Randall & Hopkirk

Courtesy of the incomparable cult media store Fopp: the first series of Vic & Bob's Randall & Hopkirk (deceased) on DVD, cheap. Hurrah!

OK, so it had hugely glaring faults the first time around -- not least Mortimer's acting -- but for some reason I thoroughly enjoyed the few episodes I managed to catch. They were nicely written and mostly well shot, to be sure, but I think I was most impressed by the devil-may-care approach to plausible plotting: 'hang it all, we're having a hoot' being an approach to programme-making I recognise, approve of, and attempt to echo at every possible opportunity. And we'll forgive Emilia Fox for looking occasionally out-of-place, since it's not her fault she's capable of emoting on camera (one can almost smell her frustration at times; 'For heaven's sake man, stop being so wooden!'). Mind you, one would likely be willing to forgive Fox just about anything.

So: diverting fun, even if it's not objectively very good at all. Available from Amazon for the foppless. Frustratingly, the discs are cropped to 4:3 and not even done pan&scan -- they've just been chopped, which is quite pathetic. Season 2 escapes such a travesty, apparently.

I genuinely toyed with the idea of starting this post with an ampersand, just to see what it looked like as a drop-cap. Must try harder. Got one reversed-out in the post title, though.