Alan Shallcross

Warren Clarke, best known as Dalziel in the BBC's Dalziel and Pascoe, plays a simple farmer whose uncomplicated rural life is turned upside down when his cattle inexplicably become sick. An initially sinister official from "the Ministry", played by Patrick Malahide, leads a team desperately trying to identify the source of the infection. The Russian Soldier is not about the science of the search, but is rather a fundamentally human drama. Throughout, there are references to our paranoia and fragility. I recall several incredibly poignant, yet simple exchanges between characters. In particular, between Clarke and his young son, Malahide and his chief scientist, and finally, Clarke and Malahide. Although seemingly irrelevant, the mysterious Russian soldier of the title who appears in the mist in the opening scene is ultimately the reason behind it all. "Get away from 'ere," commands Clarke, wishing away the shadowy nemesis, in what proves to be a powerful metaphor.

Jill has everything; a successful career, four close, if somewhat exotic, friends (her 'family') and a live-in lover. They provide for all her needs including, eventually, a baby. But that is where reality sets in.

When Wayne has to go and live with his grandfather Albert, they both initially resent the arrangement. Hostilities soften when they discover some common interests.

Tending her husband's grave one day, Annabel Fox meets Jack Ives, a retired regimental sergeant-major. But when their friendship turns to love and talk of marriage, Annabel's children step in. They have other plans for her and, anyway, "He's so common, mummy..."

A family of five orphaned children are going to be split up into different homes. What will happen if the eldest is officially made their foster parent?

Christine takes up an unusual line of work and proves she is not just another bored housewife.

Three Irwin Shaw short stories are dramatized. In "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses" a young married couple stop for a drink on a Sunday morning in Manhattan, and the conversation turns to the husband's fidelity. "The Monument" centers on the conflict between a popular bartender with a following in an upscale Irish bar in 1938 Manhattan and its owner, who is determined to introduce a more economical whiskey in the establishment over the barkeep's objections. In "The Man Who Married a French Wife" the influential American husband of a French woman is asked by her former lover, a former resistance fighter, to help him escape the country.

Viola and Sebastian are lookalike twins, separated by a shipwreck. Viola lands in Illyria, where she disguises herself like her brother and goes into the service of the Duke Orsino. Orsino sends her to help him woo the Lady Olivia, who doesn't want the Duke, but finds that she likes the new messenger the Duke's sending. Then, of course, Viola's brother shows up, and merry hell breaks loose. Meanwhile, Olivia's uncle and his cohorts are trying to find some way to get back at Olivia's officious majordomo, Malvolio.