Rosemary And Thyme (ITV1)
Gladiator: Benn V Eubank (five)
Diana Mosley: Adolf, Oswald And Me (C4)
The Real Ned Kelly (C4)
IT was only a matter of time before someone put two of TV most popular genres, gardening and detectives, in the same bed. But I doubt if Rosemary And Thyme will grow on me.
This relied heavily on Felicity Kendal being pert and Pam Ferris being bossy, while saying things like "It's dodgy stuff that digitalis" and "never get romantically entangled with a man who pronounces both Rs in February".
Kendal is a newly-sacked plant pathologist, which sounds like the green-fingered equivalent of Amanda Burton in Silent Witness. Ferris is an ex-policewoman and keen gardener whose husband has left her for a younger woman. Other than that, the writers have forgotten to give them characters, just the occasional interesting line to say and a bashed-up Land Rover to drive. I doubt even the tender loving care of a literary Alan Titchmarsh could make the series blossom.
Kendal and Ferris weren't the oddest couple of the weekend. That was boxers Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank slugging it out in a Roman arena, while dressed up like Russell Crowe in the movie Gladiator. They were given new names - Eubank was Maximo and Benn was Eradico - but the grudge was an old one. Their previous meetings in the boxing ring resulted in one win for Eubank and a draw.
This Celebrity Gladiator, in which top stunt men trained them for five days to fight with swords, maces and armour, was intended to decide the matter once and for all. All it did was revive old rivalry, with their trainers (and yes, one was called Spartacus) having to pull them apart even during training. The image was also spoiled by seeing the two fighters wearing Roman skirts and very 21st century protective goggles.
The fighting recalled in Diana Moseley: Adolf, Oswald And Me was the Second World War, which played a key role in the downfall, Oswald Moseley and Diana Mitford -- or the demon king and his beautiful princess, as they were described.
The programme included an interview with Lady Diana, given shortly before her death last month, in which she basically regretted nothing. "I still feel he was so right and what we did was the best we could," she said.
That included supporting fascism, with Moseley's infamous Blackshirts, and being anti-Semitic. "When we have power, there will be no war," said Moseley - possibly because anyone who disagreed with him would be dead or in prison.
The couple were great chums with Hitler, who was a guest when they secretly married in Berlin in 1936. Lady Diana recalled the Nazi leader was "very easy to talk to, not standoffish" and very good at impersonations. He would obviously have been a wow on Copycats.
Another reputation was questionned in The Real Ned Kelly. The Australian folk hero is regarded as a Robin Hood and a revolutionary fighting to free the people from British rule. Or was he a crazed outlaw, horse thief, bank robber and cop killer?
His 56-page "declaration of war" against the authorities was used by a modern-day FBI criminal profiler to build a psychological profile of Kelly. They also tested the home-made body armour and tin helmet he wore in his famous last gunfight. The man who put on a replica found that he couldn't see to fire a gun properly and could hardly move the armour was so heavy.
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