(Edited highlights of the panel's review)

Watch the whole programme - 12 April 2002

JEANETTE WINTERSON:
I couldn't believe that was actually seeing a drama where women were at the centre and they held it throughout. It's beautifully directed. You get these wonderful long shots where you can see what's going on inside her head.

It's not rushed, the dialogue is given proper space. I'm a big fan of Debbie Horsfield anyway. When I got to the end of it, wow, I'm going to watch television for the next five weeks.

EKOW ESHUN:
If you look at Cold Feet, Linda Green, Hearts and Bones. Female-centred, 60-minute dramas are actually what TV does best at the moment.

The proof of how good it is is that the hair salon has an enormous number of characters. Within the first few minutes of the film you know who everyone is, and they're all playing off each other.

Crucially, none of that is dependent on clich�, they're all given some element of backstory, so they becomes real characters rather than two dimensional figures.

MARK KERMODE:
No cliche in this incredible caricature... A whole bunch of northerners, "We always watch Millionaire because it's the only education we get".

We have a family in which there is a girl and her sister who are not of the same colour, and yet they haven't figured out they haven't got the same parents. That'll be revealed in episode two.

I thought it was total fluff, an EastEnders 7.00 plot dressed up with 9.00 ER sharp-cutting. It was the most ridiculous view of Manchester that I've seen, or wherever it's meant to be, in a long time. The best thing about it is Amanda Holden doing a ridiculous pantomime villain. It was absolute nonsense, tosh!

JEANETTE WINTERSON:
It's really not like that. He's hamming it up for effect. I come from Manchester, and it really is like that. The girls go out in one taxi, the boys go out in another. It's a big night out up north.

MARK KERMODE:
I just don't believe those people actually exist. I don't believe they exist in hairdressing salons, and I think the film The Big Tease had more to say about the inside world of hairdressing than that did.

EKOW ESHUN:
But the proof of its success is the fact that it doesn't revolve exclusively around hairdressing. It's about human dynamics, it's about love and gender and class, and lots of different things.

This is completely a genre production, but it works within that, because the script is sharp and funny. For me, that's actually something to be grateful for.

There aren't that many things on TV where you can turn on, become engrossed quite fast, find yourself entertained by those characters, drawn in, wondering what happens next.