Plodding pace hits final run of ‘Ashes’

CHANNEL HOPPING: GENE HUNT fired up the Quattro again as “Ashes to Ashes” rolled up for a third and final series. An hour later, it was being flagged down and pulled over.

The wonderfully un-PC detective chief inspector came screeching on to Friday night’s bill like The Stig with road rage. But a handful of classic Hunt-isms apart, “Ashes” never looked capable of reaching the heights of previous incarnations.

The series opener should have been in the fast lane heading for a blow out. Instead, it went tootling along with a slow puncture.

The plot is supposed to surround modern-day cop Alex Drake — a “Mrs Woman who couldn’t detect a garibaldi to go with a brew” — who has gone back in time to the 1980s.

Philip Glennister, as ever, is the Gene genius on a mission to point a shooter at all the best lines and come up smelling of Party Seven and roses. All good fun but the mystery of why Drake is even there seems to have bitten the dust.

Hunt said he “doesn’t speak sci-fi” but the show’s predecessor “Life on Mars” was much better.


BOOZED-UP Jason fell down some steps, woke up and forgot he had amnesia in “Coronation Street”. Slightly more memorable was the role of Nigel Havers as smoothie escort Lewis. He caused a catfight between “Street” seniors Audrey and Rita who ended a sophisticated evening at the theatre scrapping, as Rita put it, “like teenage scrubbers in a disco.” They’ll have to lay off the meow-meow.


FREE shots were on offer at the R&R club in “EastEnders” when gangster Kylie gunned down Jack. Billie somehow got away with a similar stunt in the Vic days earlier. Hardman Phil didn’t even flinch. And he’s been known to fly off the handle at so much as a dropped vowel.

Soap roar: Rita told Audrey she was going into town — secretly she was off to Lewis’s. Thought Jason was the one with amnesia, it’s been shut for 10 years.

Soap bore: Would-be WAG Rosie Webster said she was dating Weatherfield County’s Kyle Dimitri. “He plays goal attack and can get into any VIP bar in Manchester.” Sounds like Rosie knows as much about football as Dimitri.