The Bill (ITV1)

WE expected so much of Kerry, but it wasn't to be. Last night, Kerry was laid to rest. Not the would-be President but PC Kerry Young, the Sun Hill copper killed by a sniper's bullet.

She was the one with the squiffy lips whose dedication to duty extended to sleeping with most of the station, making exceptions only for women and sniffer dogs, and then moving on the local criminal fraternity.

Her funeral was marred by PC ("I'm no angel") Gabriel Kent, "throwing a Gwyneth" during his reading in memory of the dead policewoman. His sobbing and upset was understandable - he shot her, unaware that she was carrying his child.

Kerry had been undercover, literally, with one of the brothers in Sun Hill's notorious Radford gang in a bid to bring the family to book. He wasn't at the funeral as he was standing trial in Albert Square because, rather confusingly, the same actor is playing both David Radford and Little Mo's attacker Graham.

It seems to be a rule that newcomers to The Bill must have at least one previous conviction for appearing in a soap. Gabriel - or rather, Todd Carty, who plays him - used to have Pauline Fowler as a mother when he was Mark Fowler. No wonder he's gone off the rails.

Kerry had to go because she knew too much. For it's another rule that all the Sun Hill officers must have a guilty secret. PC Andrea Dunbar is an undercover reporter and sleeping with the boss. Jim Carver has a gambling addiction. His wife June slept with Gabriel, whom she thought was the son she gave away as a teenager but turned out to be the son of the people who'd adopted her unwanted infant.

Meanwhile, DCI Jack Meadows is following up an affair with a prostitute by snogging DS Debbie McAllister, who has a child by the previous station boss (the one who raped her and shot himself).

It's a wonder, quite frankly, that any crimes get solved considering the hotbed of lust, passion and corruption that passes for Sun Hill nick.

The newest copper has emerged as homophobic so, in true Wife Swap tradition, he's been paired with a PC who is both black and gay.

June, unaware of Jim's gambling debts and the fact that he's used her house as collateral, announces her intention of retiring. "I want to enjoy what we've got together," she told him. Little does she know that they have very little together as their joint account is empty as a result of his betting habit.

We left PC Dale Smith, "Smiffy" to his friends, trying to throttle Gabriel for hijacking the funeral with all his blubbering. But even Smiffy was forced to stop when a smug Gabriel announced Kerry was expecting his child. What you might call a pregnant pause.

Fine Arts Quartet, King's Hall, Newcastle University

STRIDING purposefully to the stage at Newcastle University's King's Hall, The Fine Arts Quartet were a picture of pure refinement. And their immaculate silver hair was matched with experienced flair as they proceeded to deliver one of the most dazzling concerts in the Newcastle International Chamber Music Series.

Champions of contemporary music, the quartet from the US launched with a seamless account of Shostakovich's String Quartet 7. It was obvious that they were intimately versed with the score and the composer's sardonic wit was conveyed with biting edge. Playing a Dohnanyi string quartet, they drew out lush string work with exquisite pizzicato passages from cellist Wolfgang Laufer. The technical demands of Philip Glass' String Quartet No 2 were met with ease in a piece which pulsated with life. In a concession to the Romantics, the quartet weighed in with Mendelssohn's String Quartet 1; a seemingly interminable piece which was performed with heartfelt conviction and captivated throughout. The audience lifted the rafters. They were rewarded with two sprightly encores: a quirky Italian waltz by Alfredo Cassella and a whirlwind polka from Shostakovich, which drew smiles all round. A memory to savour.

* The Merel Quartet will perform at King's Hall at 7.30pm on Wednesday, December 1.

Gavin Engelbrecht

The Tragedian, Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond

WHEN Edmund Kean was at the height of his fame, rich theatre patrons forsook their elevated boxes for a place in the pit, so as to see the great man's eyes up close. Almost 200 years later, as he returns to the stage he once stalked, it's easy to see why.

Kean was the son of a drunk and a street hawker, touted around fairs and markets as a child prodigy, seemingly doomed to forever play the harlequin in cheap farce. He went on to become the greatest actor of his age and the first transatlantic superstar.

The first of a trilogy, The Tragedian tells of Kean's rise to fame, the years of struggling, sometimes starving, often drunk. Years of bitterness, anger and personal tragedy. And for the first time, at Richmond's Georgian Theatre Royal, it is brought to one of the stages where Kean performed.

The intimacy of the venue recreates the experience of an early 19th century theatregoer, as Alastair O'loughlin, as Kean, draws the audience into the play, so close you can see the whites of his eyes.

In a captivating performance, O'loughlin turns Kean from an unlikeable drunk into a tragic figure, bristling with passion and energy as he rails against the injustices he faces and struggles to keep his sanity. Kean's early life story is expertly told, weaving songs, letters and appearances on the stage into the narrative, gradually revealing why revenge came to be his dominant motivation for success, even when still in his 20s.

Few plays provide such an opportunity to be at the birth of modern theatre, in what is an utterly absorbing experience.

* Until tomorrow. Box office: (01748) 825252.

Nick Morrison