Minder

A 1970s classic gets a modern overhaul in Five’s revision of Minder. Set in modern day London, the six-part comedy drama follows the lives of two unlikely friends.

In a grimy warehouse off the Old Kent Road, Archie Daley (Shane Ritchie) runs an empire of nice little earners. Just like his uncle Arthur, Archie has his fingers in all sorts of pies from DVDs, carpets and laptops to contemporary art and taxidermy, in fact anything with a healthy mark up.

Archie has the gift of the gab and a very loose attitude to the law. His wheelings and dealings with London’s crooks and conmen gets him into some serious scrapes. That’s where his minder Jamie comes in.

Lex Shrapnel plays Jamie Cartwright, the ex-con with a conscience who provides the muscle behind Archie’s dodgy enterprises. After serving time for GBH he’s determined to stay on the straight and narrow, even if that means dragging Archie along with him.

Landlady of the Winchester Arms, Petra Bennet (Jenna Russell) faces the bully tactics of two unscrupulous property developers who’ll stop at nothing to get their hands on her pub. But Petra is a chip off the old block and knows her dad, Dave would never have given up his livelihood.

In true Minder style, each hour-long episode is a self-contained story where Archie and Jamie come into contact with a cast of contemporary characters from wannabes and has-beens, to villains and police.

Gone are the old Jags and Ford Capris of the Dennis Waterman era and in their place is Jamie’s iconic black cab and a Bentley T. At its core is still the funny and infuriating relationship between two unlikely men.