Inspector Steine

The Casebook of Inspector Steine, penned and undoubtedly immaculately punctuated by Lynne Truss, oozes period atmosphere. Like everything in this classy comedy-drama, the atmospherics are done mostly for laughs - and so the sound effects are ticklishly overdone - but also to convey 1950s Brighton in its raffish glory.

Truss draws a world whose first aim is to make you smile, but it's a dramatic world you can lose yourself in.

At the heart of Truss's drama are the likable staples of a hapless, high-ranked detective, in Steine, and the rich seam that is surface appearance versus a grimy underbelly. Nothing, apart from Steine's worryingly detached air - I hope you remembered the humbugs, Brunswick is about as focused as he gets - is what it seems. For six months, Brighton is crime-free, and the local constabulary is delighted rather than puzzled. Steine works on his golf handicap, while a constable knocks out a ground-breaking sociological study of kinship patterns in the Fens.

The return of the cops'n'comedy capers set in Brighton during the 1950s, written by Lynne Truss. When we rejoin the action, crime has ceased on the South Coast; nothing for months while the rest of the country is up to its winkle-pickers and drape jackets in juvenile delinquency. This is because Twitten (Matt Green) the fiercely bright constable, has forced Mrs Groyne (Samantha Spiro) the police station char and secret criminal mastermind, out of business by threatening to reveal her crimes in a letter he has deposited with his solicitor unless she cuts out the criminality.

And so the coppers languish; Twitten works on his book; Inspector Steine (Michael Fenton Stevens), Brighton's answer to Jacques Clouseau, works on his golf; Sergeant Brunswick (John Ramm) infiltrates a string quartet he suspects of being a band of brigands.

It's all engagingly silly, crammed with period detail jammed into the narrative: Well, standing around talking won't get worldwide success for Colin Wilson's unreadable novel The Outsider, says Mrs Groyne, who is much given to such gnomic utterances.

Lynne Truss's answer to Inspector Clouseau is a 1950s Brighton cop who believes he has cleaned up all the crime on his patch. Little does Inspector Steine (Michael Fenton Stevens) realise that the station charlady, Mrs Groynes (Sam Spiro) is a criminal mastermind. Fortunately for the next five weeks, PC Twitten (Matt Green) is on her case and doughty Sergeant Brunswick (John Ramm) is there to clear up the loose ends, even when, as today, they festoon the Hippodrome.