Idly watching the first episode of a TV crime drama series recently, I found myself in a slightly troubled frame of mind. We were already 35 minutes in and no probable villain had shown their face. We had seen black people, Chinese people, lesbians, the disabled, the impoverished and powerless, Muslims, the young and idealistic… yikes, I thought to myself, it simply can’t be any of them, can it? Surely not. And then, as if the scriptwriter had heard my private worries, for lo, a very rich, marble-mouthed white woman emerged and was shown being beastly to some young and idealistic people and I thought: bingo! We have our villain. There is no need to watch the remaining five episodes. She did it, the rich cow. The only slight surprise is that it was a woman rather than a bloke.

You may have had a similar experience lately, if you watch television. I watch quite a lot these days because for a while I’m doing the TV review for the Sunday Times. It is sometimes like being sandblasted by freeze-dried pellets of rhino excrement. Anyway, you will have found that if you are watching a drama, especially a crime drama, almost all of the following will occur.

You will be introduced to a world which bears no resemblance whatsoever to the real world

First, the principal character, the good person, the star, will not be a white male. It will........

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