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.

Strike: The Cuckoo's Calling - BBC TV review

Strike: The Cuckoo's Calling, screened last night, opened a new seven-part private eye series based on the books of Robert Galbraith. As all the world now knows, Galbraith is a pen-name, and it conceals the identity of J. K. Rowling. But the secret was kept, not only until publication day, but for weeks thereafter, until an incautious leak revealed the truth.

Rowling has long been a detective fiction fan, and she's been quoted expressing admiration for predecessors such as Dorothy L. Sayers and Margery Allingham. And there are plenty of parallels between her hero, Cormoran Strike, and Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey - and not just the fact they both have odd names. Both are sons of the rich, both attended Oxford, both have fought in war, and suffered because of it. Wimsey was shell-shocked; Strike lost his leg in Afghanistan.

The cleverness of this BBC version of Rowling's first novel, lies in the casting of Tom Burke as Strike. He captures the character superbly, on the evidence of this first episode, just the right mix of scruffiness and that dogged determination displayed by all the best detectives. There was a classic scene in this episode, when a suave lawyer (the always dependable Martin Shaw) tries to warn Strike off. We've seen this kind of thing a thousand times before, but these two actors handled the situation in compelling fashion.

When I read the book, I thought that it was enjoyable but over-long, and the early signs are that the discipline of TV adaptation will be good for it. The mystery concerns the apparent suicide of a supermodel, and the scenario of a supposed suicide that may just be murder is again very familiar to fans of the genre. But Burke, and Holliday Grainger, who plays his newly arrived assistant, make a very likeable team, and I'm looking forward to episode two.