Shameless goes to shul

Shameless, Channel 4's ribald drama about life on a Manchester estate, is about the last place on TV you'd expect to find a Jewish sub-plot.

But the kippahs popped up on Tuesday in an episode which had the inebriate anti-hero Frank waking up drunk in a local synagogue and ending up being conscripted as a Shabbes goy.

The scene was filmed not in shul, but in a set modelled on Wilbraham Road, the former site of South Manchester Synagogue.

The storyline also took in a stolen menorah, a reformed gambler and - appropriately for the time of year - a question of atonement (though not as you'd hear it put from any pulpit in a fortnight).