Patience - Channel 4 - episode one - review

Patience is a new crime drama series which began on Channel 4 last night. Matt Baker has adapted the show from a Franco-Belgian series called Astrid et Raphaelle, and the interesting decision has been taken to set the stories in York. I've long thought that York is a great setting for a mystery series - the late Barbara Whitehead and (in her Joe Plantagenet series, although she calls it Eborby) Kate Ellis are among those who have made good use of the ancient, atmospheric city as a vivid backdrop for their fiction.

Episode one got off to a dramatic, and in fact rather shocking start. A man withdrew £8000 from the bank and promptly went on to a roof top and apparently set fire to himself. Nevertheless, I'm now waiting for the first critic who describes Patience as 'cosy crime' - the cliche of first resort these days - and I bet it's only a question of time. 

It takes a young woman, a civilian working in the criminal records department, to spot the similarities between this tragic case and others. She is Patience Evans (played by Ella Maisy Purvis) and she is on the autism spectrum. Neurodivergency in ace detectives is nothing new, of course, but Patience begins to form a promising investigative partnership with a cop called Bea Metcalf (Laura Fraser) and this relationship seems to have plenty of potential.

There are undeniably certain similarities between Patience and Ludwig, which is also (in the finest tradition of Inspector Morse) set in a magnificent and photogenic old city, Cambridge, but there are also plenty of differences, and on this early evidence there's certainly room for both series. There were one or two clunky lines in the script, but I enjoyed Patience and I'm looking forward to seeing how the story and the characters develop, and how effectively the wonderful background is used.