CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Father Brown

January 8, 2019

Blissful crime caper that proves daytime TV can be super-duper: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Father Brown

Father Brown (BBC1)

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With his walrus moustache and boiling blood pressure, DI Mallory was closer than ever to apoplexy as the marvellous daytime crime drama Father Brown (BBC1) returned.

Actor Jack Deam has been playing the overwrought copper for three years, and he never fails to remind me of Laurel and Hardy co-star James Finlayson — he of the bulging squint that threatened to pop one eye right out of his head.

The similarity must have struck the rest of the cast because, as they sat chained up in a cellar, housekeeper Mrs McCarthy (Sorcha Cusack) turned to snooty Lady Felicia (Nancy Carroll) and exclaimed: ‘This is another fine mess you’ve got me into!’

Occasionally the show’s tone veers too close to slapstick humour, and the kidnappers were channelling the Chuckle Brothers as they bickered about their crime-gone-wrong: ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ ‘No, I’m calling you an idiot!’ [File photo]

Now that I’ve seen Her Ladyship and portly Mrs M as Stan and Ollie, I’ll never be able to think of them any other way.

For aficionados, these neatly plotted murder mysteries, set in the Cotswolds during the early Fifties, are the perfect retort to anyone who claims that daytime telly is a waste of airtime.

Mark Williams plays the crime-solving priest with an elegant absence of ham.

He’s been in the role so long that his performance needs nothing more than a hint of humility and a patient smile to conjure up the character.

After the laborious over-acting of John Malkovich as Hercule Poirot at Christmas, that is refreshing.

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Nothing wrong with a bit of Chuckle Brothers, of course, but we already had Laurel and Hardy.

The good Father stayed in the background until it was time to unmask the killer. This series always keeps its religious roots in mind — the character was created by G.K. Chesterton as a Christian counter-balance to Sherlock Holmes — and Williams is never better than when delivering a stern warning against the wages of sin.

Lots of crime serials are steeped in faux philosophy. This one has some real theology to back up its message.

The Babes In The Woods Murders: The Prosecutors (BBC2)

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The evil documented in The Babes In The Woods Murders: The Prosecutors (BBC2) was too banal to supply any morals.

This hour-long analysis of the killing of two nine-year-old girls near Brighton was soaked in despair — for the inhumanity of the murderer, the misery of the families and the incompetence of the 1986 investigation.

Police arrested the killer, a weasel-faced man of 20 named Russell Bishop, and sent him to trial. But thanks to a catalogue of blunders over forensic evidence, Bishop wriggled clear — and went on to brutally assault a seven-year-old girl.

The mother of one of the girls, Michelle Hadaway, was in her 20s when her daughter Karen disappeared. Now she is nearing 60, and most of her life has been consumed by her struggle for justice [File photo]

This documentary focused on the thoroughness of the police when they brought Bishop back to court, more than 30 years after the murders.

They did a fine job in finally ensuring his guilt was established.

But there was little condemnation for their failures in the first place, and no explanation for why it took so long to arraign Bishop for retrial.

The mother of one of the girls, Michelle Hadaway, was in her 20s when her daughter Karen disappeared. Now she is nearing 60, and most of her life has been consumed by her struggle for justice.

Michelle was eloquent about the pain of it all. In a eulogy to Karen, she said: ‘I’d trade many of my tomorrows for one yesterday with you.’

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