Radio Times: Review by:; David Butcher

There's always a danger that a New Tricks episode will subside into a series of slightly grey, interchangeable scenes where our heroes turn up at someone's door to ask questions about something that happened 15 years ago, talk for a bit, then leave, none the wiser.

To break the pattern, the writers add comic subplots: this week it's the turn of Gerry (Dennis Waterman), who has taken to French cookery classes. Gerry isn't an obvious candidate for knocking up a beurre blanc, but fans will recall how he often cooked up a storm in early series. And there's an added incentive: the saucy French woman who runs the class. Gerry does his bumbling best to speak her language, leading to an unhilarious misunderstanding and an unlikely breakthrough in the case.

About this programme

3/10. Fresh DNA tests on an unidentified body found in 1996 reveal a family link to a Home Office fingerprint analyst, who has not seen her brother since she was seven, when he brought her over to the UK from their home country of Albania. The victim had been working as a police interpreter - and the motive seems clear when it turns out his last assignment was translating for a witness in a murder trial against a notorious Albanian criminal. Meanwhile, Gerry embarks on a French cookery course, but the language barrier results in a rather surprising date.