Series

On paper, it should have been a cinch ­ reassemble the team that turned Thomas Harris's thriller The Silence Of The Lambs into an Oscar-winning phenomenon and crank out another edition of everyone's favourite cannibal franchise.

In practice, the story of Hannibal's evolution from best-selling novel to blockbuster film unwinds with all the ease of a Gordian knot, the only certainties being that it was a best-selling novel and it will be a box office smash.

What does a Swedish film director look like? More to the point, what does a Swedish film director whose early work includes Abba: The Movie and a segment for The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour that was dropped from the final edit look like? Bitter, probably.

Waiting to meet Lasse Hallström, then, I'm half expecting a grim Benny Anderson-Bjorn Borg hybrid: wispy beard, blonde hair, good English, bad headband, white flared Elvis-in-Stockholm jumpsuit.