Masonic handshakes

They were at it in Ashes to Ashes the other week. And now in Inspector George Gently, George's trusty young assistant John Bacchus has signed up for the Freemasons. I work pretty close to Mason HQ in Great Queen Street in Holborn, ugly great thing it is, always full of short fat old men in blazers going in and out. Shiny brass buttons, you get the idea. It's like a Rotary Club version of Angels and Demons. In Ashes, Gene Hunt faces Alex Drake's withering scorn when she assumes (along with the audience) that he's gone over to the junior Illuminati, only to reveal how he'd played the system to get a result.

In Gently, Bacchus is more conflicted, going all the way with the trouser-rolling, while still trying to do his job as a copper, which leads his long-suffering wife to suspect he's getting his leg over on the side. It's a beautifully made series, very low key period detail unlike the Rock and Roll Years soundtracks of Ashes to Ashes or Heartbeat. But it has one very central flaw: Martin Shaw, doing the sort of stupid forced gravelly voice rivalled only by whinging primadonna Christian Bale as Batman.

I can't get beyond Martin Shaw being the unsexy one from The Professionals, an uppity genre telly ac-TOR in the mould of Leonard Nimoy, and a new age religious nut to rival Sting. And his absurd performance as George Gently isn't helping, frankly. A perfectly good detective series spoiled by this over-strained old ham. The seeming popularity of Shaw and his telly peer Robert Lindsay are mysteries to me. Surely people can't seriously enjoy watching them parade their questionable egos all over the BBC? You only have to watch Philip Glenister, effortlessly splendid even in the terrible Demons, to know that some actors deserve to feel confident about their skill. But Martin Shaw? I don't get it. And I even watched Rhodes. You can't say I haven't given him a chance.