Class Of '76 (ITV1)

THE scene is a school playground where children are happily at play. The voiceover informs the viewer that "Amy was the first", and you know that whatever she came first in, it wasn't something pleasant.

Sure enough, Amy's death as a ten-year-old was the starting point for a dark, dour and depressing thriller that could have easily have been told in one two-hour chunk instead of prolonging the agony in 90-minute episodes over two nights. Eliminating the repetitive and ultimately annoying flashbacks to Amy's death would have cut it down a lot.

I guessed who the guilty person was - think of the most unlikely and that's usually your man (or woman) - long before Detective Inspector Tom Monroe, a sullen and unhappy chap as portrayed by Robert Carlyle.

Not for nothing did someone tell him: "You're a sad man, Tom Monroe", as he investigated an apparent suicide.

Of course, when a man chooses to walk down the middle of a motorway teeming with fast cars, it's difficult to avoid the impression that he's trying to do himself in. A tape left by him suggests his demise is linked to the death of other pupils in his class back in 1976.

To add to the mystery, on the day that he died, the dead man visited the spot where Amy was killed and left a single red rose (cue repeated shots of a red rose lying on the ground).

"No doubt he took his own life but it's the circumstances," says Monroe to his assistant Detective Sergeant Steven Grant, who eats a lot because he gets a better emotional response from a greasy pasty than he does from his boss.

More mysterious than the fact that the food-gobbling Grant doesn't throw up is the blond boy who appears in the back row of the class photograph of '76 and then again a good decade later in a university picture, but without apparently ageing a day. Perhaps, we're asked to ponder, there's a supernatural explanation for all the odd goings-on.

If the opening part was slow to the point of being stationary, then the concluding part had more to hold the attention as the body count piled up and Monroe became less morose. Having spent the first instalment with his brow furrowed, Carlyle got to enjoy himself a bit more, while committing the cardinal sin of going to bed with a suspect.

Inevitably, he was ticked off by his boss, told to drop the case and then proceeded to disobey orders and carry on as if nothing had happened. Even a note from the killer, written in a child's hand, and saying: "Five so far, kill you too if you get too close," couldn't deter him.

With all his quirks and kinks, it would be surprising if Monroe doesn't get his own series and join the ranks of the full-time TV detectives.

Over The Rainbow: The Eva Cassidy Story, Gala Theatre, Durham

MOST people are familiar with the "fame after death" achievement of 33-year-old US singer Eva Cassidy. Touched by the story behind the album Songbird, Radio 2's Terry Wogan ensured that Cassidy has the slightly chilling record of three posthumous number one albums. Writer Brian Langtry's over-sentimental three-hour tribute includes a lengthy death scene that I've only seen bettered by the late Tony Hancock. Fortunately, the recruitment of Carmen Cusack as Eva is a real saving grace.

She's no guitar player, but Cusack battles away bravely with a script which takes her from age ten to final performance. It's an hour into the show before the hair on the back of your neck is electrified by the title track of Songbird and a lot of what went on before could have been condensed into flashback.

Spartan costume and set, relying on the backdrop of video footage, puts intense pressure on the acting and singing. With a lot of the later action set around Chris Biondo's (Mikey O'Connor) recording studio - Cassidy's ex-boyfriend and collaborator who released Songbird - most of the hard-working eight-strong cast have singing/playing duties as well. The script is a little elusive about Cassidy's failure to find fame and doesn't explore why she dodged some of her cancer treatment. Talented, uncompromising, stubborn and handicapped by self-doubt, I suspect that Cassidy wouldn't have wanted to be portrayed, as here, as a saint. More of her familiar songs rather than Ghost Riders In the Sky or She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain would have sent me home happy.

l Runs until Saturday. Box Office: 0191-332 4041

Viv Hardwick