Prunella Scales

ITV3, never previously a destination channel, looked as if it might have a hit on its hands with Ladies of Letters, a TV adaptation of Carole Hayman and Lou Wakefield's popular series of books of the same name consisting of letters between two fictional friends. It had previously been made into a popular Radio 4 series starring Prunella Scales and Patricia Routledge, and the television version had secured the equally redoubtable Anne Reid and Maureen Lipman. But, sadly, the transition proved an unhappy one.

During yesterday's opener, the sight of the two actresses speaking the letters to camera while engaged in a bit of cooking or a surreptitious sherry was far from enough to hold the attention. The letters bore only the minimum of narrative momentum and the subtleties of the occasional malapropism and shift in tone were overwhelmed by one's sheer desperation to see an actual event take place on screen. Perhaps the prosaic lesson of it all is that Ladies of Letters may be very jolly and wry on the radio but when it comes to TV, unless you've got a writer of the calibre of Alan Bennett on board, it's just too boring to watch talking heads for half an hour.

I remain to be convinced about this television transfer for a perennial Radio 4 comedy drama that still stars to this day Prunella Scales and Patricia Routledge. Here Maureen Lipman and Anne Reid take on the roles of fractious ladies of a certain age, Irene and Vera, who strike up an often minty correspondence after meeting at a wedding. I just can't see how the concept (running on Radio 4 as part of Woman's Hour since 1997) can work on TV. I also object to the recasting (although if you absolutely have to, Maureen Lipman and Anne Reid are clearly going to be top notch), and the pedigree behind the production is about the best - this served as one of Geoffrey Perkins final projects before his sad death last year. I am willing to be talked round on this one...

Prunella Scales presides over a bunch of misfits who seem permanently to inhabit her living room. Most have had bad experiences with men, which is par for the Lane course, though this does not stop them ogling the visiting male therapist. The writing is often sharp but the direction of the show is so far unclear.