Black Work versus Lethal White

ITV has just re-run a three-part crime series from 2015, Black Work, starring Sheridan Smith. It's been interesting to compare this show, written by Matt Charman, with the current series of Strike, the private detective show based on novels by J. K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith, and adapted for TV by Tom Edge.

First to Black Work. It starts with a familiar scenario - a husband dies and his wife discovers that he was leading a secret life. The wife in question is PC Jo Gillespie, played compellingly (as usual) by Sheridan Smith. Her husband was an undercover cop and it soon becomes clear that he took his undercover activities to exceptional lengths. But he was murdered and there's a mystery about his death. Is someone in the police hierarchy covering something up?

Jo's colleagues and superiors are played by a glittering array of actors - Geraldine James, Douglas Henshall, Phil Davis, Ace Bhatti, and Matthew McNulty. Perhaps none of them are above suspicion? I thought that Charman did a very good job of juggling his cast of characters and moving the story on with pace. Very watchable. At the end of the final episode, Jo is promoted, and one assumes that further series were contemplated. Why they have failed to materialise, I don't know, but Black Work made for good viewing.

I enjoyed the second and third series of Strike rather more than the first. They too were both written by Tom Edge, and I had high hopes for Lethal White. After three of the four episodes, however, I'm very disappointed. The story has from the start been bogged down by an excessive focus on the relationship between Cormoran Strike (played admirably, as always, by Tom Burke) and his sidekick, played by Holliday Grainger. A double-stranded murder plot has also become tedious. I no longer really care whodunit. I haven't read the book, but the adaptation feels flabby in comparison to the taut writing of Black Work. It's the old, old story - given the talent of those involved, this series would surely have been much better had the material not been stretched out beyond its natural length.

Beast - 2017 film review

Beast is a drama about crime rather than a conventional crime film. It's set on the lovely island of Jersey, but this isn't a tourist trap portrayal of the place, but rather one which brings out its lonely, bleaker qualities. Written and directed by Michael Pearce (no relation, as far as I know, to the author of the Mamur Zapt crime series), it's interesting and unsettling because it veers away from what appeared to be the predictable development of the plot.

Jessie Buckley, who was very good in the TV version of The Woman in White, plays Moll Huntford. She's 27, and lives with her family; her mother (Geraldine James, excellent as always) is highly controlling and at times unkind to her. There appears to be some mystery about Moll's past which may explain why she's less favoured than her sister. Moll works as a guide on coach tours, though this job plays no real part in the storyline.

After running away from her own birthday party, Moll meets Pascal (Johnny Flynn), a good-looking poacher who soon manages to unlock her wild side. But when a series of murders disrupt the island community, Pascal becomes a suspect. The main weakness in the film is that there is never any clear or convincing indication as to why Pascal is a suspect - just because he doesn't fit in to the community? Moll gives him a fake alibi in relation to one crime that could easily be checked, but doesn't seem to be. I felt this part of the story was clumsily handled.

Never mind. The story develops in an increasingly dark way as the police close in on the killer. Matters are complicated by the fact that one of the cops fancies Moll and wants her for himself. Despite some unevenness in the script, I found this a gripping film, splendidly atmospheric. Well worth watching.

Ruth Rendell's Thriteen Steps Down - ITV review

Thirteen Steps Down, by Ruth Rendell, is one of her more striking books of the last ten years, and so I looked forward to tonight’s first part (of two) of an ITV adaptation with much relish. At one time, Rendell mysteries were impossible to avoid, even in the unlikely event that you wanted to avoid them. They were a staple of the television schedules (apparently ITV produced more than 80 Rendell stories, many based on her short stories, and there were BBC adaptations as well). Many of the old episodes keep cropping up on the repeat channels, but this is the first new Rendell on ITV for twelve years. The press pack spoke of Rendell being “rediscovered for television” – blimey, how soon they forget!

Mix Cellini (played by Luke Treadaway) is a mechanic who lives in a London flat and is fascinated by the John Reginald Christie murder case – and also by a glamorous model. Geraldine James, superb in a challenging role as a crotchety octogenariian with an equally strange obsession about a past romance, plays his landlady, Gwendolen, while Elarica Gallagher is the model. 

Mix is a good example of a typical Rendell protagonist – a superficially attractive, but deeply troubled youngish man whose obsessions and warped moral values lead to calamitous consequences. Treadaway veered more towards unpleasant than appealing in his portrayal of Mix, and I felt this was a mistake; it's the apparent charm of Rendell's sociopaths that makes them so memorable.

When I started planning The Arsenic Labyrinth, I decided to experiment by introducing a key character, Guy, who was in the mould of a Rendellesque sociopath, and I enjoyed enormously writing those scenes in which Guy appeared. That was my small tribute to a genius of the genre, even though the book itself was rather different from anything Rendell has produced (not least because it is very rare for her to venture north of the London that she knows, and conveys, so well!)

I’ve often said in interviews that Rendell is the living crime writer whom I most admire; her work has given me enormous pleasure ever since I first read the brilliant The Lake of Darkness. That is still the case, although I do worry that there has been (by her exceptional standards) a bit of a falling-off in her work over the past fifteen years. Themes, and plot elements, have tended to recur, but not with quite the flair of the past, and since she was elevated to the House of Lords, she has made some attempts at political and social comment  in her novels, which have seldom worked well. Perhaps some decline is inevitable, especially with a writer who has been so prolific. But this creepy, if at times unsubtle, TV adaptation is a reminder of what a gripping story-teller she is. It's not as good as the book, but I shall certainly be tuning into part two.

Caught in a Trap

The ITV 1 drama Caught in a Trap was a crime story, although not a mystery, and I enjoyed it a lot. It starred Connie Fisher, previously known to me only as a singer who won a talent contest on the BBC, playing the part of Gemma Perkins, a council worker who falsifies the takings from local parking meters to fund her craving for memorabilia connected with Elvis Presley.

The impressive script, by James Graham (a young writer who is definitely a name to watch, if this is anything to go by) was inspired by a true crime. A distinction is drawn between a script ‘inspired by’ real events and those ‘based on’ those events. It seems that Graham was much taken with the essence of a story, rather than the details, and his approach seems very sensible to me.

The real life case was that of Julie Wall, a North Kesteven council employee in her 40s, reportedly a ‘mild and modest’ individual who stole over half a million pounds, mainly on Elvis-related stuff before getting her inevitable come-uppance. The fictional Gemma was an attractive 28 year old. Connie Fisher played her very well, in an under-stated yet compelling way, and was admirably supported by a strong cast, including two actors of exceptional gifts, Jim Carter and Geraldine James.

Needless to say, the drama featured a lot of Elvis songs – including two which provided titles for books in my Harry Devlin series. One was The Devil in Disguise, and the other my favourite Elvis song, Suspicious Minds – from which the highly appropriate ‘caught in a trap’ title comes.