by John Glover

From The Guardian Arts Diary (05/12/98)

So the BBC thinks the British sitcom is dead on it’s feet ? Not in East Anglia it isn’t, where Ewan McGregor, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Keanu Reeves are all starring in a new series that puts even Stella Street to shame.

The soap in question is an on-line murder mystery called Cauliflower Drove, which forms part of Ely On-Line, Cambridgeshire’s most exciting website. The thrilling serial - sample plot: ‘Yaxley Farcett was finding it hard to accustom himself to the undulating Fenland roads’ - has now reached episode 24, and has aquired a cult following world wide. Not surprising, as it features an edge-of-the-seat drama wherein Yaxley Farcett (McGregor) hunts the pitchfork wielding killer of local farm labourer Reg Dixon. Whether ‘Colly’ - as fans call it - ever reaches episode 25 may depend on the responses of Hopkins And McGregor, not to mention co-stars Elizabeth Taylor (who plays McGregors landlady), Glenn Close and, um, Anna ‘Lou Beale’ Wing from Eastenders. All have had their pictures grabbed from cyberspace and used too illustrate Ely’s ever more gripping drama. McGregor’s spokesmantells us: ‘Ewan has not been asked if he wants to appear like this and we are going to be investigating’, while Wing’s agent rages: ‘Nobody has come to us at all about this and we are very cross.’

Why anyone would regret appearing in a series of such high theatricality - ‘they passed the outskirts of Ealham on their way to Fried Food Heaven’ - is a mystery to the Diary. Certainly, Keanu Reeves gives his most credible performance in years.

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