Chandler & Co

This mid-1990s series is certainly deserving of more attention. Most private detectives we meet on screen tend to be great at their job but down on their luck or else afflicted by some vice. However, in this instance we're presented with a pair who are in secure backgrounds but completely new at the job, hence they're as hopeless in their technique as they are naïve about the ramifications of what they're getting involved with.

Catherine Russell plays Elly Chandler, the driving force behind the new venture who was inspired to try the profession after employing a private eye to prove her (now ex) husband was cheating on her. In an unusual link, her partner in this scheme is her ex's sister, Dee Tate, played by Barbara Flynn. Dee is a happily-married mother of two children and now that they're growing up she needs something to fill her time so Elly's idea seems appealing - at first. But work often ends up interfering with her home life and her successful husband David (Struan Rodger) is often resentful of this stupid enterprise that Elly has roped her into.

As novices, they turn to the same private detective that Elly had previously employed for advice, Larry (Peter Capaldi) who clues them up on method and provides them with kit, and also on occasion gets personally involved with their cases. But he also finds himself getting personally involved with Elly...

The characters all work well, and the stories are strong and snappy, if a little too reliant on 'cheating spouse' as the required investigation, but there's often a twist in the tale. But after just six excellent episodes the first series finished.

Chandler & Co then returned for a second series of six episodes, but with much change. Catherine Russell's Elly is the only returning element, and she recruits her latest client, the thoroughly-disorganised but bright and empathetic Kate Phillips (Susan Fleetwood) as her new partner. Phillips' eldest son Benji is also taken on as an assistant on the technical side. Other new faces are geeky computer-programmer Simon Wood who helps as the agency's new 'tracer', in place of Misty who performed that function in the first series, and a new beau for Elly in the form of Dr Mark Judd (Adrian Lukis), who seems very bland compared to Larry.

The second series tends to consist more of straight detective stories and a bit less around the private lives of the main duo, and loses the element of their inexperience which was part of the charm of the earlier episodes. Personally, I also found Mike Moran's music for the second series much less appealing than Daemion Barry's score for the first. But the scripts remain well-written, most of them by women including series creator Paula Milne, and the last episode is startling for its sudden change in tone as the stakes are raised.

The second series remains a poignant watch for its position in the life and career of actress Susan Fleetwood, who reportedly kept the details of her personal cancer fight secret from her colleagues while it was being made, and she unfortunately succumbed to the condition less than a month after the second series was broadcast. With such hindsight, it one can only guess what must have been going through her mind when she was making the episode "No Tomorrow" in which her character has to pretend she's a cancer sufferer in order to investigate two other characters who are battling the disease.

Luckily, all 12 episodes were finally given a DVD release some twenty years after the series concluded its run and although its hails from the age before mobile phones and internet took over people's lives, Chandler & Co remains a fresh and entertaining watch today.

This intriguing series scripted by "Prime Suspect" creator Paula Milne has a lot going for it. It's about a housewife, and a recent divorcee, looking for something to do with their lives. They decide to become private detectives. This requires them to be familiar with the state of the art bugging devices. Peter Capaldi is the supplier of all this gear and has to explain everything to them as if they were eight year olds, which they are, when it comes to electronics. They barely know how to push the "Play" button on a tape recorder. Capaldi's exasperation is priceless. This is a more than capable actor, who I've yet to see in a major film production. Why? One of the ladies is so beautiful and sexy, it's a wonder why we don't see more of her in major British films. The acting and direction are superb with a great suppoting cast. The interplay of the two protagonists with each other and Capaldi keeps things at a most enjoyable level, and is head and shoulders above the overated, plodding, drawn out "Inspector Morse".