Airdate: No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

ABC1 will screen the joyous BBC / HBO seven-part series The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency later this month.

Based on the books by Alexander McCall Smith and filmed entirely in Botswana, it stars Jill Scott as Precious Ramotswe who insists “There is no problem so great it cannot be solved by a cup of bush tea.”

The 2008 series comes with an impeccable pedigree: Its producers include the Weinstein Brothers (Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare in Love, Good Will Hunting), the late Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, The Talented Mr Ripley), the late Sydney Pollack (Tootsie, Presumed Innocent, The Electric Horseman) and Richard Curtis (The Vicar of Dibley, Blackadder, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones’ Diary).

The series played on Pay TV two years ago. You can read a TV Tonight review here.

It will air at 8:30pm Sunday,25 September on ABC1 and is followed by an episode of Compass with Geraldine Doogue interviewing author Alexander McCall Smith.

From the novels by Alexander McCall Smith, Precious Ramotswe (Jill Scott) is the eminently sensible and wise proprietor of the only female owned detective agency in Botswana. She started the agency with the proceeds of the sale of 180 cows, left to her by her father, using the talents he helped her hone, like sharp eyes and ears, good memory and patience.

Helped by her efficient, but highly strung and rather peculiar secretary Mma Makutsi (Anika Noni Rose), Precious investigates cases, helps people solve problems in their lives and begins a special friendship with JLB Matekoni (Lucian Msamati), the highly respectable owner of a local garage.

After a slow start, the agency gets its first client, the well off Happy (Bongeka Mpongwana) who is suspicious that an old man who showed up at her door claiming to be her father, is a fake.

Compass
Geraldine Doogue meets Alexander McCall Smith, one of the world’s best selling authors made famous by a cheerful ‘traditionally built’ Botswanan female detective, the principal of his No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series.

Zimbabwe born McCall Smith was professor of Medical Law at Edinburgh University before Precious Ramotswe stepped into his life, and found an adoring worldwide readership. He writes deceptively gentle and funny stories about people and their foibles, set around everyday moral dilemmas and changing values. Including his academic publications, he’s written more than 60 books, translated into 42 languages and sold in the millions.

10:20pm Sunday 25 September 2011