Canterbury Tales: The Pardoner's Tale (BBC1): CHAUCER'S original tale is a simple story of three pals who kill each other over a cache of gold.

That was unpleasant enough. Tony Grounds's TV version retained that premise but around it wove a dark tale of murder, kidnap and abuse at odds with the song, What A Wonderful World, that opened and closed the tale.

Jonny Lee Miller, fresh from playing Byron in BBC2's biopic, was Arty. He and friends Baz and Colin were yobs, hanging around in the city of Rochester and making money from whatever criminal activity presented itself.

They were objectionable and anti-social, so there weren't many laughs in this grim tale. One of the few bright spots was Arty standing on his head and watching TV, with the comment: "I'm pushing back the boundaries of human endeavour, but didn't want to miss Ready Steady Cook while I was doing it".

Arty thought nothing of exploiting public sympathy about a missing girl by pretending to be a relative and taking a collection, and then pocketing the money for himself. "I haven't felt that holy since I sang in the choir," said Arty.

The hunt for the missing teenage girl was the other thread running through the story. She was the second youngster to go missing, and an enigmatic girl wandered in and out of the story, observing events and with a unexplained connection to the mystery.

Those who like everything explained in drama will have become infuriated by the refusal of The Pardoner's Tale to progress like a more conventional drama.

The main problem was that the trio were so objectionable that you cared little about what happened to them. Watching two of them beating Arty to death with a cricket bat and a poker seemed like justice, not murder.