BBC1: Mon-Fri at 14:15 Series 3

Starring Mark Williams as Father Brown

Based on the Father Brown books by G K Chesterton

It is January. And the BBC, as it has done for the last two years, is showing Father Brown again. But why early afternoon? Fortunately there is iPlayer and I am sure most followers of the series watch it through iPlayer.

This series is an absolute joy to watch. Most of the episodes I can download on iPlayer to play back to my elderly mother.

OK so there are some historical inaccuracies. The major one is that the Roman Catholic Church is not the mainstream, established Church in England. The original Fr Brown was set after the First World War, this has been fast forwarded to the 1950's, after the Second World War. But what if lived in a world where the reformation did not take such a hold on England, that ancient parish churches were run by Roman Catholic priests. And then it falls into place.

These are classic Who Done It stories and main detective is a priest who rides a bicycle, aided and abetted by Mrs McCarthy (parish secretary) and Lady Felicia, together with Sid, Lady Felicia's chauffer. The stories are now departing from Chesterton's corpus of work, but some of the basic elements remain the same. Fr Brown is interested in the whole person, body and soul. The stories are set in a time when the death penalty was still in use, so to be convicted of murder could mean execution. Mark William's Fr Brown is a compassionate man, known to eat with sinners, he prays for the souls of the deceased, listens to the confessions of those in need and enjoys cricket and a bottle of good wine.

More information: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03pmw4m

(The great thing about the BBC is no adverts. Just pure entertainment)