DVD: Carlton Visual Entertainment 37115 03033. 26 episodes/1250 minutes with little extras. Price: around £69.99 (UK) although I got it for about £29.00 so look around for the best price. Stars: Mike Pratt, Kenneth Cope and Annette Andre.

check out website carltonvisual.com

What to do in dark evenings when there's nothing much on the box, you buy one of these DVD boxes instead and have a delightful reminder of a 1969 TV series that only lasted one season but was still a lot of fun to watch.

Jeff Randall and Marty Hopkirk are private investigators. Hopkirk is mistaken for Randall, who had been investigating a divorce case, and killed. His ghost comes back to haunt Randall to solve his murder and then gets stuck on Earth when he stays out after sunrise. The two private detectives tend spend the rest of the series trying to make a living to keep Hopkirk's widow in her job, as Randall's secretary.

Like a lot of the series from this time period, the effects budget isn't that high so there is a stronger dependence on well-written stories and good acting to carry things along - and we had some superb writers around in this era. There is little in the way of extras on the DVDs themselves, just a few second unit footage showing that who you think is there isn't, but is made up for with the mini-text booklets and a reminder of how the actors had to ignore Marty (actor Kenneth Cope) while Jeff (actor Mike Pratt) was seeing the ghost and everyone else at the same time.

Speaking of guest stars, from 'UFO' we have Dolores Mantez and George Sewell, from 'The Saint' Ivor Dean reprising his Inspector Large character. Like a lot of these Monty Berman/Dennis Spooner productions, they are a well of good acting talent from the late 60s.

It does make you wonder what this original 'Randall And Hopkirk' could have been like had it had a bigger budget or even a second series as both lead actors demonstrated considerable talent for comedy. It's also rather ironic that a few years later that actor Mike Pratt died and ended a rather varied career (he also wrote the Tommy Steel 60s hit, 'Little White Bull'). If you want to relive the past, then you'll enjoy this series.

GF Willmetts