“THE BEARDED LADY.” An episode of Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. BBC, UK, 3 January 1996. (Season 1, Episode 1.) Patricia Routledge, Derek Benfield, Dominic Monaghan, John Graham-Davies. Based on characters in the book Missing Persons by David Cook (also co-screenwriter). Director: John Glenister.

   The book Missing Persons itself had been adapted for television nearly six years earlier (30 May 1990), also starring Patricia Routledge in the leading role. It was the pilot for a proposed series by Yorkshore TV, but the project went nowhere until it was finally picked up by the BBC in this series and later shown in the US on PBS.

   This first episode begins with Hetty Wainthropp waking up on her 60th birthday, married but with no pension of her own, and two years short of qualifying for one. She decides on the spot to go to work, and while on the job as a postal clerk, she finds herself intrigued by the mysterious death of a local homeless woman.

   Assisting her (reluctantly) is her elderly husband (Derek Benfield) and 17-year-old Geoffrey Shawcross (Dominic Monaghan), whose street smartness gives the new private detective agency a dimension that Hetty herself, with an inborn curiosity and a knack for putting details together, soon realizes she is lacking.

   The characters are wonderful, especially Benfield’s puzzled reaction to his wife’s new vocation. He is at first vehemently opposed, but he gradually (and grudgingly) finds himself assisting, while his wife and their new ward go off detecting, using buses and the occasional motor scooter for transportation.

   As for Hetty herself, she’s what I can only call a middle class Miss Marple, and quite active for her age. Her environment is that of a midsize city, crowded and a bit rundown, with plenty of ethnic minorities (definitely unlike Midsomer Murders). No scenic villages or large manors for her. What ever the opposite of the word “posh” is, that’s the word I think would fit best.

   While the detection is fun (and more than a little dangerous), this first case is, in all honesty, not very interesting (something to do with mollusks) and worse, more than a little muddled. The ending came much too abruptly, before all of the loose ends had been tied up, or so I thought. Some of the accents were tough to follow, though, so I admit that I may have missed something.

   But it is the characters that make or break shows like this one. It went on from this first episode for four seasons, so the original viewing audience seems to have become attached to them fairly quickly. All quibbles aside, both major and minor, I’m willing to watch more of them myself.