Hard times

Courtroom dramas filled the schedules this week, with Jimmy McGovern writing a series for the BBC called Accused (BBC1, Monday). Mr McGovern, who invented Cracker, does grim. In a McGovern drama, things start badly in the first five minutes. Then they get worse. Occasionally, events might take a turn for the better. Ha! Don’t be fooled. They are about to get unimaginably grimmer.

It would be fun if the BBC persuaded him to adapt some P.G. Wodehouse. ‘Biffo Prendergast is hopelessly in love with the Hon. Letitia Honeysett. But the bluebird of happiness is about to be sucked into the aircraft engine of his life. She accuses him of rape and, thanks to evidence planted by a rival, he goes down for 12 years.’ Or, ‘Furious at being ordered about by Lord Emsworth, Wellbeloved feeds the peer to his own pigs. A life of squalor, misery and degradation follows.’

This week’s episode told the story of Willy, a builder who was deeply in debt.