ITV's latest legal offering - 'The Brief' - is an improvement on the BBC's lamentable recent foray into the world of City law firms in the shape of 'Trust', which unsurprisingly never seemed to make it past its original six-part run.

However, improving on 'Trust' is not that hard, and 'The Brief' is less ambitious, playing as it does on a well-trodden genre.

Alan Davies - best known for his whimsical detective in Jonathan Creek - takes the lead role as Henry Farmer, a criminal barrister involved in a series of complex trials.

Mr Davies is a bit like the acting equivalent of Brussels sprouts - pretty horrible, but popular enough among the older consumer to keep him on the table.

In fact, he turns out a reasonable performance in this, all things considered.

The episode sent for review included a presentable plot line: a backpacking student from London's Cypriot community is found dead outside a hotel in Indonesia, after attending a rowdy party of airline cabin-crew.

Her father goes to Indonesia to collect the body and the episode revolves around a coroner's inquest back in London, in which Mr Farmer's job is to persuade that the daughter was raped and killed, to enable a prosecution to proceed.

The interactions between barrister and his campaigning solicitor

Amena Laing - played effectively by N'Deaye Ba - is reasonably convincing.

There are some nice observations about the influence of the tabloid press on the case.

Like all such programmes, it is clear that the writers and producers are seeking to create a character who will stick in the public imagination.

Hence Henry Farmer is given the usual 'maverick' hinterland: he is trying to write a book about London criminals; he is separated from his wife and son, who live in Australia; he is a regular at a local pub frequented by old gangland ghosts; he is having a relationship with a journalist who's husband is dying and gay; and he is a gambler.

This does not come across quite as clumsily as it might sound, but perhaps it would have been wiser to stick to smaller list of 'hinterland pursuits', as these do seem contrived.

The barristers' chambers to which he belongs is straight off the television peg: a dodgy barrow-boy with all the right Cockney phrases is the clerk, and Cherie Lunghi plays the female head of chambers.

Ms Lunghi's character is probably the least convincing.

You can take the actress out of the Kenco adverts, but you can't take cheesy sell out of Ms Lunghi.

Jeremy Fleming