Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken on starring in The Offenders

"As soon as I was let out I walked all over Bristol and discovered many nice places."

Christopher Walken pictured filming The Offenders 2

Christopher Walken continued to grace the Bristol set of TV series The Offenders with his presence on Wednesday as he returned for a second series.

Christopher Walken and Stephen Merchant shoot scenes

Christopher Walken and Stephen Merchant have been spotted filming scenes for The Offenders in Bristol this week.

There's a lot that's very, very good about The Mimic, which stars the gifted impressionist Terry Mynott as lowly maintenance man Martin Hurdle.

It's the second episode tonight, but if you missed the first all you need to know is that Martin escapes his humdrum life by doing other people's voices - everyone from Alan Carr to Christopher Walken - and last week he discovered he has an 18-year-old son called Steven. Probably. We're still waiting for the results of the DNA test.

As a means of doing something more interesting with impressions than just going down the Dead Ringers route (or Very Important People, which was Mynott's last gig) this gets full marks for originality.

And the excellent supporting cast includes Ami Metcalf (last seen playing the young Kathy Burke in Walking And Talking) who plays colleague Chelsea, and Neil Maskell (fresh from playing Utopia's hit man) as a depressed newsagent whose foray into internet dating tonight is inspired.

But the mixture of occasionally crude humour and misty-eyed pathos is a tough one to pull off successfully. And that soundtrack is one dollop of syrup too far.