Harry Driver

"Spring and Autumn" is a surprisingly good egg. Not hard boiled, of course, but not, as one had feared, all runny. To get an egg just nicely right is difficult enough, so let's hear it for the cooks: director Ronnie Baxter, Jimmy Jewel as the old man and an engaging boy, all teeth and backchat, called Charlie Hawkins, a sort of Jack Wild Mark II.

I used to like Never Mind the Quality very much. Was I so much easier to please or is this show much inferior? It seemed to rely on cries of "Knickers" and "Stuff that in your carburettor." and jokes that telegraphed their arrival early enough to allow you to duck.

"Cheap At Half The Price" (Thames) is a new comedy series about an antique shop, but I cannot, on the whole, feel it is necessary to use exclusively old jokes as Vince Powell and Harry Driver do.

In the event, it was quite endearing. The very dependable script writing team of Vince Powell and Harry Driver, whose strong suit is pathos, enlisted my sympathy for this improbable enterprise very adroitly.

Old ladies are a good deal franker and funnier about the fundamentals of life and death than they are given credit for. And Ada's an old lady who's going steady with a grave digger. The series is by Vince Powell and Harry Driver, a dependable brand name in comedy. Ada and her Walter are perhaps a fraction on the sweet side so far but, given time, they may show their dentures.