Angel Trousers

Lovejoy is entrusted with the medals of the brother of Jane's former housekeeper, Vera. The medals are stolen from his safe, and the theft pulls him into a genuinely strange plot involving Mussolini's nose and the burial at sea of Captain Bucknall, Vera's brother. He is given the job of selling the late captain's medals, and there is a smart fashion photographer who wants them, but then some drunken sailors come into the picture, and he has to deal with the gun-toting Angelo Pantaloni.

The episode lives on the edge of farce without quite falling in. A burial at sea, a fascist dictator's nose, medals changing hands, and a photographer with expensive tastes: the ingredients should not work together, but they do, mostly because Lovejoy treats every new absurdity as the most serious thing in the world. The story went out on 2 February 1992, and it catches the third series at its most playful, before the season's later trips to Scotland and Prague.

Ian La Frenais, Jonathan Gash and Terry Hodgkinson wrote it, Baz Taylor directed. Ian McShane is Lovejoy, Phyllis Logan is Lady Jane Felsham, Dudley Sutton is Tinker Dill, and Chris Jury is Eric Catchpole. Russell Hunter plays Harry Mackie, Nickolas Grace is Jeremy Prince, Joseph Long is Angelo Pantaloni, Doreen Mantle is Vera, Amanda Elwes is Fiona, and Derek Benfield is Don. Russell Hunter, familiar to an older generation as Lonely in Callan, brings his shifty dignity to Harry Mackie.

It is a commendable piece of television that blends the delicate world of medal dealing with the boisterous energy of drunken sailors and international conspiracy. The title gives fair warning that this one will not be taking itself too seriously, and it is all the better for it. The recipe of eccentric locals and one overvalued object was the show's bread and butter, and this outing uses it well.