Five has confirmed details of its revived version of classic hit TV show Minder, which will star Shane Ritchie as wheeler-dealer Arthur Daley's nephew.

Former EastEnders actor Ritchie is to play Archie Daley in the series, which is due to air early 2009, the channel said.

Royal Shakespeare Company actor Lex Shrapnel will take on the role of Archie's bodyguard or "minder" Jamie Collins, in what Five says is an updated version of the series for a modern audience.

Talkback Thames has been commissioned to produce the six-part drama, which was a massive success with a memorable theme tune when it starred George Cole and Dennis Waterman back in the 1980s.

Five's director of programmes, Ben Gale, said: "I am delighted to confirm this commission which retains all the humour and charm of the original Minder. The assembled on and off-screen talent is exactly what's needed to bring this celebrated series to life for a new audience."
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Never say never, but I'd rather keep watching "New Tricks", which I in fact absolutely LOVE, never mind comedy is only incidental there, but while I already knew Dennis Waterman before, from "Minder" of course, but also "The Sweeney" and a few others, I never knew James Bolam earlier, which led me to the "discovery" of "The Likely Lads", obviously enough, and I'm currently investigating Alun Armstrong's career as well, he's in fact my favourite of the current trio of elderly cops, his performance in the recent Shakespeare episode was nothing short than smashing!


Cheers!

Amanda Redman is alright, imho, she keeps the pace of the trio of consummate professionals as best as she could, which is quite alright, again!

Dennis Waterman was probably a bit pigeonholed in the role of the soft-hearted tough guy, a ladies' man with a conscience and all that, throughout his career, but nobody does that better than he does! Never mind Little Britain's silly parody, he's real GOOD, even when he sings the theme tunes

But as I said, the big surprises from this series for me came through the other two old-timers, I find them both wonderful in portraying their respective complex characters, dealing with both pretty funny and highly dramatic situations.

Which brings me to the realization that my current favourite "modern" TV series are actually only incidentally funny, there's "New Tricks", in fact, the unfortunatly defunct "Hustle" and the rather controversial "Shameless" that I actually enjoy these days, together with the only actually interesting American sitcom ever after "The Addams Family", which is "Weeds"...


Cheers!

Well, Rogue, I can easily understand your problem, I had to deal with something similar with my ex, and that's part of how she earned the "ex" prefix... ooops... that's a chauvinistic remark, I'm afraid... but bear with me, I'm still rather fresh out of it...

However, her problem was she couldn't bear fiction, mine that I couldn't bear anythyng else, so we could hardly ever watch the telly together...

I've more than enough of reality out of the real thing, so to speak, I really don't need gruesome news programmes, soppy talk shows and documentaries on the sexual habits of crocodiles, or Hitler's at that, I want movies, and sketch-shows and sitcoms, and football matches, or some other sports if I'm really desperate... not cricket, though, I might get a bit depressed, at times, but never suicidal...

However, good news for your girlfriend, and possibly you, might be that, no matter how much I could personally resent that, "New Tricks" is getting more and more the way of the soap than that of the plot-driven cop show...

Plots are in fact getting as feeble as you can imagine them, everything is now let down to the characters, and let's just hope the actors keep that up better than the writers do...