Canterbury Tales: The Wife Of Bath (BBC1): IN Chaucer's original, the Wife of Bath was a randy older woman who couldn't keep her hands off men or resist taking the marriage vows.

In Sally Wainwright's classy update, Beth Craddock was a leading soap star who had been, in her own words, "married more times than you have had hot dinners".

Dentist James seemed to be the husband that was going to last. After 16 years, fiftysomething Beth was still happily married to him. He, however, wasn't happily married to her, as she learnt when he confessed to having a mistress and daughter of school age.

Beth threw him out of the house ("I think you will find that only dentists who are happily married to international soap stars can afford to drive Aston Martins") and herself into her soap work. Rather too enthusiastically, perhaps, when she and her young co-star Jerome, 34 years her junior, injected too much realism into their sex scenes for the camera. They continued their romps off-screen and down the aisle.

At Home With The Braithwaites writer Wainwright took the familiar older woman/younger man scenario and pumped new life into it. The soap background helped, as Julie Walters' Beth ruled the roost, not taking kindly to her ideas being rejected by producer Jane (Samantha Bond). "You couldn't smell a good story if it crawled across your face and puked in your nostril," observed Beth.

Nobody can say lines like that quite like Walters, a performer equally at home tottering across the Acorn Antiques set as Mrs Overall or, as here, portraying an ageing actress whose brio and confidence hides a deeply insecure woman.

Currently, Walters appears to be an actress who can do no wrong. Unlike Beth who, when Jane announces she wants to axe the character played by Jerome (Paul Nicholls, all panting puppy dog and cheeky grin), Beth tries to save his feelings by talking him into leaving for the sake of his career.

Prompted by remarks that she's old enough to be his granny, she resorts to Botox and facelifts in an effort to look younger. Silly girl, he actually liked her the way she was. "You were perfect," he tells her.

So was this second in the Canterbury Tales series. After the frivolous and not-altogether-satisfying opener, The Miller's Tale, this raised hopes that the series is going to live up to expectations.

Published: 19/09/2003