Murder In Mind: Landlord (BBC1)

See Nicholas Lyndhurst's face on the screen and one word springs to mind: "Plonker!". It's nothing personal, just that the sight of him conjures up the image of him playing Del Boy's brother Rodney in hit comedy Only Fools And Horses.

You can't help but feel sorry for actors like him. They spend years trying to become famous and, once that happens, spend the rest of their career trying to prove they can play other roles.

He's had success in other roles since then but audiences still prefer him in plonker mode - which, I suppose, is better than the image of a youthful Lyndhurst in lederhosen in the old BBC Sunday teatime serial Heidi.

Landlord, the latest in the series of psychological thrillers under the umbrella title Murder In Mind, was his latest attempt to demonstrate his versatility. I still expected Del Boy to pop his head round the door at any minute and say something to Lyndhurst's seedy landlord, a man whose treatment of his tenants was offhand to say the least.

"Kind of musty, isn't it?" said Aussie Claire, referring to the flat not the script.

Alan Willis (Lyndhurst) didn't take kindly to criticism of his hot property. "If you want Buckingham Palace, you have to pay for it," he told her.

She paid with her life. A faulty gas heater caused her death by carbon monoxide poisoning.

Any normal person would have reported it to the police straight away. Not Willis, swayed by the thought that his neglect in having the appliance serviced could land him in prison or having to pay a huge fine.

His wife Liz (Ruth Gemmell) pointed out he was too mean to do anything. So, of course, he decided to save the emergency services money by moving the corpse off his property himself. "This is crazy," said Liz as they left the body in a car in the woods, after making it look as though she'd committed suicide.

"I can't believe we did that," said Willis after completing the deed - and neither could I. None of Landlord was particularly convincing, although the occasional line ("Another normal day shifting bodies around," he said at one point) perked up the interest.

Of course, Willis's body removal proved as efficient and effective as his house repairs. How to explain away the girl in the car when it emerged that (a) she didn't drive and (b) it wasn't her vehicle?.

More troublesome was the neighbour with a list of repairs longer than a list of Labour Commons rebels. "Sometimes waiting for a little bit of internal refurbishment can turn into a life sentence," moaned Tim Jolly, a man who failed to live up to his surname.

Lyndhurst was suitably oily and creepy, without ever quite managing to banish the thought of Rodders. At least, his career is perky enough not to have to join the D-list celebs over on the other side in I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!

Published: 12/05/2003