Waking The Dead (BBC1)

THIS doesn't make any sense to me," snarled Trevor Eve's Det Supt Peter Boyd as another unfathomable "cold case" inquiry was re-opened. Nothing new there, then. Anyone who can actually follow what's happening in this series is probably as twisted as the plot.

To be fair, this latest case was warmer than most. No-one had actually asked him to investigate, but his conscience had been pricked by a visit to the police officer he put behind bars for the murder of a colleague eight years previously.

Boyd, as regular viewers of Waking The Dead will know, is not a forgiving man. Or one who likes to admit he's wrong. That word isn't in his vocabulary. So convicted killer Eddie Vine, who was dying of cancer, telling him that he forgave him despite him putting an innocent man behind bars was like a red rag to a bull. Boyd couldn't resist re-opening the case just to prove he hadn't got it wrong.

His team - or rather, the people at whom he growls and shouts on a daily basis when he's not getting his own way - were baffled as to why they were considering the Vine case again. "I have never professed to understand the machinations of Boyd's mind and am not going to start now," declared Dr Grace Foley. This defeatist attitude wasn't good coming from a psychologist, psychiatrist or whatever branch of psycho-medicine in which she's expert. It's her job to understand what's going on in people's heads.

Neither was the Vine case good for employee relations or for DC Stella Goodman (who is French but, as far as I can work out, her nationality bears no relevance to the case in hand).

"How are you?," she asked her boss Boyd as she arrived. Whoops, this was a little tactless in the circumstances as he'd been kicked in the head by a suspect and then arrested for drunk driving, after knocking down a motorcyclist and leaving the scene of an accident. And he'd had his warrant card taken away so, strictly speaking, he wasn't her boss anyway.

The hospital doctor who treated his wound told him to return if he had any dizziness or trouble focusing which, if we're being honest, are the symptoms induced by trying to follow Waking the Dead after a couple of glasses of wine.

Without any dead bodies to cut up for our delectation, Dr Felix Gibson (who's a woman despite being called Felix - but, quite honestly, there is no time to ask why) resorted to examining bullets and telling us about neuro-muscular blockers, which have much the same effect as watching too much television - it makes you relaxed, reduces self-will and causes loss of memory.

The story ended happily enough after several fresh murders. The outcome for Boyd was especially pleasing - he didn't have to say he was sorry to anyone.

House & Garden, Harrogate Theatre

TWO plays performed in different auditoriums by one cast at the same time - director Hannah Chissick doesn't like to make life easy for herself and the production team. After staging Steaming in Harrogate's Turkish Baths, she could have rested on her laurels and presented a simple, one-set, small cast play. Not at all. She opted for Alan Ayckbourn's House & Garden, with a cast of 14 dashing between two places.

The plays do stand up on their own, but to savour the full comic value it's necessary to see both. The theatre itself has been split into two, with House performed in one space and Garden in another. Those who had to execute this double bill could undoubtedly spend a long time regaling us with the difficulties, but it's all right on the night. Just be warned that Garden calls for a degree of intimacy among the audience due to the improvised banks of seating in a relatively small space.

House & Garden is certainly a rare theatrical experience. The plays themselves are what might be called typical Ayckbourn, dealing with the agony and the ecstasy among the middle classes. Teddy and Trish's marriage chooses a most inconvenient time to fall apart - as he welcomes to lunch the man who can make him an MP and on the day of the annual garden fete (as in fete worse than death).

Half-a-dozen or so other love stories are intertwined around the main one as events become increasingly farcical, with trysts in the fortune teller's tent, an angry woman with a carving knife, a man with a penchant for girls in school uniform, and the domestic problems of the couple organising the fete.

Robin Bowerman, an old hand at Ayckbourn, relishes the role of Teddy Platt, who's been flattening every bush in the garden with his clandestine meetings with the doctor's demented wife Joanna (Gaynor Barrett).

Harriet Eastcott's Trish shows true grit as she warns Joanna that she'll forgive her for ruining her marriage but not her luncheon party. Kevin McGowan is suitably odious as scheming politician Gavin Ryng-Mayne "with a Y", while Lorraine Cheshire and Pete Dunwell bring unexpected tenderness and sadness to the Loves.

l Runs until October 8. Tickets (01423) 502 116.

Steve Pratt