This is a six-part co-production of Norwegian, Danes and Brits, about the race to develop nuclear weapons in WWII. The Germans have Werner Heisenberg, Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry in the early 1930s; the Danes have Niels Bohr; the Norwegians have a plucky Professor and the Brits have Anna Friel as one of those clipped gals who knew what was wanted to win a war, by golly. What the Norwegians also had, and everyone wanted, was heavy water, which you need for a nuclear bomb, so the Nazis invaded Norway.
Does it bear any resemblance to history? Who knows, beyond the intellectual heft of Heisenberg et al and the invasion. It's gripping, though. Think 'Foyle's War' with subtitles and more at stake than a missing ration book or some dodgy tractors. Only a few of the major players knew the stakes were high, and even they weren't sure what they were creating. Scary.
If you like your swashes buckled, your bodices ripped and your upper lips stiff as you like, you really are spoiled for choice on UK TV at the moment, with the 'Musketeers', 'Banished', 'Arthur and George', 'Indian Summers' and 'Mr. Selfridge' all jostling with each other in the schedules, and now, going head-to-head on a Sunday with two of the above, comes 'Poldark'. (That's pronounced 'PolDARK' btw, with the emphasis on the last syllable, Cornish-style.) The series of eight episodes is based on the first two of Winston Graham's novels which form an epic family saga of late 18th Century tin mine-owning squires. Several were filmed in the mid 1970s and that adaptation, staring Robin Ellis and Angharad Rees, retains a fan following so devout that an attempt in the late 90s at a sequel following the next generation (but without any of the original stars) sank without trace.
Galloping up, then, is Aidan Turner, who admittedly looks the part to the extent that you wonder why he hasn't already been cast as Heathcliff, Mr. Rochester and every other brooding hero you care to name. Turner plays the eponymous Ross Poldark, newly returned in defeat from the American War of Independence, to find his once-prosperous home and mines gone to wrack and ruin after his father's death. Thinking Ross lost in the war, his fiance Elizabeth (Heida Reed) has got engaged to his drippy cousin Francis (Kyle Soller), none of which turns Poldark from a brooder into a cheery chap. This first episode sees him rescuing young tomboy Demelza Carne (Eleanor Tomlinson) and suffering the violent repercussions of her brutish kinfolk; meanwhile he vacillates about whether to make something of his dwindled inheritance or leave the crashing Cornwall waves behind him.
So, will this be as popular as the '70s version? Almost certainly not, but that has as much to do with the multitude of channels and viewing-on-demand available now. Times have changed in other ways too - the original saw Sunday evening church services in abeyance because parishioners were apparently glued to the screen. This is a perfectly respectable adaptation of Graham's original prose, and so far faithful to the previous TV version too. It's also good Sunday evening hokum with a cracking cast and that lovely wild coastline as a backdrop. It's a worthy last job for the late Warren Clarke as Uncle Charles Poldark, and Ruby Bentall finally steps out of dim-girl roles as the centre of gravity of the piece, Ross's cousin Verity. (There's also an improvement, in the persons of Beatie Edney and Phil Davis as Prudie and Jud, whose every appearance in both book and previous version had the attention wandering.) If they keep up this standard, we hope they go on to become a Sunday staple. After all, this has the blessing of the previous Ross, Robin Ellis, who makes a cameo appearance in the series.
Our eponymous hero is an amiable, bumbling cop with a sweet, posh daughter. No prizes for guessing this isn't gritty drama along the lines of 'Line of Duty', which confusingly also featured Adrian Dunbar as a financially compromised detective. That's the only similarity. The opening scene may feature a worried-looking man going under a tube train, but this is a comedy-drama. It's not a hybrid we've ever warmed to, because to carry it off requires first class writing which, in the days of marketing, ratings and pressured deadlines, is pretty rare.
Dunbar is a good enough actor to play hero, jester or villain and carry an audience with him all the way, and Alexandra Roach is likeable as his ditzy, sassy sidekick, but OMG they deserve a better script. This involves a corrupt cop with a late-blooming conscience (like we said, not realism), and a murder which almost foxes the police, thanks to their undercover officer going awol. It's sort of in the same spirit as 'New Tricks' - there are jokey scenes with the young, gay Chief Super, widower dad Walter and lovelorn Anne with her Welsh mother - but it needs a more even tone and tighter plotlines if it's going to spin out to a series. There's potential for a nice light drama with a few laughs, maybe in a Sunday evening 8pm slot, but in the tough world of today's TV they may already have blown their one chance by an underwritten pilot, shown on a Friday evening in August.
Last night I dreamed I watched 'The Scapegoat' again... and woke up hoping that, should my double exist, I never meet her. A little later than planned, we watched this one-off drama, based on a lesser-known work by Daphne du Maurier. To get around the 1952 story showing its age, this is a sort of Jubilee tribute, set in the Coronation year and drawing parallels between the Queen who was never meant to be, and the usurper John Standing who makes a better fist of his double's life than the real Johnny Spence (both Matthew Rhys).
The Prince and Pauper storyline is a familiar one from fiction (Man in the Iron Mask) and partially in fact (the Titchborne Claimant) and is yet another programme badly trailed. Instead of a lurid thriller, this was an old-fashioned story and while the premise is implausible, Sturridge and his cast have fashioned a decent drama from du Maurier's book.
The ending hints at its being an oblique metaphor for the abdication crisis having a happy outcome. Even the pet goldfish is called Mrs Simpson, and dies, to be buried in a matchbox in the garden. Which is probably a kinder slant than interpreting the moral more directly implied by a close-up of John/Johnny's eyes in the final frame: if you're doing a better job than the real thing, but the real thing wants their role back, it's allowable to dispose of them. Hmmm.
