TV review

FOR those of us who don't watch Casualty every week, the writers ensure that newcomers and occasional viewers are brought up to date. "Lara, you were kidnapped at gunpoint," someone says to Lara who, of course, is well aware of what happened to her.

As for traumatised Luke, Josh reminds him: "You are a conscientious paramedic attacked by a gun-wielding druggie," just in case he's forgotten.

This was the last in the series for the time being as the emergency department closes its doors during Euro 2004. There was an unseemly rush for the exit, with half the regulars threatening to leave.

Head of the queue was good old Charlie, who's been there since the Dark Ages, or pre-Channel 4, as it's known in some circles. Charlie has had enough of the suits running the place at the expense of the patients.

"I used to think nursing was all about helping people, now I realise it's all about bureaucracy," he snapped, later adding: "I've had enough. The system is rubbish and isn't going to get any better."

He's going to help out at a homeless shelter in Canada, which shows how badly he wants to get out. It's not permanent. He's taking a six-month sabbatical or "time off to be with my son", which makes him sound like a politician who jumps before he is pushed.

Meanwhile, an exodus of staff loomed. Luke wanted out because he felt guilty about the shooting of a drug addict, a feeling not helped by the dead man's widow screaming at him: "For the rest of your life, you'll be the man who killed her daddy."

Kaminski is thinking of legging it because he can't do his job while he's coming off the downers. Watching him do an impersonation of the Incredible Hulk in the car park, you can see his frustration.

As usual, patients kept getting in the way - a teenager with cerebral palsy and his heart attack father; a woman pretending to be ill, a baby fitting uncontrollably, and someone complaining that "my head's spinning". Goodness, you must be thinking, Linda Blair from The Exorcist has been admitted. But this turned out to be someone who couldn't cope with the pace.

This gave the doctors a chance to use big words like exsanguinated (that's what it sounded like) and ventricular fibrillation that they don't get a chance to use very often. I do worry about the diagnosis they offer. "Aaaah!," screamed a patient.

"That's sore is it?," asked her medical examiner, as he prodded her. No wonder she screamed.

The fitting baby was a particular worry. An assortment of doctors couldn't find the problem. "If we don't crack this, we are going to lose him," said arrogant Jim Brodie.

They couldn't work out the cause of the fits when it was obvious that the grandfather was to blame. It emerged that the baby had been feed baby milk mixed with cocaine. The grandfather, supposedly a reformed drug dealer, was doing one last job. His card was marked early in the proceedings when we heard that, when his daughter was eight, he stole her presents on Christmas Eve to buy a fix.

The staff threw a surprise farewell party for Charlie to wave him off. All except Nikki, who appeared to have been pushed off a cliff for reasons not entirely made clear. She couldn't wave anyone off, having just been told her right arm was permanently paralysed.

Peter Gabriel

Newcastle Arena

IT must be great to be Peter Gabriel. In his mid-fifties, he is producing the best work of his career about the process of aging while on stage he is having enormous fun behaving like a child.

Friday night's stage set - a silver and black circle in the middle of the Arena floor - appeared to have limited possibilities for Gabriel's time-honoured theatricals, and his ascetic dress - silver short hair and monk-like blackgarb - made it look as if he had put away childish things. The opener was Here Comes the Flood: one man, one piano and portents of death.

Yet then the outer edge of the stage began revolving, and from out of its middle for Games Without Frontiers came an electronic two-wheeled shopping trolley which Gabriel rolled around on, saluting his surprisingly small audience (£36-a-ticket is a lot) with a Chairman Mao-like gesture.

For Downside Up, he and his daughter Melanie (backing vocals) clipped themselves to the scaffolding ceiling and ran around upside down.

Growing Up - the title track for the show, the album and the ideas - featured Gabriel rolling around the tiny stage inside a large transparent ball, and he sang Solsbury Hill riding around on a silver Mini Moulton bicycle.

And the music? Occasionally, Gabriel tracks can drag, but he was anchored by Ged Lynch's explosive drumming, Tony Levin's dramatic bass and David Rhodes' wonderful guitar. Red Rain was tight and funky, Games Without Frontiers was a modern marvel, fresh and relevant. An absolutely tumultuous Digging in the Dirt was the surprise highlight and even Sledgehammer - his worst song but his biggest hit - steamrollered along quite marvellously.

He finished with a sinuous and gospelly In Your Eyes and a long Biko. As the thumping drums and tortured guitar chords brought it to a singalong close, Gabriel was probably backstage flicking through a boy's own catalogue of gadgets with which middle-aged men can have a lot of fun.

Chris Lloyd