The Adventures of Perambulator Helicobacter, Gentleman Detective

“Furthermore, should you attempt to describe these lupins, or to inform anyone else, not trained as a semi-professional tadpole disconcerter about them, or the part they played in the rescue of the pomegranate from the bucket, then your life will be forfeit.” Everyone who watched it will be unable to forget this, the final words of one of the most impressive feats of TV drama to come out of these islands since the Party Political Broadcasts on behalf of the Quite Interested in Cheese party during the 1970s.

The hero of All Our Stoats are Ticklish, Perambulator Helicobacter – played with rare understatement, finesse - and with a telltale smoked mackerel fillet in the breast pocket of his formal donkey jacket - by Shakespearian legend Prole Flabbergast. He utters these final and deeply resonant words as the villain Plankton Formica - excellently played by Hypotenuse Tolpuddle - is about to fall to his death into a pit of slavering local government five-a-day fruit and vegetable co-ordinators. This climactic scene, after a fight that has taken place across the rooftops and scenic guttering of one of the greatest country houses in Grimsby, received wide acclaim by TV critics, several of whom stayed awake long enough to see most of it.

Of course, it must be said that The Adventurers Perambulator Helicobacter, Gentleman, detective and Intimate Confidant of Dorothy was one of the most famous of Victorian detectives. Up until now, there have been seven TV versions and twenty-three feature films featuring Helicobacter. Yet, this version, which brings Helicobacter into the 21^st Century, updated to a contemporary private detective, has completely re-invented and re-imagined the great detective in a way that ensures all royalties from the series remain with its contemporary creators.

While helicobacter’s original 19^th adventures took place in the great continental cities of Paris, Hamburg, Vienna, Venice and Cleethorpes, the new series replaced them with the more glamorous post-industrial northern British towns of Doncaster, Hull, Grimsby and Bradford to bring a gritty urban authenticity to the production costs.

It will be interesting to see how the character of Helicobacter develops in the next series where - the writers have promised – he faces his most famous adversary in The hamsters of Boxhouse Hall, with its most famous of helicobacter quotes, saying : ‘The curious incident of the hamster wheel squeaking in the night-time.’ Whichdaughter replies: ‘The hamster wheel did not squeak in the night-time.’ To which Helicobacter responds: ‘That was the curious incident. Come, let us tandem ourselves to Ilfracombe without delay!’