Grass DVD

Billy Bleach is happy with his life. Going to his Thai cookery classes. Living with his mum. Visiting his brother in the nick. Bothering Japanese tourists. Then he witnesses that gangland murder, and they put him in the Witness Protection Programme. Typical.

Exiled to a halfway-cottage in deepest Norfolk, he finds himself under the protection of a local bobby, 'Heartbeat', the highlight of whose career so far has been doing security at the harvest festival. Soon they are joined by the Met: DCI Maddox, an old-school copper, and DI Veal, the very essence of the modern CID. They know that there is more to policing than kicking down doors and eating burgers in cars, and have a worrying penchant for homoerotic Greco-Roman wrestling. Mutual distrust prevails.

With his brother being threatened in prison and Mum running off with her fancy man to a sweet shop in Pontypridd, Billy doesn't relish being stuck in 'the arse-end of nowhere'. But, given an interim new identity, he frequents the local inn, the Cross Hare (incorporating Le Bateau Jus Viande); plots his pursuit of village vet Jemima; organises Little Mockwell's first Poetry Olympics; and befriends a precocious child with a keen interest in Victoriana, the Internet and Twix bars. Where will it all end? Florida? Or somewhere darker?

Reviews