Ladies Of Letters

ITV3's first original comedy drama made a stellar start in the ratings last night (Tuesday), according to early figures. The first episode averaged a decent 938k (5.1%) for the channel in the half hour from 10pm.

Ladies of Letters Get It Wrong

Oh dear. I really wanted to like last night's first episode of the TV adaptation of Lou Wakefield and Carole Hayman's popular Ladies of Letters series. I really did. But this transfer to television mis-fired on just about every level.

The comic exchange of letters between bitter widows has been a Radio 4 highlight for years and that's where it works best. However, this version did make a success of bringing Lou Wakefield and Carole Hayman's marvellous material to the screen.

This new series, one of the last projects from the late, great producer Geoffrey Perkins, is so reliant on the richness of its writing over its direction that it betrays its origins as a radio series. Stick it on while you're making dinner and revel in the exchanges between two seemingly respectable housewives, who started penning their missives after they got sloshed together at a wedding. Keeping Up Appearances with an added dose of melancholy.

Maureen Lipman and Anne Reid star in this comedy about two women who enter into a correspondence which descends into hilarious rivalry.

The undoubted first ladies of letters on the tellybox are Carol Vorderman and that new Rachel on Countdown, as their deft handling of vowels and consonants have enthralled millions. Nevertheless, their position is under threat from Maureen Lipman and Anne Reid, who meet at a wedding and then pen each other missives - no, stay with us - which often turn into competitions as to who has the best grandkids, pinnies or collection of Werther's Originals. Warm on the surface, this is acerbic underneath.

Fans of the long-running Radio 4 series will be delighted to see this way overdue TV version that retains all the polite suburban snobbery of the original - and then some.

Maureen Lipman and Anne Reid slide gracefully into the roles of Irene Spencer and Vera Small - created in the series of books by Carole Hayman and Lou Wakefield and immortalised on the airwaves by Patricia Routledge and Prunella Scales.

And that's it as far as cast goes, apart from a glum Jack Russell and a flatulent poodle who are the ladies' only visible companions. These two widows meet at the wedding of Irene's daughter and strike up a sprightly correspondence: "Thank you so much for your thank you letter, thanking me for my thank you letter," etc.

Played out as deliciously interlocking monologues, their missives in this first series (before they discovered email) are dotted with recipes for taramasalata and a barely veiled cattiness as Irene worries that she may have accidentally divulged too many dark secrets when she was ever so slightly merry.

It all harks back to a more well-mannered era which now only lives on in the sherry-hazed memories of comedy scriptwriters, if indeed it ever existed at all.

It's a proper little gem and if ITV's intention is to tempt more mature viewers over to ITV3 where they'll find this tucked comfortably between repeats of Pie In The Sky, Miss Marple and Shirley Valentine - its spiritual home you might say - then it should be mission accomplished.

Maureen Lipman and Anne Reid pull off something of a triumph in this wonderfully observed adaptation of the books by Lou Wakefield and Carole Hayman. Previously a hit on Radio 4 (with Patricia Routledge and Prunella Scales), the series revolves around the chaotic, indiscreet and often very funny lives of Irene (Lipman) and Vera (Reid), two elderly widows who met at the wedding of Irene's daughter. Revealing their exploits - and dodgy recipes - to each other in caustic letters, they begin by speculating as to what really did happen at the wedding.

ITV3, never previously a destination channel, looked as if it might have a hit on its hands with Ladies of Letters, a TV adaptation of Carole Hayman and Lou Wakefield's popular series of books of the same name consisting of letters between two fictional friends. It had previously been made into a popular Radio 4 series starring Prunella Scales and Patricia Routledge, and the television version had secured the equally redoubtable Anne Reid and Maureen Lipman. But, sadly, the transition proved an unhappy one.

During yesterday's opener, the sight of the two actresses speaking the letters to camera while engaged in a bit of cooking or a surreptitious sherry was far from enough to hold the attention. The letters bore only the minimum of narrative momentum and the subtleties of the occasional malapropism and shift in tone were overwhelmed by one's sheer desperation to see an actual event take place on screen. Perhaps the prosaic lesson of it all is that Ladies of Letters may be very jolly and wry on the radio but when it comes to TV, unless you've got a writer of the calibre of Alan Bennett on board, it's just too boring to watch talking heads for half an hour.

I remain to be convinced about this television transfer for a perennial Radio 4 comedy drama that still stars to this day Prunella Scales and Patricia Routledge. Here Maureen Lipman and Anne Reid take on the roles of fractious ladies of a certain age, Irene and Vera, who strike up an often minty correspondence after meeting at a wedding. I just can't see how the concept (running on Radio 4 as part of Woman's Hour since 1997) can work on TV. I also object to the recasting (although if you absolutely have to, Maureen Lipman and Anne Reid are clearly going to be top notch), and the pedigree behind the production is about the best - this served as one of Geoffrey Perkins final projects before his sad death last year. I am willing to be talked round on this one...