Ed Reardon

My advice: start with a Tenko DVD box set and work backwards from that...

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According to a recent repeat, Ed's novel "Who Would Fardels Bear?" is actually quite rare now so your best bet is a certain auction website - but don't hold your breath.

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Really enjoyed the episode last night where he scores a kind of victory (sells his Tenko script so can repair the ceiling). The joy of the series is he's both right and not right: on the one hand a self-deluding loser; on the other, a valiant knight sent in to battle against the erosion of literary standards. The writers pitch it very well.

Talking of pitches, I know he's bigger and brasher but I'm suffering Podmore withdrawal symptoms, as you would get far more variety in the way of skits shoehorned into his half hour. Couldn't we have a double bill, possibly entitled Reardmore or DV Reardon? Maybe fuse elements of both into a single detective character ("You're off the case, Reardmore!") with Andy Heymer as his Watsonian sidekick. And he'd be writing up the novels so there's your Reardon element. It practically writes itself...

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I once saw a battered paperback of the novelisation of Sister Mom, the Sally Field movie apparently based on Who Would Fardels Bear? in a second hand bookshop.

No author was listed on the cover, however, and as far as I remember it only credited "Milvane Productions" or some such company inside so I'm not sure how closely it was related to the original novel. Anyway, it was rather pricey so I went back the next day once I'd checked it wasn't available more cheaply online. It wasn't - in fact I couldn't find any reference to it anywhere.

But when I went back the oddest thing had happened: in place of the little bookshop I remembered there was a toy emporium called Crispin's which the managern assured me had been there for yonks.

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And that mixture of indulgence and impatience which the students show him is spot on, I think. The fact that they may grumble but will nevertheless submit to watching his Tenko episode for the umpteenth time ...

I also like the invincible optimism he displays throughout - which doesn't, of course, mean being cheery in his case (unlike DV Podmore) but always finding someone or something else to blame for his being held back.