Crime-solving duo Shakespeare and Hathaway should be Bard
The best thing about Shakespeare and Hathaway: Private Investigators (Vibe, Tuesdays) is the title. The rest is all downhill. It’s Baldwin St on roller skates,
This is not Will Shakespeare and Ann Hathaway, sleuthing on the side to pay for Hamlet and Twelfth Night. Instead it’s Frank Hathaway and Luella Shakespeare, provincial gumshoes for hire. Much ado about nothing.
They’re an irritating couple who blunder around trying to solve cases. The scripts and acting are about as good as their attempt to find the guilty party.
In this week’s episode, Haroon Malik, an employee of Freddie Freeman’s Factory Flooring, is crushed to death when a roll of carpet falls on him. It was a bolt from the blue. He’d been checking files in the office when he was killed.
The private eyes are engaged by the estranged daughter of Raja, the carpet king.
I expected her to be called Poly-ester Raja, but she’s Poonam and she suspects her sister, Parthi, is running an evil empire.
In total disbelief, Luella and Frank are permitted to inspect the factory and family home.
They use the old trick of requesting a toilet stop and then wandering around the house. They uncover Parthi’s Axminster attack and find she’s been diverting funds to an offshore account.
The police arrive, arrest Parthi, then Raja, the slightly demented father, appears and embraces Poonam, his long-lost daughter. For Frank and Luella, all’s well that ends well, but it was more a comedy of errors.
For viewers trying to stay slim, trim and prim, The Great British Bake Off (Prime, Tuesdays) has come at a bad time. The programme uses enough ingredients to empty Pak’n Save’s shelves.
It’s dessert week on the bake off and contestants are instructed to prepare a meringue cake, six layered desserts in a glass and a celebratory bombe.
The scripts and acting are about as good as their attempt to find the guilty party.
For someone, whose greatest pleasure is to lick the bowl, I thought the creations looked superb. But judges, Paulhollywood and Prue Leith, are not to be trifled with. They can find fault in a flan and flaws in a filling.
After hours of baking, Steff, who was erraticwith her raspberries and erotic with her cream cheese, was named star baker.
Priya was sent home. Paul and Prue find blemishes in every bake. Rosie’s bombe was clumsy, Michael’s looked like hismother’s fascinator, while Henry’s was stodgy and resembled an igloo.
Judging baking is like inspecting a building. They’re checked inside and out and, if the cakes pose an earthquake risk, they’re condemned. The Great British Bake Off succeeds if the food is scrumptious, the contestants quirky and the judges colourful. Come back, Mary Berry.
I was looking forward to A Very British Brothel, wheremumand daughter engage maturewomen to service the clientele. I was unsurewhether I wanted to view the brothel and its clients as a columnist, voyeur or quantity surveyor. But my hopeswere dashed. The programmewas pulled.
Instead I watched a new series of Nightmare Tenants (Prime, Wednesdays) in the same timeslot.
Micaela and Ozge, from Harrow Council, were called to a semi-detached where up to 30 men were living dangerously. In cramped conditions, they probablymade a down payment on amattress.
When council staff visited, the tenants oozed out of every orifice and hid.
The landlord was summoned and told to reduce the number, but weeks later they’d increased the electoral roll again.
The tenants just about doubled the population ofwoodville. Some had to enter their alcove from the next-door neighbour’s property.
At the programme’s end, the landlordwas in the council’s naughty corner. Elsewhere in London squatters reluctantly left a commercial property taking the kitchen sink with themwhile an abusive tenant was refusing to vacate an apartment in Darwen, Lancashire.
Nightmare Tenants gives renters a bad name and makes no attempt to provide balance. It’s Fairgo in reverse.
As we emerge from level 3, TV programmers are becoming even more devious. Repeats of repeats are now being packaged as something new.
Watch out for a boxed set of The Munsters.