Northern Lights (ITV1)

Medical Investigation (five)

THERE'S no formula for screen chemistry, it either happens or it doesn't. And it doesn't just apply to romantic pairings. Robson Green and Mark Benton have got it in Northern Lights, making this comedy-drama something rare on TV - one that really is both comic and dramatic.

They work well together and strike sparks off each other as best mates, neighbours and brothers-in-law Colin and Howie in this spin-off from the hit single drama Christmas Lights.

Colin (Green) and Howie (Benton) are pals but also fiercely competitive and mindful of who's doing better than the other. Howie is now management, leading Colin to make lots of comments about leaving his working class roots to become middle class.

Colin blots his copybook when he's discovered drinking on the job - just a tot of rum put in a cup of tea by a customer - and the boss wants him sacked. He omits to tell wife Jackie that he's lost his job, lets her book an expensive holiday in Florida and is rewarded in bed. "The best sex of the year," he tells Howie, while pleading guilty to the charge of having "good sex under false pretences".

There's something a bit old-fashioned about Bob Mills and Jeff Pope's script but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It doesn't tread new ground like back-to-the-future detective series Life On Mars on BBC1 at the same time, but does go over old ground with confidence and conviction.

Green does the Idle Jack routine - cheeky, irresponsible, lovable - to perfection while Benton gives as good as he gets as the old half of the partnership.

New US import Medical Investigation is a clone from the CSI school of TV forensic detection in which a team of experts deal with outbreaks of unexplained diseases.

The first case was among Hollywood's adult entertainment industry, which is a polite way of saying porn movies. The first three victims were all actresses - performers is perhaps a more accurate description - in such films. The most imaginative movie title mentioned was Thrill Bill which isn't a patch on the real life Shaving Ryan's Privates, possibly the most ingeniously titled porn version of a real film ever made.

Anyway, victims were being attacked by an aggressive viral infection that caused flu-like symptoms of fever, headaches, limb weakness and coughing up blood. Clearly, this isn't much of a turn-on for the male co-stars trying to raise interest in their performances.

Team members are a pretty uninviting lot who talk in medical jargon and take their work very seriously. "Our job is to stop diseases, not judge those who have them," said leader Dr Stephen Connor sternly.

The cause had to do with breast implants, a spa tub and algae in a fish tank. But Medical Investigation doesn't really have anything to differentiate it from all the other CSI-type series flooding the market. The screen chemistry here is all to do with medicine not the actors and as sterile as an operating theatre.

Northern Sinfonia, Sage Gateshead

THE Northern Sinfonia's guest conductor Frans Bruggen may have cut a frail figure as he sat hunched at the podium, but the performance he delivered to a capacity audience at the Sage Gateshead was lean and muscular and seethed with energy. The evening opened with Beethoven's Overture Egmont; a work tracing the rise and fall of a prince.

Bruggen opened with slow deliberation, and painstakingly shaped the phrases in a perfectly modulated rendition. This was followed by Beethoven's Symphony 6, or Pastoral. The opening movement, headed "the awakening of pleasant feelings upon arrival in the country", felt like a breeze of fresh morning air blowing through the concert hall. Bruggen's conducting style was sparing as he painted a musical landscape in magnificent broadbrush, with each layer transparent above the other. Superb strings, under the leadership of Bradley Creswick, delicately filled in the filigree work. The swooning slow movement swirled with shades and hues. One of the defining moments of the work is the evocation of the nightingale, quail and cuckoo songbirds on flute, oboe and clarinet. It was executed immaculately. The thunderstorm was as effectively depicted, with the double basses working furiously to build up to the thunderclaps vividly portrayed by timpanist Alan Fearon. As for the shepherds' song... it was as sublime as Beethoven must have conceived it. The concert was rounded off with a heart-racing performance of Haydn's Symphony No 104 London. Ten out of ten.

Gavin Engelbrecht