Remember 'The Sixth Sense'? "I see dead people." If the boy had somehow grown up to be Stellan Skarsgard and become a UK detective, this would be his continuing story. DI John River is accompanied by his recently deceased Sergeant 'Stevie' Stevenson (Nicola Walker, also pleasing the crowds in 'Unforgotten' over on ITV). Stevie straightens him out, jollies him up and keeps him going. Sadly for River, he also manages to accrue the ghost of the young man he suspected of Stevie's killing, whom he has chased to his death from a tower block balcony. He wants his name cleared. Then there's the subject of the book River is reading, one Thomas Neill Cream (Eddie Marsan), the Lambeth Poisoner, who hanged for his crimes in 1892 and imparts his macabre philosophy.
Given his array of dead head-friends, it's amazing he manages any work at all, but his boss, DCI Chrissie Read (Lesley Manville) states that his clear-up rate is 80%. That could of-course be down to the fact that the victim drops by to give him a nudge, as in this week's case of a girl whose boyfriend is accused of her murder.
It's sad and it's funny. There's a matter-of-factness about the talking dead for River, while his interactions with the living at work force you to remember that he's in danger of a breakdown. In fact, talking dead aside, the main TWNH is that even solving 80% of cases wouldn't save him from an enforced period of rest when colleagues have witnessed him talking to and even punching people who don't exist. Morgan's writing can be great, so we're hoping for something of substance. There are comparisons to Scandi noir, but this is no 'Wallander' or 'The Killing', and none the worse for that. We were reminded in his recall of his late colleague of the scenes of Craven and his murdered daughter in 'Edge of Darkness'. If it maintains the edge, rather than skipping into vacuous light or tumbling wholesale into darkness, this could be among the best dramas this year.
Honorary mention for Adeel Akhtar as Rivers' new DS, Ira King. He was so good as Wilson Wilson in 'Utopia', we were shocked to see him with two good eyes.
Magic has been absent from England's shores for around 300 years by the end of the 18th Century, and while the clique of dilettante students of the arcane arts meet regularly for meals, they don't attempt any actual spells, something seen as rather naive.
Enter Mr. Norell (Eddie Marsan), an unlikely last magician residing in a cavernous abbey near York. Sought out by a frustrated young magician, Norell proves his worth by bringing to life the statues in York Minster. Inspired to believe his time has come, he takes a house in Hanover Square.... Meanwhile, Jonathan Strange (Bertie Carvell) needs to find a useful occupation in order to win his beloved's hand. When street magician and all-round weirdo Vinculus (Paul Kaye) tells him that he and one other are destined to bring back magic to England, Strange decides to follow his fate.
A brave choice for the BBC 9pm slot, despite being based on a popular novel by Susanna Clarke, but so far this appears to be more than a classy fantasy along the lines of 'Atlantis' et al. Eddie Marsan evokes immediate sympathy, even when he conjures Marc Warren as a sort of Ziggy Stardust evil alter-ego. The hokus pokus is charming, but Norell's journey as a self-taught talent at the time of the Napoleonic Wars is also perhaps an everyman struggle. Could well turn out to be magic indeed.
A four-parter from Channel 4 already being compared to ITV's recent 'Broadchurch', this has a reporter returning to his fictional home town of Southcliffe to investigate a rampage killing. The first episode has focused almost entirely on Stephen (Sean Harris, who must be wary of typecasting after this and playing killer Ian Brady) in the days leading up to the gun spree. David (Rory Kinnear) is a jaded reporter who grew up in the town and is about to return for the worst of reasons. This doesn't break the mould in terms of the killer's profile: we so far have enough of a glimpse of his painful past and his lonely present to recognise a lost soul, and we even see a bruising encounter with recent Afghanistan-returnee Chris (Joe Dempsie) and his ex-SAS uncle which seems to prove the final straw.
Dark and tense, the only minor irritations were David's to-camera journo-speak about England's 'everytown' and the frequent ad breaks.
Bert and Dickie plus oars
Ludwig and Wynn plus hospital equipment
Comparisons are inevitable. Two 90-minute Beeb dramas about the last time London hosted the games, sorry - The Games, one focused on the Olympics double sculls and one on the birth of the Paralympics at Stoke Mandeville hospital. In tone, not much else differed, since they were both solidly-scripted and well cast biopics, essentially. Which isn't to say that we quite managed to forget Mr Smith tripping round the universe in the tardis, nor Mr Brydon tripping round the UK with Mr Coogan.
That this didn't detract from viewing pleasure was thanks to the other cast members, particularly Sam Hoare, Douglas Hodge and Anastasia Hille in 'Bert and Dickie' and Eddie Marsan and George MacKay in 'Best of Men'.
Of the two, though, the latter, shown last night *, had the bigger story to tell, with German-Jewish refugee Ludwig Guttmann pioneering a change in medical attitudes towards patients with spinal injuries in WWII. Guttmann, as played by Eddie Marsan, is one of the lesser-known heroes of the 20th Century, a man who kept his principles while his country abandoned them, and relocated to a country fighting for freedom (even if rubber bedpans were just as scarce). The journeys of his patients as they regained their independence, courage and zest for life were perhaps no more unpredictable than that of Bushnell and Burnell as they battled to form a team and win gold, but both were well told and positive, both for aspiring Olympian and Paralympian superstars and mere mortals who play and watch sport... on TV.
*
coincidentally within two days of the death of Lord Alf Morris, whose campaign for disability legislation changed the lives of millions.
