The Times, October 3, 1987, by Martin Cropper
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The hero of *Pulaski* (BBC1) is Larry Summers, a Polish-
American actor, apparently a graduate of the Jack Nicholson 
School of Mogadon Speech--fretting at the artifice of his 
celebrity as the star of a British guns-and-Cortinas 
television series. Last night's opener promised vinegar but 
delivered syrup. Larry's real drink problem was that English 
barmen are lousy at sliding beer glasses along the bar; a 
nubile pick-up who almost offered her honour in the back of 
a 2CV ultimately declined to conjugate for fear of 
"cheapening" his public persona. Such are the pitfalls of 
fame.

The rot set in when Roy Clarke's script decided that these 
two strands of character required a third--Larry/Pulaski as 
a real-life amateur 'tec hunting for the missing son of a 
suicidal middle-aged fan. This cued up a standard rigmarole 
involving crossbow-toting "survivalists" bent on proving 
their fitness to survive by numerically reducing the local 
population.

Judging by the excerpts from the alleged series in which 
Larry stars, we should be grateful that it is not being 
screened in its entirety. "Our tedious crap," moaned 
*Pulaski*'s English director to his American producer, "is 
cheaper than your tedious crap." But *Pulaski* is only half 
an idea, and has to fall back on the very material that 
other hands might have chosen to satirize. Instead of 
opening up the *Dempsey and Makepeace* formula, it merely 
adorns it.



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