You're a beautiful woman probably...

Stephen Russell's TV play about the love life of Carry On and Sykes star Hattie Jacques was beautifully acted but, as Caitlin Moran cogently pointed out in her column in yesterday's Times , the relationships didn't really make sense. The same issue was there in the source material, Andy Merriman's biography , also called Hattie . We hear all about what happened, and that Hattie was a warm and loving woman, but this only makes the way she treated John Le Mesurier (and, by extension, her own children) all the more baffling. Maybe in future years someone else will come along and write another biography of Ms Jacques that throws more light on what, after 45 years, is still a mystery.

I recently splashed out on a box set of 21 Laurel and Hardy DVDs. As they haven't been on TV nearly as often as they were in my childhood, I've enjoyed reminding myself why I love them so much. In case anyone reading this has never heard of Laurel and Hardy (unlikely but possible) they were a comedy film double act who started in silent movies in the 1920s around the same time as Charlie Chaplin , had their greatest successes with their sound short films of the 1930s and ended their joint career in the 1950s with stage tours of the UK. While Chaplin's films have dated fairly badly and now come across as clever but very rarely funny, L&H's films are still hilarious for people with a certain sense of humour. At their best (which means in the 1930s Hal Roach films, almost all of which are included here) they aren't just funny - behind the slapstick is a warmth, somehow an affection for each other and the viewer. This also comes across in Stan Laurel's rep...