THE opposition for my wife's affection may wear a wig and have to suck in his stomach when he wanders around the imaginary Old Bailey, but the fact remains that Martin Shaw's appearance is law around my house.
Our idea of High Court judiciary is one of doddery old twits gazing over half-rim spectacles in bewilderment and asking who Gazza or the Spice Girls might be. Not 58-year-old Shaw's Judge John Deed (BBC1, Thursday). He's a lantern-jawed legal eagle with a warm brief in his boudoir, when he's not deflowering half the mature attractive professional females in his path. Even a sex therapist, female of course, brought in to cure Sir John's serial womanising - so he could finally marry QC Jo Mills (Jenny Seagrove) - has ended up in his bed. Such is the slit-eyed, gun-slinging style that Mr D uses to see off the bad guys in court that I've taken to calling him Judge Roy Bean, after the Wild West hero who operated the law through the barrel of a gun. Eric Morecambe once claimed that QC stood for Queer as a Coot. Not in this case. The appeal court is full of millions from the opposite sex with a penchant for robust red-robed males who adopt daft little dogs. Regulars to the series know that pale-faced, single mum Ms Mills operates between attraction and intense exasperation regarding the judge's dirtier deeds. What she lacks is the knowledge that Mr Deed once zoomed around the streets wearing an even more outrageous mop of hair and bellowed "cover me" as Ray Doyle in The Professionals on ITV. It's a subject I'm delighted to revive because the actor would prefer to scrub his no-brainer acting days from the record. If only the other judges knew, they'd have a whip-round and employ Lewis Collins to drive Deed around in a customised Capri. After all, Collins' character William Bodie did once refer to his partner as "the bionic golly". But it was my wife who urged "drive home quickly" on Thursday when a visit to an elderly friend strayed beyond JJD's starting time.
The law was a lot more serious for Michelle and Jayson Whitaker in A Baby To Save Our Son (BBC1, Tuesday) as the couple raised thousands for IVF treatment in the US to flout British rules about designer babies. What they needed was a tissue match to give three-year-old son Charlie a bone marrow transfusion and end his constant battle with a life-threatening blood disorder. British baby-making laws frown on such requests. But I can't see any parent allowing a disabled child to suffer needlessly if there was a chance of a cure. Perhaps there is a real-life legal role for a maverick judge like Deed after all? As it is, my wife may be seeking legal sanctions to stop her own offspring from taping over the end of documentaries like this so we could actually watch the outcome. Witness for the prosecution notes that she herself has just used a tape of my youngest son's latest stage performance to record last Saturday's Pop Idol. An unShaw verdict might be required here.
Published: ??/??/2003
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