police
Adam Sweeting
This five-part policier is the finale of the current Walter Presents French season, and takes us to the town of Montclair on France’s eastern border. The opening self-contained episode, occupying a chunky two-hour slot, took for its theme the legend of the Pied Piper. In this, you may recall, the children of Hamelin were lured away by the titular itinerant musician and drowned.As its title suggests (the original French is Disparition Inquiétante), missing persons are the show’s stock-in-trade. In this case, a group of nine young schoolchildren vanished without trace from the centre of Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Masterminded by writer-director Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Spy Kids etc), Hypnotic is a speedy, twisty, riotously enjoyable thriller that seeks to bend your mind into impossible shapes while also delivering more than a few droll wisecracks. Ben Affleck, seemingly reinvigorated as half of "Bennifer 2", is bang on the money here as Austin PD detective Danny Rourke. When he’s called out to investigate a tip-off about a bank heist, he finds himself tumbling down a rabbit-hole where time, space and identity itself all get swirled in a kaleidoscopic blender.Already, things haven’t been going Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
The thought of yet another primetime true-crime series might weary the soul, even if it has been created by Ed Whitmore (Manhunt: Martin Clunes heading two cases as DI Colin Sutton), directed by Marc Evans (Hinterland: Wales’s contribution to modern noir) and stars Philip Glenister. More rapes and murders of young women from the archives? More cops with typewriters and a drinking habit being poorly led by myopic superiors?Steeltown Murders inevitably has some of this stock material, as it’s (partly) an account of the investigation into the rape and murder of two teenage girls in Llandarcy Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Endeavour first landed way back in 2012, and suddenly here we are, bidding it a final farewell after the end of its ninth series. Not everybody learned to love Shaun Evans as the pre-John Thaw Inspector Morse, but some of us may even have come to like the new boy better.In this valedictory episode, Exeunt, creator Russell Lewis had crafted a fitting end to the pre-Morse saga, bringing us full circle with closure of sorts for the Blenheim Vale child abuse horror (which dated back to series 2) and dispatching all the main players into various different futures. We were left with Anton Lesser’s Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The raid on the Brink’s-Mat warehouse at Heathrow in November 1983 has entered the folklore of British crime and criminology. The gang of six armed robbers had expected to find £3m in cash, but instead got away with £26m worth of gold bullion. The story of what happened to the loot, the thieves and their associates remains at least partially swathed in mystery to this day.There has been a variety of dramas and documentaries made about the case, but The Gold, a six-part drama authored by Neil Forsyth, uses the story to create a fascinating, interlocking mesh of characters and motivations. Top Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
In this glittering era of global streaming, the viewer is constantly bombarded with the latest and most sensational TV drama from South Korea, Australia, Denmark, California etcetera. But Huddersfield’s own Sally Wainwright continues to show most of the competition a clean pair of heels.Scott & Bailey, Last Tango in Halifax and Gentleman Jack notwithstanding, it’s Happy Valley which is liable to be remembered as her crowning achievement, and this long-anticipated third and final series is steadily tightening its grip as it reaches the halfway mark. The BBC’s seemingly counter-intuitive Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Although plaudits have been rolling in for Lauren Lyle’s smart and sparky portrayal of the titular detective in Karen Pirie (ITV), getting to the end of the third and final episode felt like a long slog. The traditional ITV two-hour slot is of course the home of such indestructible classics as Inspector Morse, Poirot, Marple et al, but despite some persuasive performances, Karen Pirie felt over-stretched in its three-week span. It also seemed uncannily like a caledonian makeover of ITV’s cold-case stalwart Unforgotten, as it roved over events from 26 years earlier after Detective Sergeant Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Music plays a big part in the life of Dwight, an 11-year-old black lad growing up in early 80s Leeds. He doesn't fit in at school, bullied because he is "slow", and he doesn't fit in outside school, would-be friends losing patience with him.But he does fit in at home, loved unequivocally by a protective mother, somewhat enviously by a bickering sister, and rather reluctantly by a preoccupied father. Like the records he plays on the gramophone, his life is about to spin – and he'll have to hold on to the warmth of family love in a cold world.Zodwa Nyoni's new play for the Kiln Theatre packs Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
Suspect has a simple premise: a detective goes on a routine visit to a mortuary where an unidentified young woman has been taken after being found hanged. Suicide is the initial judgment: the cop, Danny Frater (James Nesbitt), grills the pathologist (Joely Richardson, pictured below) about the case and starts to leave. Then he pauses, policing instincts a-twitch, and uncovers the body’s head. Horror of horrors, it is his estranged daughter Christina, and he doesn’t believe she killed herself.Over eight half-hour episodes, Danny tracks the people in his daughter’s life, each episode bringing Read more ...
We Own This City, Sky Atlantic review - 'The Wire' creator David Simon is back on the Baltimore beat
Adam Sweeting
It has been 14 years since The Wire, David Simon’s labyrinthine epic about crime and policing in Baltimore, reached the end of the line. Yet it seems he couldn’t let it lie, because he’s back on the Baltimore beat with We Own This City (made by HBO, showing on Sky Atlantic). This time, the series is based on the eponymous non-fiction book by Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton, with crime novelist George Pelecanos sharing the “Creator” credit with Simon.This is not going to be a relaxing or easy watch, and flopping out on the sofa with a large glass of something mellow is not the ideal way Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Somehow or other, fictional representations of the police have become an off-the-cuff index of changing times and evolving values. Dixon of Dock Green’s cops were stern father figures who knew right from wrong and considered it their duty to give villains a clip round the ear. The Sweeney weren’t quite so sure about right and wrong but gave everybody a good kicking anyway, while risking a bollocking from the boss for their blatant rule-bending. Prime Suspect’s DCI Tennison had to battle entrenched sexism in a mostly-male police force. Now, in ITV’s DI Ray, a female Asian police officer has to Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Cops on the box… don’t we just love ‘em? From Jimmy Perez and Ted Hastings to Inspector Reid from Ripper Street and Stella Gibson from The Fall the list is endless, but obviously we need more. The copper seems to have become the battered Everyperson we can dump all our fear, loathing and anxiety onto.Just this week, we have two new major police-orientated series, the credibility-stretching bomb disposal yarn Trigger Point (ITV), and The Responder on BBC One (wackily scheduled across two weeks). At first glance the latter is indisputably the superior of the two, largely because of a dominant Read more ...