Hairdresser? Not on fire.
The Hairdresser Mysteries is, I'm sorry to say, not very good. I'm a big fan of the BBC's mid-afternoon cosy crime strand: Father Brown, Sister Boniface and, of course, the daddy of them all, Shakespeare and Hathaway . Shakespeare and Hathaway is a miracle of perfect balance: good cast, strong stories, bucolic setting, occasional peril, bad puns. It's camp, but perfectly judged camp. Funny scripts that don't forget they're also part of a crime show. Father Brown is fine. There are a couple of actors in it who can't quite do their own accents, but it's fine. Sister Boniface , a spin-off, is a little too bright and pantomimic. It seems a bit forced. There's no air in it. Hairdresser Mysteries , though, suffers from a surfeit of camp. And I never thought I'd ever write that. It's brimming with choreographed disco interludes and colourful Northern characters doing whacky stuff. The women are shrieking matrons, festooned with the vomited ...
