TOP DOGS WITH NEW TRICKS

I MAY be barking mad, but I'm starting to believe that in some small corner of this sceptred isle Alun Armstrong, James Bolam, Dennis Waterman and Amanda Redman are living a parallel life tackling unsolved crimes as Brian, Jack, Gerry and Sandra.

This is the highest compliment I can pay to the scriptwriters and cast of New Tricks (BBC1, Monday).

This quirky series, following the adventures of three retired cops recruited by Superintendent Sandra Pullman to re-investigate unsolved crimes, is now in my top 10 of programmes not to be missed.

Thanks to the skills and talents of the accomplished central trio of Armstrong, Bolam and Waterman, the characters expertly drawn by the scriptwriters become living, breathing human beings - warts and all!

We sympathise with Jack, who talks to his deceased wife, Mary, at the memorial he has created for her in the garden.

Brian's obsessive, eccentric behaviour makes us laugh and then almost cry, as he teeters on the edge of breakdown.

And, although Gerry has a penchant for women, booze and gambling, we forgive him because his three ex-wives and gaggle of daughters obviously still think the world of him.

A lovable rascal, he is an endearing mixture of unPC 70s throwback and New Man in the kitchen - much to the amusement of his alter ego, Dennis Waterman, who has been quoted as saying: "That really is good character acting, because I don't have a clue in the kitchen and don't know anything about cooking!"

Sandra struggles to keep the three ageing ex-cops under control, but the interplay between the characters is a joy to watch.

This week's episode saw the crew re-investigating a series of violent dog killings 30 years previously, when another dog was found dead on Hampstead Heath with all the hallmarks of the original 'murders'.

One of the suspects was dear old Miss Jones from Rising Damp (Frances De La Tour), as a professor of Egyptology who had arranged for her various pet dogs to be mummified and kept the vital organs of her late husband in a pottery jar.

Alas, the prof was just a red herring, as the real criminal turned out to be doddering Good Life icon Richard Briers, whose character had apparently poisoned his first wife with a soup made from the livers of the butchered dogs - and was in the process of doing the same to his second spouse, and to Jack whom he had tried to befriend.

Meanwhile, Brian (on compassionate leave) had been combining mourning for his beloved mongrel Scruffy with combing through all the details of the doggy crimes for clues and bemoaning the fact that he and his wife were considered too old to 'adopt' a rescue home puppy.

All ended happily with the real culprit cuffed and Brian cuddling a new pet dog, Scampi, thanks to colleague Gerry.

The trusty trio may have been barking up the wrong tree at the beginning of the investigation, but by the time the credits rolled they were top dogs again!