DCI Banks: Strange Affair - review

DCI Banks is back, with another two-parter, Strange Affair, the first episode of which I've just watched. I'm a long-time fan of the Peter Robinson books about Banks, but I haven't read this particular novel, which I suspect may be a good thing. The TV version featuring Stephen Tompkinson as Banks is perfectly watchable, but so far hasn't risen to the heights of the books. However, it's early days, and this story made a decent, if slightly slow, start.

Banks' brother Roy leaves Banks an anguished phone message, and it seems he may have something to do with the murder of a woman, who shortly afterwards is found shot to death. By this time, Banks himself has gone missing and the investigation is led at very short notice by DI Helen Morton, newly returned from maternity leave. Morton is played by Caroline Catz, a very appealing actor, who played a likeable DI in Murder in Suburbia. But Morton is very different - and much more serious.

So serious, in fact, that she treats Banks as a highly suspicious character, creating a bit of conflict, but (I felt) in a way that felt rather laboured and contrived. The screenplay writer might have done better to focus more on the whodunit side of the story, which didn't get going for a long time. The episode ended bleakly, though, with the discovery of Roy's body. He too had been shot.

The test of a two-parter is whether I want to watch the second episode, and the answer is that I do. My impression is that Tompkinson has toughened up his portrayal of Banks, and that's a sound move. He, like Catz, is a very engaging actor, and as the cast find their feet, it is possible that DCI Banks will turn into a staple of the schedules. At present, however, the jury is still out.

The Blue Geranium

The Blue Geranium started life as a short story, and I was rather surprised to find that it had been turned into a two-hour drama for Agatha Christie's Marple. A number of Christie's short stories which have been turned into sixty minute episodes have seemed rather padded-out. So I did not watch the show first time around, but finally I have weakened and given it a try.

Unexpectedly, I thought it was pretty good. Needless to say, the scriptwriter, Stewart Harcourt, had to invent a great deal of plot material, but I felt he managed to accomplish the rather difficult task of blending the old and new. And I was amused to see in the cast list that the three small children who discovered a body near a river were young Harcourts – he and they must have enjoyed that! As ever, the cast was strong, and included Caroline Catz, whom I rather liked in that otherwise patchy series of a few years back, Murder in Suburbia.

I have always thought that Agatha Christie was a far better novelist than a short story writer, even though admittedly she did write quite a number of really good short stories. "The Blue Geranium" in its original form was enjoyable, and it is to be found in the first and strongest collection of Miss Marple short stories, The thirteen problems.

Watching this episode made me think that there is a particular knack to adapting a short story for television. It is sometimes done well (for instance, with some of the Sherlock Holmes adaptations that we have seen over the years) but often the results are disappointing. The reality is that, usually, the source material needs to be changed and expanded, perhaps radically. In recent times, some of the "improvements" on Christie plots have been deeply unappealing. But not, I felt, in the case of The Blue Geranium.