Charles Dance

Thank God, then, for Trinity. Ash Atalla puts Footballers' Wives, Inspector Morse and Buffy into a pot, stirs, and out comes this - and what a romp it is. His first non-comedy, and yet I laughed out loud. The casting of Charles Dance is genius; I love the fact the royal tart really is a royal. It is ridiculous, but knowingly so, and I am sure it will be a great hit. The creepy thriller undertones left me wanting more, and although I know it's not meant for me, I will be tuning in.

The writers of Trinity (ITV2) have got bare-faced cheek - and that's not a reference to leading lad Christian Cooke's penchant for wearing his boxers at half mast. What's obvious is that this toffs v peasants black comedy thriller pays a huge debt to Society, Brian Yuzna's 1989 horror classic where the rich literally feed on the poor. Society (the movie, the concept) is all about fitting in and that's the motor driving Trinity, a bizarrely enjoyable hybrid of Gossip Girl and Brideshead Revisited - with a dash of Dr Phibes - that's set in an imposing university where the elite have ruled the roost for centuries. Though they let the odd working-class oik in for a spot of amusement.

It's not the subtlest satire you'll ever see but, what with Charles Dance doing something murky in the lab, dark secrets swirling round the quadrangle and a young, lusty cast bouncing from mystery thriller scenes to parodies of American Pie at the drop of a pair of knickers, there's never a dull moment. My guess is that the incidental pleasures are likely to outweigh any burning interest in discovering the truth behind the shadow hanging over drippy heroine Charlotte's past but, with potty-mouthed posh totty Isabella Calthorpe having a ball rolling her tongue around the filthiest lines in the script, Trinity is shaping up as an unholy treat.

ITV2 is not interested in family audiences. It just wants the under-34s. Last night it aimed for them with a comedy drama that predicts or recalls the terror of your first term at university. The eponymous Oxbridge-style college in Trinity contains plenty to be scared of. It is run by a sinister snob played with lethal silkiness by Charles Dance who keeps a troll-like boffin called Linus working on a secret necromancy project. Scarier than them, however, are the students, hoorays whose eccentricities stretch from hooting at jokes in Latin to having sex with their cousins. In the opener's best scene, Trinity's version of the Bullingdon Club hold a Feast of Fools in which two gullible proles are volunteered to prance around the party in their underpants as court jesters under the impression that this is a good way to meet girls.

Into this madhouse arrive the pleb freshers Theo (Reggie Yates), who is not averse to finding a way into some posh knickers, Maddy (Elen Rhys), who is daffy and Welsh, and Charlotte (Antonia Bernath) who is a Christian but otherwise normal and whose father has just been killed. The characters are well drawn, the plot is ingenious, the sex is raunchy and the look is opulent. But Trinity has about half as many jokes as it needs. If ever a script needed punching up, it was this one.

It would help if Trinity knew what it wanted to be: teenage drama, Gothic murder mystery or a comedy about class. But the mix of genres does this eight-part series no favours. Yes, it looks sexy and stars Charles Dance, but the script is woeful and the concept desperately cliched. The setting is an exclusive university which prides itself on being for the rich and powerful. Until now, that is: at the behest of the new warden, Dr Angela Doone (Claire Skinner), Trinity has opened its doors to all classes and incomes. Among the new arrivals is Charlotte (Antonia Bernath), whose father was a don at Trinity but who died in mysterious circumstances related to the university's dark secret, one overseen by Dr Edmund Maltravers (Dance), the snobbish and devious dean.

Picture new students at an old university, some of them arrogant toffs dedicated to having a good time, others smart and hard-working but naive. Yes you've seen it all before, but never quite like this. Charles Dance and Claire Skinner at least bring some class to this cartoonish new comedy. The script is writing-by-numbers and the comedy - well let's be kind and call it broad. Somewhere there's a mystery bubbling away, but it's hard to imagine what else is going to be chucked into the pot. For some, this might be so bad it's good.

Charles Dance returns to our screens in Trinity

Back on TV as a malign university professor in ITV2's Trinity, Charles Dance reveals why he also treats his own profession with a healthy dose of cynicism.

It's the final episode of this oddly brief third series and the ladies of Clatterford are agog - it seems that pensioners' pin-up Charles Dance is definitely going to make an appearance at the Guild. Meanwhile any hopes Sal (Sue Johnston) had for peace and quiet are dashed when Tash's (Sally Phillips) plans to move out hit an obstacle.

The WI drug lecture was easily the funniest part of Jam & Jerusalem. In a wonderfully unselfish performance, Hazel John as Pauline delivered her talk with the passion of a florist describing how to assemble a seasonal bouquet. "Jeannine from the Spar has let me have her bongo or bong, and this spoon, and there's rolling papers 'ere for us to have a go," she droned. Her audience carried on gossiping about the barn conversion at the back of Sal's garden, allegedly being carried out for Charles Dance. The name Charles Dance soon trumped every argument - he had been so good as Ivory Merchant "in the film of that name" - and no rumour about the protesting Sal was too scurrilous to be believed.

Content - ie, tales from a sluggish, genteel rural community where nothing much happens - determines this series's form and nearly seals its fate. Now stitched into a whole hour, Jam & Jerusalem on its return felt a bit long and a bit slow, but I seem to remember it did at 30 minutes too. What saves it, are the surrealist touches and, actually, Dawn French, whether she is dumbly suckling a lamb or mischievously barping out the EastEnders theme when a mini bombshell of news explodes in the pub. The question is whether Jam & Jerusalem could be funnier without looking as though it were trying to be funnier and thus spoiling the whole, nonchalant, thing.

Jennifer Saunders's strange tales of bucolic madness and comic grotesques, a sort of The League of Ladies as opposed to The League of Gentlemen, returns briefly for a three-part series. Nothing much has changed in Clatterford, where everyone is bonkers, particularly the members of the local women's guild. These include widowed Sal (Sue Johnston) who is trying and failing to cut down on her drinking, though she's roused from her frequent stupors when she learns that developers are converting a barn at the bottom of her garden. Rumour has it that it's for the suave Charles Dance, which sends most of the women into a frenzy of lust. But Sal is determined to put up a fight, despite the objections of her straitlaced son (played by David Mitchell), who fears she will damage his prospects of becoming a Lib Dem MP. It's a silly little tale full of comedy drunkenness and low farce - there's even a subplot about the local vicar apparently behaving disreputably. But daft as J&J is, there's still something oddly endearing about it.

Saints be praised! Sunday night television is saved by the return of Jennifer Saunders's fabulous comedy centring on the activities of the Clatterford Womens' Guild. It's brilliant, gentle stuff, but cut with a sense of anarchy that you'd expect from Saunders's writing. Sue Johnston, Dawn French and Pauline McLynn are all back, with great support from Rosie Cavaliero, David Mitchell and
Maggie Steed, amongst others. This first hour long episode of three has the villagers getting flustered over a planning application - then they find out it might be for Charles Dance...