The World’s Most Expensive Presents A

Originally commissioned for pay channel ITV Encore, new crime drama Bancroft was promoted to mainstream viewing last week when the story of the Hatton Street geriatric bank heist was shelved for some unknown reason.

The series was produced by independent company Tall Story Pictures, a most appropriate name in this case, given the implausibility of the story that unfolded over four nights.

While the producers did the best they could to emulate the success of programmes like Line of Duty, New Tricks and Scott & Bailey it was obvious from the start that they were operating on a fraction of the budget available to any of the aforementioned big-hitters.

The police station looked like something out of Dixon of Dock Green rather than the bustling, open-plan, computerfilled hive of activity we have come to expect in modern police dramas, but then all those bustling extras cost money. And the outdoor filming was cut to a bare minimum. Shooting outdoors takes three times as long as the studio stuff and costs 10 times as much.

It opened with a young blonde woman striding along an empty street to the strident sounds of Seal & Adamski’s Killer to let us know that this was the 1990s and also that somebody was about to be killed. Moments later a young policewoman enters the blonde’s house and finds her stabbed to death on the kitchen floor.

Fast forward 27 years and that same policewoman, the Bancroft of the title, played by Sarah Parish, is now a detective chief inspector. She’s in charge of a surveillance operation that is going pear-shaped until she shoulder charges an armed hostage taker and saves the day and the hostage. Bruce Willis couldn’t have done it better.

What a girl, we thought. It’s no wonder she’s favourite to take over the superintendent’s job. But then, in flashback, we see that it was her that stabbed the blonde to death. We find out, too, that she has been taking backhanders from the very gang leader that the surveillance operation was aimed at. That explained the million-pound house she was living in on a DCI’s salary. Strange that her boss had never queried such opulence but then he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box.

When did we last see a police drama about a high-ranking policewoman who murdered someone and used her position to cover it up? Ah yes, in the last series of Line of Duty. Still, if you’re going to steal ideas you might as well steal from the best.

If you don’t want to know how it ended, look away now. Despite a young female detective (Faye Marsay) proving that Bancroft was the killer and getting shot for her troubles, the murderous psychopath got the boss’s job after all. And now she’s all set for a second series if ITV bosses can be persuaded to commission it. Could that be why Bancroft didn’t blow Faye Marsay’s head off when she had the chance? Or am I just an old cynic? Perhaps Marsay will come back with total memory loss. I could do with a bit of that myself after sitting through that stabbing scene for the umpteenth time.

s you gift-wrap your brother-inlaw’s socks you may be interested to know what Arab princes, Russian oligarchs and Hollywood moguls give their loved ones for Christmas. They’re all there in Channel 4’s The World’s Most Expensive Presents. How about a bespoke, leather-bound colouring book at £23,900 including VAT, but excluding colouring pencils?

Or there’s a goldplated pushbike for £250,000 that was snapped up by the agent of a middleeastern oil magnate. This was in Dubai where a man called Laban has the Midas touch to beat all Midas touches. Inspired, perhaps, by Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger, Laban will paint almost everything gold, although he draws the line at dead dogs.

The James Bond theme continued with Marcel, who designed a shoe for spies that had secret compartments for mobile phones, pen knives and even a GPS tracker. At two grand a pair it’s not surprising he only had two buyers by the end of the programme. If they try flying anywhere in them they could find themselves in Guantanamo Bay. At least they’d be the best shod prisoners in the place.

In Brighton, a lady called Rachel designs clothes for dogs. One delighted client forked out £5,000 for a diamondstudded dinner jacket for her bemused pooch. Flushed with success, Rachel set about her most ambitious project to date. She invested 900 hours of her time, six metres of silk and 40,000 crystals in a canine ballgown. She employed the services of a top photographer and the Naomi Campbell of the doggy world to advertise her creation. By the end of the programme nobody had bitten. Shame, eh?

How much do you think that chap in Dubai would charge me to have my Dandy and Beano albums gold-plated?

“IF YOU’RE GOING TO STEAL IDEAS YOU MIGHT AS WELL STEAL FROM THE BEST”