AFTER reading what Rob Lowe said about British men whilst trying to plug his new ITV drama series, I really wanted to hate it.

How dare the impossibly handsome former 80s star accuse our chaps of letting themselves go in middle age ?

And the absolute temerity, bordering on heresy perhaps, to suggest our future king, William not Charles, should not have been allowed to lose his hair ?

Well, how very dare he ?

He did dare and everyone talked about him.

There were radio phone-ins discussing if he was right or not and we all assumed Rob was either joking or just didn’t want us to watch his new show

But I did.

Mainly because I am old enough to remember him first time around when he was the star of a slew of teen movies, not least the iconic but now quite dated, St Elmo’s fire.

He might still have hair on his head, and have maintained his film star good looks but you get the idea it has taken a fair amount of work.

There was more than a bit of the sucking in of stomach in the scenes where he appeared shirtless, in two episodes in a row funnily enough.

Maybe these scenes have been written into his contract.

I digress, though, so I will return to my previous point - Wild Bill, starring Rob Lowe, is actually surprisingly good.

Much of it is completely implausible but it kind of made reference to this in the first episode and then carried on doing it anyway.

Bill is a top US cop who has been brought in to Boston, Lincolnshire, to carry out unpopular cost-cutting and sort out its high murder rate.

Which is not that comparably high it’s just not many people live there.

Anyway, he polices like he would in a US cop show - without any consideration for any kind of procedure.

This means he declared a man who had already been arrested and charged a murderer and revealed him to a viewing public - which would never happen because there are actually rules again that kind of thing which us journalists have to stick by.

Or they themselves could go to prison.

No-one seems to pay much heed to this.

Boston, Lincolnshire, is much like the Wild West in this representation.

I wonder what the people who actually live there think about this show ? I can’t imagine they are thrilled.

But the drama itself is actually very clever and Rob oozes charisma whilst delivering some top quality dialogue which pokes fun at the Brits and Americans in equal measure.

No doubt he was sent the script and just couldn’t resist.

I really hope this gets a second series - not only is a bonafide film star in it but a host of top British actors too including Rachael Stirling as his love interest and Angela Griffin as a journalist unlike any kind of reporter I have ever encountered.

She clearly just wanted to be in something with Rob Lowe - who can blame her ?

And it is Rob who carries this piece really with each stand alone case, which he solves with the help of an up and coming female sidekick, so far having been a cracking story in itself bolstered by a thread involving Russian gangsters which is slowly weaving its way through the background.

It is a top-notch but implausible idea, excellently delivered, so I hope Rob can just shut it long enough for them to get a second series commissioned.