The Nightmare Man - DVD review

A murder mystery on a remote and scenic Scottish island. A determined cop with a likeable sidekick, trying to figure out what is happening. Got to be Shetland, right? Well, no. Long before Jimmy Perez, there was The Nightmare Man, a BBC TV four-part serial which aired in 1981, enjoyed considerable success - and yet has never been shown again, for reasons unclear. I didn't have a TV at the time, but I'd heard about the show, and now I've watched the DVD version, and read the remarkably detailed booklet which accompanies it. And I'm glad I did.

The Nightmare Man was based on a novel by a dentist called David Wiltshire. He thought about calling his book The Nightmare Man, but opted - unwisely, I think - for Child of Vodyanoi. The book first appeared in 1978 and made little impression; if you could find a nice copy in a dust jacket today, I'm sure it would cost you a pretty penny - there aren't any for sale on the internet as I write. Wiltshire has continued to write, his most recent novel appearing as recently as 2013, but this is the story he's best known for.

And with good reason. The BBC did him proud, even though I agree with his view that the setting of the final encounter might have been better if they'd kept to his original concept. In a touch I find pleasing, Wiltshire made his protagonist a dentist, and this idea was retained by Robert Holmes in the screenplay, although the character's name was changed. He's played by James Warwick, best known as Tommy Beresford in Partners in Crime. His girlfriend is played by the young Celia Imrie, whose quality as an actor is certainly evident here, especially in the first of the four episodes.

Something strange is happening on the foggy island of Inverdee. A woman is found horribly murdered, and soon there is another victim, a male birdwatcher. There are a few brief, enigmatic moments of action seen from the killer's perspective - almost through a red mist. A mysterious colonel turns up on the island, a sheep is butchered, and it's soon apparent that this is no ordinary murder case. Really, this is a story that straddles genres, but I found it entertaining. The cops are well played by Maurice Roeves and James Cosmo' the latter turned up recently as a hard man in Shetland. It's a small world...

The TV Book Club

One of the interesting features of having a blog about books is that sometimes there are unexpected benefits. For instance, you might be sent a book to review that is excellent but which you wouldn't otherwise have encountered. Sometimes, the approach relates to a book that has no appeal at all, of course, usually because the publicist in question hasn't done his or her homework and has simply sent out a scattergun email. But the pros far outweigh the cons.

From time to time I receive invitations to literary events in London which I can't attend because of my commitments back home. But out of the blue, I was invited to a TV recording recently, and by chance it coincided with my working in the capital. So I was able to squeeze it in. But I didn't really know what to expect.

The recording took place at Cactus TV studios in London, and featured two half-hour programmes of the TV Book Club, sponsored by Specsavers - a show which, I confess, I'd never encountered before. There wasn't a conventional studio audience, but the organisers had invited members of a reading group and also a small gang of bloggers. I was one, and I was glad to meet a number of fellow online scribes for the first time - very pleasant company they proved to be.

The show involves a book discussion between Jo Brand, Rory McGrath and assorted luminaries. These were the last two shows in a series of eight, covering eight books. The books discussed on the day were not crime fiction, and one, a misery memoir, sounded worthy but not really my cup of tea. But the other sounded very good, and I'll say more about it when I've finally read it - as the show encouraged me to do!

The show features a guest celebrity every week. On my visit, the celebs were Andrea Corr and Celia Imrie, two ladies of different generations but both glamorous and charismatic. I enjoyed this little jaunt a good deal, and it made me think quite hard not only about books but also about blogging and other forms of marketing.

The Dangerous Game

One of the very best British detective shows on tv (at least, in my opinion) was Shoestring, which ran for about a year, and 21 episodes, starting in 1979. The show introduced me to Trevor Eve, one of the most watchable actors, making a name for himself as Eddie Shoestring, who takes up a career as a gumshoe working for a Bristol-based commercial radio station after suffering a nervous breakdown.

I’ve just watched The Dangerous Game, which proved to be the very last Shoestring case. It’s set at Christmas, and it’s worn surprisingly well, with the characteristic blend of a neat story idea and Eve’s idiosyncratic and memorably intense work as the oddball hero. In this one, he discovers that a number of dangerous electrical games have been sold as Christmas presents. In the run-up to Christmas Day, he has to track all the games down in a race against the clock before a child is seriously injured or killed.

As with many episodes, the cast was impressive – it included those splendid performers Celia Imrie and Burt Kwouk. Doran Goodwin made her usual all too brief appearance as Eddie’s not-quite love interest; she is an appealing actor and it’s a pity she’s been, at least as far as I know, long absent from major roles on the screen.

I’m not sure if viewers outside the UK ever saw Shoestring, but it acquired a devoted following here. Eve gave up the part because he didn’t want to be typecast, and the writers used a similar premise in a more glamorous setting to create Jersey’s finest cop, Bergerac. John Nettles did a great job as Jim Bergerac, but I still prefer Shoestring.