 When Pirie (with director Bolt) returned with the three-part Never Come Back (BBC, 1990), an adaptation of an obscure wartime thriller by author John Mair, his love of the film noir atmosphere of 1940s cinema was brought across to remarkable effect.The sharpened air of menace was always left unexplained, suggested but never explicit.However, Ashenden (BBC, 1991), a four-part adaptation of Somerset Maugham's spy stories, was an oddly static affair.