Pomona Rewind

Few football managers have had the impact on a nation the way Jack Charlton did. The Republic of Ireland was hungry for sporting success and while it was always going to be a stretch for the team to lift trophies, the fact that they could compete against the best internationally was a source of inspiration and national pride. Charlton's 10 year reign as Republic of Ireland manager was, of course, more than about sport. It was hugely symbolic for a country that for decades had shipped a lot of its brightest and best people overseas, as Gabriel Clarke and Pete Thomas' superb documentary feature 'Finding Jack Charlton' demonstrates. Born and raised in the coal mining town of Ashington, Northumberland, football was in Jack Charlton's blood. Jack and his younger brother Bobby's uncles Jack, George, Jim and Stan Millburn all lined out for clubs - counting Leeds United, Bradford City, Chesterfield, Leicester City and Rochdale among them. His mum's cousin, also call

There is a moment in the third series of 'Unforgotten' where you fear Chris Lang's cold case series might finally go off the rails. The police procedural, whose no frills approach has reaped dividends for ITV in the previous two series, loses a significant character in what appears to be a classic ratings grab. However in true 'Unforgotten' tradition, Lang's series doesn't lose the plot. Somehow it manages to keep its focus on its greatest strength - depicting diligent police work. The series begins with the discovery of the remains of a female by construction workers on a motorway. Nicola Walker's DCI Cassie Stuart and Sanjeev Bhaskar's DI Sunny Khan are quick on the scene and, before you know it, forensics have established they have the remains of a young woman who appears to have had a titanium surgical plate on her arm. Khan's enquiries establish the plate could date as far back as 1991 and it appears to have been foreign made in Greek Cyprus

  There's a moment in the second series of 'Unforgotten' where TV's nicest detective duo actually fall out. Nicola Walker's DCI Cassie Stuart and Sanjeev Bhaskar's DI Sunny Khan are tested by the grim details of their latest cold case and tempers begin to fray over different attitudes to one aspect of the investigation. But this being 'Unforgotten,' their conflict doesn't last for very long, they soon patch it all up and they just get on with the work of establishing what really happened. Having notched up an impressive first series, Chris Lang's police procedural for ITV faces its difficult second series by doing what it does best. 'Broadchurch' started to falter during its second run, with some viewers struggling with its focus on a trial relating to the events from the first. The second season of Denmark's 'The Killing' also failed to match the potency of the original. Series two of 'Unforgotten' has the same narrat

There's something oddly comforting about the first series of ITV's 'Unforgotten'. A police procedural in the classic mould, the Chris Lang penned and Andy Wilson directed series goes about its business with not too much fuss. There are no shootouts, no high octane car chases or pounding music. It's not addicted to delivering twist after twist like Jed Mercurio's ' Line of Duty ' or ' Bodyguard '. Series one of 'Unforgotten' is just a solidly made, painstakingly crafted police thriller about the hard graft of cold case investigations. Even the no nonsense way it begins sets the tone. We are catapulted straight into the discovery of a skeleton in the cellar of a building undergoing demolition in London. At first Nicola Walker's DCI Cassie Stuart and Sanjeev Bhaskar's DI Sunny Khan are not sure how long it has been there and are not ruling out the possibility the body is a thousand year old. However the discovery of a car key confirm

Every country has its stereotypes. It just really grates when you see them regularly onscreen. Ireland has had more than its fair share of stereotypes trotted out over the years in sitcoms, plays, movies, cartoons, jokes and songs  There's the drunken, hedonistic Irish person, the fighting Irishman, the lazy labourer, the Celtic mystic, the village idiot, the religious zealot, the fiery tenpered red haired colleen, the law breaking rogue, the vicious Irish gangster, the silver tongued devil. Stereotypes always have a kernel of truth, having originated in real life, in fiction or song. It is just when they are trotted out regularly and used to denigrate a whole nationality that they become clichéd and, yes, toe curlingly racist. What is particularly galling, however, is when you see people from that country playing up to those stereotypes in fiction or in real life. That's why the drink fuelled hedonism of some St Patrick's Day celebrations in Ireland and around the workd ca