The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: the Murder in Angel Lane
Sun May 12, 8-10pm, ITV
Paddy Considine is back in his rather fetching stovepipe hat for another installment of this murky Victorian policier. His fragile, intuitive lawman Mr Whicher isn’t in the force anymore – he’s been discharged on the grounds of ‘mental unfitness’. But when he prevents Olivia Colman’s prim Miss Spencer from being robbed in a dank, dirty London pub (although quite what an upstanding citizen like Whicher is doing in there in the first place is never really addressed), he finds himself dragged into another case.
Whicher, of course, has police contacts to help him. But can they really be relied upon under duress? And in the light of his issues, can Whicher handle the emotional practicalities of a case that takes him in and out of an insane asylum? The plotting is nothing out of the ordinary but, as usual, Considine decidedly is – an endlessly watchable mixture of vulnerability, conviction and furious intensity. Involving Sunday night fare.
Whicher, of course, has police contacts to help him. But can they really be relied upon under duress? And in the light of his issues, can Whicher handle the emotional practicalities of a case that takes him in and out of an insane asylum? The plotting is nothing out of the ordinary but, as usual, Considine decidedly is – an endlessly watchable mixture of vulnerability, conviction and furious intensity. Involving Sunday night fare.
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I had not expected to enjoy the fictional episode of 'Mr Whicher' but found it very well scripted and acted. However, if Whicher is to continue to appear on our TV screens I hope that he could return to his non-fictional inheritance. To my mind the case of the 'Tichborne Claimant' which Whicher was actively associated with during the early 1870s would make fantastic film or TV. See my book 'The Chieftain' (History Press, 2011) and Rohan McWilliam's book 'The Tichborne Claimant' (Hambledon, 2007) for further information. Chris Payne