that several acts became over-the-top and hammed.

"Wycliffe" is a windswept and rain-sodden Police drama. It is set in Cornwall, the most westerly county in England. Standard dress for plain-clothes detectives appears to be a scruffy grey polo-neck sweater and waterproofs.

The series centres around Detective-Superintendent Wycliffe, whose family life occasionally intrudes into the plots, and two subordinates: a woman Detective Inspector who has been pushed too fast into a senior rank, and a disillusioned male colleague.

Even looking piratical, the Police appear to be intruders into a comparatively isolated community. Some of the office politics which occasionally feature, deal with Wycliffe's aversion to the latest fashionable management trends from London being foisted onto his force.

"Wycliffe" is well worth watching the series for the scenery alone, and hearing the slow local accents.

It is hard to know who deserves the most credit for this courtroom series; author John Mortimer QC (a noted barrister himself), or actor Leo McKern.

Obviously, the series was written with the benefit of intimate knowledge of the English legal system, but almost every branch of it is portrayed very unflatteringly. Most Barristers are shown as smug and pompous, fencing with each other in Latin phrases while the defendant and jury look baffled; policemen are bent, solicitors are shady and judges are either more concerned with barristers' correct dress rather than the evidence, or sadistic and bigoted.

The seamier side of the profession is also shown; with prestigious barristers having to work from poky "chambers", at the mercy of clerks for their work ("briefs") and undervalued secretaries for their paperwork.

In such a world, a weary and introspective character such as Rumpole dominates the scene. McKern's booming delivery and range of facial expressions make this all too easy. The language is a delight, as Rumpole quotes Browning, Tennyson, Shakespeare at will. Some of the most hilarious scenes occur as lawyers take on their clients' personas and start arguing their cases with each other in the first person, in bars or restaurants.

Rumpole's home life with wife Hilda, "She who must be obeyed", is also shown as quite a caricature, as Hilda Rumpole is portrayed as having few interests beyond her husband's lowly position in the pecking order, and household cleaning agents.

Any one of the episodes makes good viewing.

There have been two series so far of this programme. It seems deliberately to set out to contradict the impression of the British legal system portrayed by the excellent "Rumpole of the Bailey", of senile judges and smug arch-conservative barristers.

Here, the main character has radical leanings, a messy private life and a very active libido. Much of the sub-plot is involved with side-swipes at the (Labour) government of the day, although the implication is that power corrupts; the political complexion of the office holders doesn't affect their greed or ambition.

The one common factor with other screen portrayals of the British legal system is the very precise diction and grammar used by barristers and judges. The courtroom scenes are well worth watching.

Some elements of the plot rather strain belief, but the series is quite enjoyable.

"The Long Riders" is a Western which lacks many of the directors' clichés associated with the genre.

The casting is of course impeccable; with four sets of brothers playing the real-life Jameses, Youngers, Millers and Fords. The women too are quite believable. The homely foot-tapping score by Ry Cooder, played on no more than half a dozen assorted instruments, is both authentic and memorable.

Finally, the stunts are far better than in most films. They are made more spectacular and believable by being few and far between, and quite unexpected.

As regards the plot; the true history of the Jesse James gang is fairly closely followed, but lacks the development which explains how they came to combine together and embark on their lawbreaking career. Historically, several of the leading gang members fought in guerilla bands against the Union armies in their native state of Missouri during the American Civil War and presumably learned their contempt for the law there, but in this film they spring onto the screen already established as outlaws in a staid and sober society.

To a non-US audience, this also makes some of the references to music popular with the Union and Confederate causes in the Civil War, and some of the attitudes and insults, rather puzzling.

However, the plot does develop through the film, and does show how some of the gang become better characters through marriage, the influence of families and changing fortunes, while others degenerate over time.

Overall, this is one of the most likable Westerns I have watched.

At the lowest level, this is about people surviving the worst that war and nature can throw at them. At the end of the film, the Greeks of Cephalonia can still celebrate traditional festivals, even after all the tragedy of the seven years which this film covers.

The true victims of the war are the unmilitary Italian army who occupy Cephalonia after Greece surrenders to Hitler. Captain Corelli, played by Nicholas Cage, exemplifies them; he hasn't seen action, and would rather not. He and his men would rather be a choir or a musical ensemble than a fighting unit. When they must fight the ruthless Germans, they are exterminated.

As might be expected from a film made on a holiday destination, the scenery is mouth-watering. The music (Greek traditional and liturgical, and Italian opera, and the theme tune) is equally delightful.

There are very few things which I found less than satisfactory. Cage's Italian accent seems a little laboured. (I must applaud his musical skills here, though). John Hurt's rasping delivery has perhaps been a little over-used in recent years, so his portrayal of an irascible Greek doctor also struck me as slightly contrived. Christian Bale's embittered resistance fighter seems equally unreal. Penelope Cruz on the other hand, does fit very well with her looks and accent.

Overall, this is a lovely film, well worth seeing.

One of my fondest memories of TV viewing in the late 60's and 70's, was the weekly hour of tension which Mission Impossible provided. There was the initial bewilderment of trying to work out how on earth the brief flashes of peculiar devices and tension-ridden confrontations could possibly be woven into a coherent plot. Next, there were the wonderfully mundane locations in which Peter Graves would retrieve the briefing materials and the tape which invariably dissolved in a cloud of smoke.

After all the introduction, the remaining fifty minutes was sometimes an anti-climax. More often, it was very satisfying to see the initial vignettes fitted jigsaw-pattern into the plot. Perhaps towards the very end of the series, the plots became a little stilted or physically impossible; but invariably entertaining.

Like most fans of the original series, I found the over-hyped film of the same name to be an facile and shallow work with no redeeming features. I would die happy seeing a film in which Martin Landau, Peter Graves, Greg Morris et al. emerge creaking from retirement to save the day, and as they so often did, drive off leaving thwarted villains to turn on each other.

Why ? Well, having introduced most of the elements of the classic Hammer horror film (the Karloffian monster raised from the dead, the vampish female lead, the isolated manor house in a thunderstorm), "Carry on screaming" then dissipates their effects by showing them in colour. The "Carry-on" crew ought perhaps to have gone the whole hog in parodying the Hammer horror style, as Gene Wilder was later to do brilliantly in "Young Frankenstein".

Though the dialog was breezy enough, in the usual Carry-on style of mixing the banal and up-to-date with the portentous and in-period, even in the same sentence, I think that the film's highlights occur during the moments of silent humour (at which Bernard Bresslaw excelled).

There are a few references in the soundtrack to other British popular television; a few bars of the title music for "Z-Cars" and "Steptoe and Son", bring back memories, and also fit beautifully with the action.

Unlike some, I think this "Carry on" actually benefited from the absence of Sid James (and Barbara Windsor). Even if the parody element has been watered down, this film is one of the best for its storyline, acting and characters.

In the 1970's several of Dorothy L. Sayers's "Lord Peter Wimsey" mysteries were made into TV series, starring Ian Carmichael. This is probably the best of them.

There is, to a purist, one error; in the book, the identity of the corpse (an obligatory element of whodunnits) is carefully concealed by means of red herrings and misleading information, while in the TV series, the viewer is given so much information in the first episode that the identity is almost too easy to guess. Even with this lead, there is enough for the viewer to puzzle over and try to work out.

There is some very good acting, especially by Carmichael, who successfully portrays a twenty-something young officer and a fortyish sleuth in the same episode. The location shots give a good idea of the flatness and bleakness of the Fen country of Eastern England.

This series is well worth watching, for its content.

In many people's opinion, the original novel by Richard Llewelyn was the closest thing to "The Great Welsh Novel" ever written. In adapting this work to the small screen, Stanley Baker (probably the greatest Welsh actor of his generation), writer Elaine Morgan and the other members of the cast and crew have achieved a remarkable feat.

The story is one of growing to maturity and overcoming adversity in the claustrophobic but gregarious environment of the Valleys (the coal-mining area of South Wales) in the early years of the twentieth century. Although centred on the character of Huw, the youngest of the Morgan family, there are numerous other siblings around which to weave plenty of sub-plots. There are tales of workers standing up to harsh oppression, of unrequited love affairs in plenty, of harsh choices to be made between principles and personal loyalties and of facing tragedy which so often struck in the unforgiving world of the mines.

The cast list is a roll of honour of the welsh actors and actresses of their day. Many have an authentically pinched and starved appearance, and hearing the accents of some of them (such as Gareth Thomas, who played the preacher Mr. Gruffydd) declaiming in full flow, will bring tears to the eyes of any expatriate Welshman.

Richard Llewelyn wove another three novels around the characters of "How Green was my Valley"; perhaps, a quarter of a century after this TV series appeared, it is time to show the last, "Green, green my Valley now". The BBC, take note.

Most hospital dramas are about situations of life and death. "Surgical Spirit" deals with the equally dramatic issues of ruptures and piles.

The heroine, Dr. Sheila Sabatini (Nicola McAuliffe), is a consultant surgeon. In addition to dealing with the everyday crises of the wards, she has also to deal with a slightly wayward son, an Italian husband whom she is divorcing, an anaesthetist boyfriend who is slightly in awe of her and a scatterbrained administrator.

Most of the humour arises from the relations between Sabatini and her fellow-doctors, who are pretentious, idle or callow. Her suitor, Dr. Haslam, earnestly rushes in where angels fear to tread and provides a natural foil to Sabatini's irascibility.

As one might expect from a character in McAuliffe's high-powered role, the dialog is very sharp and naturally delivered. Think of Sir Lancelot Sprat in drag. Awkward, mumbling explanations to her about embarrassing medical conditions are cut short with almost an Australian relish for bluntness.

Very few lines are delivered with obvious intentional humour, a process made easier by most scenes being shot with all the characters wearing surgical masks. Extracting humour from the mundane is a difficult feat, and this series probably succeeded better than most.

One of the enduring sources from which British television draws its plots is the works of author A.J. Cronin (e.g. "The Citadel"). These all involve questions of medical facts and ethics, but being written and set in the 1930's and 1940's, lack the urgency of a series such as "Casualty" or "E.R".

In the 1960's, there was a whole series, "Dr. Finlay's Casebook", built around one of Cronin's characters (starring Bill Simpson). Bravely, Scottish Television have brought Finlay back to life and rendered him in colour, something of a shock to those of us who remember the original in black-and-white from so many years ago.

The new series resumes in the aftermath of World War II. Dr. Finlay has been serving overseas in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and returns to the small town of Tannochbrae in Scotland expecting to resume life as it was. However, while his crusty colleague Dr. Cameron is unchanged, everything else has been affected by the war. His fiancée has decided not to wait for him, he must deal with new colleagues and even the arrangements of the practice are overturned as the resolutely chaste housekeeper is wooed by the local chemist.

The overall emotion to come from the first few episodes of the series is a sense of let-down, as Finlay finds that after a World War, familiar small tragedies caused by ignorance and poverty still persist. Later, as he and other members of his practice rebuild their lives, a more hopeful note emerges.

David Rintoul probably makes a better Dr. Finlay than Simpson did. (The late) Ian Bannen and Annette Crosbie are a superb double-act as Dr. Cameron and housekeeper Janet Macpherson. Other good performances come from Margo Gunn (Nurse Brenda Maitland), Jessica Turner (Dr. Elizabeth Napier) and Gordon Reid (chemist Angus Livingstone). Some viewers may find the harsh Scottish accents of some of the incidental characters such as Dr. Finlay's patients a little grating, but this adds to the faultless authenticity.

Overall, don't expect fireworks but be prepared to be entertained.

This was another historical series of novels, which the BBC faithfully adhered to (and they managed to run two unequally-sized volumes, "The Warden" and "Barchester Towers", together without the join showing).

Donald Pleasance, normally noted for playing Bond villains, played the modest and unctuous Septimus Harding brilliantly. Nigel Hawthorne, as his son-in-law Dr. Grantly, provided the perfect combative foil. However, Alan Rickman, in one of his first major roles as the scheming Obadiah Slope, may have stolen the show. Clive Swift, as the henpecked Bishop of Barchester, established and refined the character he was later to play as the husband of Hyacinth Bouquet in "real" comedy.

The location shots in cloisters give a very real impression of a withdrawn and contemplative clergy, obsessed with its own affairs and internal squabbles. The jarring note of the first two or three episodes, when John Bold questions whether a long-established tradition connected with a charitable bequest is indeed in the interests of the recipients of that charity, shows the how uneasy the various clerical characters are when dealing with the world outside.

Many of the shots in scenes in a flat countryside seemingly locked into August throughout the eight episodes which covered a span of several years, also give the impression of withdrawal from the day-to-day life of any activity but that of the church.

As an examination of the mores and attitudes of his period, Anthony Trollope produced a brilliant pair of novels. The BBC have produced an equally brilliant adaptation, although slow enough in pace to be almost soporific in parts.

The recent death of Sir Alec Guinness prompted me to wonder which role in his very long career he should be remembered for, and I believe it should be his portrayal of John Le Carre's master spy and inadequate man, George Smiley.

"Smiley's People", like the earlier "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", derives much of its fascination from its mundane realism. Le Carre, unlike many espionage authors, really knew the setting, the techniques and many of the people. The TV series follows every detail of the novel and cannot be faulted on any grounds of atmosphere.

The cast list has a plethora of famous names, some so heavily made up and convincingly acted as to be unrecognisable as themselves. Guinness's gelid tones and painstakingly slow gestures manage to put them all, even the bubbly Bernard Hepton and Beryl Reid, in the shade. Especially in the final scene, where all Smiley's friends and supporters are practically dancing with joy, Guinness's studied absence of emotion dominates.

Few corporations other than the BBC would dare drag a 200-page novel out to over 4 hours of TV time, and very few actors other than Sir Alec Guinness could have held the viewer fascinated throughout such a marathon.

"Gaudy Night" was the second of Dorothy L. Sayers's "Lord Peter Wimsey" detective novels to be written with the action and plot seen through the eyes of Harriet Vane rather than Wimsey himself. When transferred to the screen, this results in poor Wimsey being relegated almost to a supporting actor. Apart from one or two brief introductory appearances, he appears only in the last half of the series.

Still, the plot holds things together quite well. Detective novelist Harriet Vane has lived down the notoriety of having been accused of murdering her lover. She accepts an invitation to revisit her alma mater, a ladies' college in Oxford. Shortly after she renews her acquaintance with her former fellow-students and tutors, someone starts playing distasteful pranks around the college. The Warden and the other dons ask Harriet to investigate. Wimsey, her suitor, joins the investigation when the practical jokes become more dangerous. Finally, there is the long-standing romantic tension between Wimsey and Harriet to resolve.

Edward Petherbridge plays Wimsey very much in the style set by Ian Carmichael in the 1970's. However, Harriet Walter, as Harriet Vane, rather steals the show.

This is definitely not a stock "Whodunnit". Without laying it on with a trowel, "Gaudy Night" highlights the difference in attitudes between a withdrawn set of cloisters which need deal only with matters of philosophy and theory, and the "real world", with practical problems to face and overcome. This gulf is emphasised by the cut-glass accents and precise diction of the dons and students, and the "common" speech of the college servants and other inhabitants of Oxford, where they appear.

Worth both watching and reading.

The original screenplay for this film was written by Dylan Thomas, and this version by Karl Francis (a welshman himself) is appropriately absurd. The element of cross-dressing (not transvestism) involved earned the film a '15' certificate in the UK, perhaps not warranted by any other aspect of it.

Although based on true historical events, the real poverty and desperation of the period in which the film is set have been removed, and replaced with the standard characterisation of the Welsh as being unquestioningly religious, and given to mordant humour.

As can be imagined, a plot which involves men dressing up as women gives plenty of opportunities for ribaldry. Peter O'Toole is gloriously over-the-top as a drunken Lord, Simon Dormandy is a buffoonish cavalry officer, and the characters played by Dafydd Hywel, Sue Roderick, Huw Ceredig and even Joely Richardson have some nice earthy witticisms to deliver.

The welsh countryside in which the scenes were shot gives a nice light feel to the film, although it doesn't rain as much as ought to be expected; some local stately homes and buildings (such as Atlantic College) are impressive in the indoor sequences.

A nice evening's fun to watch.

Some background information; in 1982 2nd Bn, the Scots Guards were pulled from public duties (sentry-mounting in London) and sent to the Falkland Islands as part of the Task Force sent to recover it from Argentina. Unprepared as they were, they fought a savage and decisive battle to capture a vital hill, Mount Tumbledown. During the fighting, Lt. Richard Lawrence was very severely wounded.

This film alternates sequences from before and after his wounding; the battle, and his long and difficult recovery and convalescence. It has to steer a tricky course around the major pitfalls of british public opinion. There are on one hand, the tabloid-fuelled jingoism of a country involved in a major fight, and on the other hand the subsequent revulsion that such losses were suffered in a squabble for some barren islands several thousand miles from home.

The film does highlight the callousness and indifference with which the war's casualties were sometimes treated.

The overall story and moral are not new, but their treatment here, with hardly any bad language or earth-shattering battle effects, strikes a more thoughtful note than, say, "Saving PRivate Ryan".

The best thing about this film is that it captures James Fenimore Cooper's well-concealed message, that more than one lifestyle was being destroyed as distant monarchs squabbled over the vast reaches of North America; those of the Indian, and of the free frontiersman. Unfortunately, the most favourable aspects of both existences have been laid on with a trowel at the expense of other less noble but more human qualities. In particular, we never see drunken Indians (a distressing result of the contact between the white and red man). Also, Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) hardly ever breaks into authentic frontier jargon, nor does he ever refer even to his mortal foes among the Indians as "varmints" or "mingoes". (I am sure Cooper meant the last to be an insult in some Indian languages).

That said, every individual character is brilliantly depicted, even with some touches added which were not part of the original book; Major Heyward for example is much more complex than Cooper's original "Open Hand", but thereby adds a lot to the plot.

The film also introduces a sub-plot concerning the antipathy between british and american characters and this adds to the credibility.

The action sequences faithfully depict all the incidents in the book, and are all breathtaking cliffhangers. The film is worth seeing for these, and the scenery alone.

Finally, Wes Studi is the most authentic and most terrifying Magua ever depicted on screen, and he should perhaps have had an Oscar for this role.

This is a fairly common story, that of an honest man fighting alone against a corrupt system. The setting is unusual, and the plot has some entertaining twists.

William Hurt plays Senior Investigator Renko, of the Moscow Militia (i.e. police). He is assigned to a high-profile murder case, and finds himself alternately prodded on, hindered or even threatened by his own superiors, by the KGB and by his obvious suspect. All these people are acting so self-confidently compared to Renko's plodding, that the sense of loneliness, or even of paranoia is very apparent.

Much of the action is contrived and unconvincing, both in its development and denouement, although the film does build to a good climax. On the other hand, all the characterisations of ordinary russians, who must have been strange creatures to film directors and audiences alike at the time, is very good.

The directors discarded one of the original novel's best tricks, that of sending Renko to New York (to recover valuable state property), and confronting him with the law enforcement system which gave rise to "Kojak" and the "Hill Street Blues".

Overall this is quite a good film, and fairly close to the novel. There are some sequels written which deserve to appear on the screen.

Previous comments have praised this epic's scale, accuracy, the intensity of its action sequences, etc. My own score would be nine point nine recurring out of ten. The remaining vanishingly small fraction of dissatisfaction is accounted for by one or two little niggles...

The gliders. We see them loading, taxiing, taking off, and scattered in profusion around the landing zones. But we see them flying only by the courtesy of special effects, and we don't see them land. This would be a shot on a par with those taken from the aircraft and the paratroopers' perspectives during the the jump sequences. It would also highlight just how important these gliders were to the airborne formations.

The maps. On the big screen, they are shown in briefings and planning meetings and they very effectively convey even to a non-military viewer the plans and progress of the operation. When the film is transferred to video, either they become so small that the vital details are lost in the blur, or they are cropped out of shot.

The jibe about "bringing the boys home for Christmas". Dickie Attenborough let his pacifist views show through here, but missed the point. "Market Garden" was not comparable to the blinkered strategy of World War I blimpish generals. It was a gamble, true, but a justifiable one. What is Attenborough saying ? Don't risk anything, pick on someone smaller, like Saddam Hussein ?

Studious viewers might like to read "Slaughter over Sicily" by Charles Whiting, for the tale of another airborne operation which went wrong. Perhaps this is another subject waiting for a film ...

Tony Maylam (and Christopher Challis - read his autobiography, "Are they really so awful") went all-out in this film to recreate a feel for Erskine Childers's slightly jingoistic novel, and for the joy of messing about in boats. The film achieves much of what it set out to do, but some extra elements grafted on to the original plot slightly spoil it for me.

The plot features Davies, an English amateur yachtsman (brilliantly played by Simon MacCorkindale) who stumbles onto something strange while pottering around the bleak Friesian coast in northern Germany. Mystified, he summons his old friend Carruthers (Michael Yorke) to help uncover the secret.

As a detective tale or spy story viewed through the eyes of either Davies or Carruthers, the film works. The few action sequences, which are almost always seen from the viewpoint of others, tend to fall flat and spoil the overall continuity. The subtitles to scenes in which characters are speaking in German are annoying, since almost everything is also translated verbally for the benefit of Davies who does not speak the language.

That said, this is quite a tense film, and gives a very true rendering of the novel.

The scenery and props are quite superb. Davies's yacht is a joy to look at from the outside and suitable poky in the interior shots. The flat coastal scenery is very atmospherically shot and the costumes are very good.

Except for a rather wooden "Kaiser Bill", the acting is excellent, though this is no less than one would expect from such as Alan Badel and Jenny Agutter.

This film is very enjoyable, but best watched with one's thinking cap on.

This series was very much a one-man vehicle for Peter Bowles, who had rather a monopoly on upper-class male roles on British television screens in the 1970's and 1980's.

He stars here as Major Sinclair Yeates, a retired British army officer who takes up a post as Resident Magistrate (R.M.) in the west of Ireland around 1900. From the moment he arrives, all his comfortable assumptions are turned on their heads by the local version of logic. Strictly speaking, this is farce rather than comedy; the humour lies in Yeates's attempts to come to grips with absurd situations.

The series was very true to the original book by Somerville and Ross, and skips over any mention of Home Rule politics or religious strife. There is very little for any opponent of "imperialism" to object to. Opponents of blood sports may find distasteful the fervour with which all the characters chase incompetently after every fox in sight; but the series was set at a time when this was very much a popular sport and method of pest control. In all three series, the only animals killed on screen are one snipe, one duck and one salmon - hardly distressing viewing, for even the most squeamish.

Regular characters were Anna Manahan's sententious cook, Mrs. "Kay-de-gawn", and landlord "Flurry" Knox, portrayed as an angelic leprechaun by Bryan Murray). Some acting highlights worth watching are Beryl Reid's two appearances as Flurry Knox's eccentric grandmother, and Niall Toibin's role throughout the series as Flurry's incorrigible groom, Slipper.

Overall, the series benefited greatly from some lovely unspoiled countryside and small towns, some excellent period costume and a lot of very lively and authentic extras, which make for an excellent feel for the period.

There are eighteen episodes in all, but the continuity of the series is generally unimportant. Any one episode will give an hour's enjoyable viewing.