Mad Dogs: Maximise your Simm and Glenister. Serious.

Sky 1 began its new drama Mad Dogs last night, with a stellar cast: Philip Glenister, John Simm, Mark Warren and Max Beasley. The trailers promised sexy, sun-soaked intrigue and I was especially looking forward to Glenister and Simm teaming up for the first time since Life on Mars. Did it live up to the hype? Well...

The story goes that the group are being flown out to Majorca by their minted friend, Alvo, for a reunion-type holiday. Fair enough. This Alvo is clearly pretty dodge though, taking mysterious phone calls, saying he's not in 'the business' anymore, he's 'out' etc. The script feels a bit clunky and contrived at times, explaining character back-stories through unnatural conversations, like the fact that Rick (Warren) is married to Quin's (Glenister) ex, or that Woody (Beasley) is a recovering alcoholic, or that Baxter (Simm with an evil little goatie) is divorced. Of course it's important to know these tit-bits of info but there are subtler ways to do it, rather than asking out right, 'how's the divorce?' Too easy.

Bad joo-joo is afoot when a dead goat is found in Alvo's pool but the guys don't ask many questions (???), instead they swan off to go 'clubbing'. Now, I'm not sure the director has been to a club for a while, it was the weirdest night out I've ever seen. Anyone else been to a reasonably quiet, up-market night club where the air is filled with whooping and hollering? Yeah, me neither. The lads also head out on Alvo's 'friend's' boat and more fake guffawing and horsing around ensues. There are some tedious lines in there as well, ('Are we all middle aged now? When did that happen?' CRINGE).

It turns out Alvo's a bit of a cunt and, as suspected, well dodge as after he lays into all his pals, a creepy wee man in a Tony Blair mask (will seriously give me the heebs for a long time to come) creeps on in and shoots Alvo in the head. And there the episode ends. Next week, the guys panic and go to bury Alvo and I believe there's money involved in a Shallow Grave type-way. Although, after all the fuss they made about a stolen boat ('We've got kids and jobs!'), I'm not sure how all this extremely criminal activity will come about. I may have to suspend my disbelief.

It is obviously early days and although the story was set up in a bit of a clumsy way, I still have hope that it might turn into something interesting, exciting even. I'm putting a lot of faith in the cast for this, especially Simm and Glenister, they will undoubtedly act their socks off, i just hope the material is strong enough. The scene has also been set for much conflict between the four, which may lead eventually to some kind of betrayal. So it seems perseverance is the key, don't let me down Mad Dogs, you've got Glenister and Simm - USE THEM WISELY!