Reviewed by Karen Robinson
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Listen to a clip from Inspector Steine
When the Brighton police discover a torso in a trunk, Sergeant Brunswick knows what to do: he’ll go undercover in the left-luggage office “and see if an ’at box turns up”. Lynne Truss’s radio comedy series, set in a pastiche of the 1950s, has many such gloriously absurd moments, as an inept trio of coppers let the criminal gangs of the Sussex seaside town run rings round them. The dialogue is pure postwar: some authentic, some recognisable from the films and “wireless” programmes of the time and some cheerful inventions: or maybe people back then really did say “he’s one cha short of a cha cha cha”. You can smell and taste the 1950s, too, with the food – pink blancmange, rock salmon and chips, garibaldi biscuits and the knickerbocker glory. Delicious fun.
Inspector Steine by Lynne Truss, performed by Michael Fenton Stevens, Jan
Ravens and cast
(BBC, 3 hrs, £15.99)

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