Classic Morse

I have a confession to make... I don't have Netflix. In fact, I don't have any pay to view or subscription television watching options, and don't have a television license. I refuse to download or stream illegally, so I am left completely to the mercy of the old-fashioned channels' scheduling gods. No binge watching for me! Actually I don't watch television that often, or as often as I'd like, but there is something for me about watching a feature-length murder mystery which is very enjoyable and relaxing. Even though, as is often the case with Morse, the body count is through the roof (or on the roof, in the case of The Service of All the Dead) and the murders often grisly (more below).

I mention this because I've recently been watching some of the first two series of Morse. ITV have kindly decided to put them on (various time slots) and not (as far as I can tell) in any particular order, although this isn't a massive problem with Morse as the episodes are encapsulated and I've already watched them, though mostly not for years.

One long hot summer in, I think, the early 2000s, ITV put all of Morse on, one per week, at some reasonable time, and we all watched them as a family (this is the sort of thing my family do!). There was one episode, The Dead of Jericho, which annoyed me for years afterwards, because the VCR (for those of you born in the 1990s, this was how we preserved programmes, by taping them!) had chopped off the end, and I never saw the rest, until the other week, when I finally saw the ending.

Kevin Whately and John Thaw, looking dapper and young.

I read some Morse novels in my teens as well, but not all of them - maybe 4 or 5 which were available from our local library. (This was after I ran out of Brother Cadfael to read.) I was interested to know that Morse and Lewis are slightly different in the early novels than in the television series. It's fairly well known that after John Thaw was cast, and Colin Dexter saw his performance, he adapted his character to suit Thaw's interpretation. Most of the essential character traits are the same though. For example, Colin Dexter's detective has necrophobia, which means that when he sees a dead body he feels physically sick. True to form, Morse will always turn away, looking sickened, from the body, while Lewis appears more indifferent.
To add confusion, they weren't filmed in the same order. I was also surprised to discover that the first episode of Morse was adapted for the screen by Anthony Minghella, who was later made famous for The English Patient.

When I was younger I'd find that watching an episode of a detective series or reading a book would mean the plot and 'whodunnit' was forever inscribed in my mind, so I'd pay little interest to re-watching. As I've got older (I'm only 32!) I've found that I don't always remember - certainly not episodes from years ago - so over the years I've happily re-watched episodes of Morse here and there on a Sunday afternoon/evening.

I don't know if its because I watched and read Morse when I was quite young but there's something very reassuring about watching it. If I'm quite honest, I prefer some of the episodes of Morse even to Agatha Christie's Poirot (another favourite of mine), I think because there's a peculiar vestige of realism in them, even if they aren't genuinely realistic. Of course, they can be quite formulaic, but I think a lot of whodunnits are. In the first series and beyond, for example, Morse keeps on falling for, or being interested in, rather fragile, moping, vulnerable or occasionally criminal women, who let him down in various ways - sometimes by being implicated in the crime. In one of the episodes I watched, for example, he repeatedly offers the woman a cup of tea, which for some reason she refuses to drink throughout the episode. She keeps clinging to his arm. No wonder when they decided to write Lewis, they strengthened the female characters considerably, including the wonderful Rebecca Front and Claire Holman, whose character, Dr Laura Hobson, replaces Max as the pathologist. I think Morse gets referred to as a dinosaur, and perhaps rightly so.

Kevin Whately,  Claire Holman, Lawrence Fox, and Rebecca Front

On the other hand, this hankering for women he can't have, along with his unhealthy liking for beer, is part of his own vulnerability, and it is very important for detectives to have vulnerability. Speaking of beer, his pathologist friend tells him, even in series 1, that he drinks too much, and as we know, Morse eventually dies of a heart attack. Let that be a lesson to us all! Although he pays less for beer than we do - £1.98 for two pints in Series 1. Those were the days. There's no such thing as craft beer, either! Morse loved Real Ale. Morse and Lewis sit down for a pint at least once in every episode, I'm sure, and Lewis and Hathaway continue the tradition in Lewis.

We all love Morse's genius ability to solve crimes, crosswords, and the other human puzzles he encounters, and his ascerbic wit. He's actually rather mean to Lewis though, and others. He is brusque in a way that would not be allowed these days. But his witty one liners and put downs, often revealing a deep pedantry, lighten an otherwise serious series. Some examples:

"Light beer is an invention of the Prince of Darkness." 

"Hanged, Lewis. Meat is hung, people are hanged."

"Death was instant?! Coffee is instant! Death is instantaneous."

"Beer is food."

"Man was born free, but everywhere he's in the property chain."

"Is that a dagger I see before me? I'd rather see a pint."

"Never interrupt me when I'm buying opera tickets Lewis. I might get Madam Butterfly instead of Berlioz. Or get Handel, for God's sake."

The body count in Morse is usually pretty big. I've never worked out the maths, but essentially there's 2/3 bodies per episode, often with a sad kind of inevitability. Sometimes, the endings can be extremely gloomy, but the relationships of the central characters and the beautiful scenery somehow reassure. Most of the truly brilliant episodes revolve around tragedy in the Classical sense. Greek tragedy is sometimes referred to in the series (and in Lewis) and viewers may enjoy picking up on these references if they know their classics. Morse, as we know, read Classics at Oxford himself (and got a Double First).

Morse and Lewis have absolutely stellar casts, with every episode starring either a British television or even someone who would go on to have a Hollywood career, Sean Bean, Simon Callow, Michael Kitchen, Roger Lloyd Pack, Jason Isaacs, Derek Fowlds, Martin Clunes, Christopher Eccleston, Mark Strong, Alun Armstrong, Jim Broadbent, Richard Griffiths, Rachel Weisz, Tom Wilkinson and many many more. Many of the actors would also star as detectives or characters in other series. Of course, without the lead actors this would all be meaningless. Their performances hugely helped the success of the series, beyond doubt.

Of course, Oxford is also the star of the show, and even more so of Lewis. Between scenes in Lewis are regular, postcard perfect shots of the Dreaming Spires. Most, if not all, of the murders occur in Oxford colleges or the homes of professors (if not at the opera...). Morse, the degree-educated and (relatively) 'posh' policeman is also called upon to investigate crimes in the homes of the rich and famous.

The sort of house that people live in in Morse.

I highly recommend re-watching the early series if you get the chance, possibly with a nice cup of tea and a scone (or a pint of ale). Although aspects of these early series now appear dated, this just adds a pleasing retro feel. Some how Morse's high culture rubs off on you, and you feel a little bit more cultured for watching!

Dickensian

I've already written a tiny bit about this BBC series, but having watched the whole series wanted to add some more.

I hardly ever have time for television these days, which is bad news for this blog, but after Christmas, when the weather was cold and the nights still dark, seemed the perfect time to watch three BBC series, War and Peace, Dickensian and also (more recently) The Night Manager. Even at a push I can't call two of those murders with a twist, but Dickensian yes.

I love Dickens for reasons I can't fully articulate. I suppose it is partly because I read him at quite a young age (early teens I think), when reading really gripped me and influenced my thoughts. More recently, after a long break (in order to do my degree and PhD) I returned to him and now read his books as an adult. I am trying to read the ones I haven't already. How rich they are! They lend themselves to slow reading, which is ideal for me as I don't read quickly (or consistently) these days. His language is exquisite and his ability to set the scenes almost bring tears to my eyes. It is Dickens' London that keeps me beguiled. I am always trying to find it, and excited when I do. I'm currently very slowly making my way through Our Mutual Friend, which is truly a novel to savour. Embarrassingly, I read Bleak House many years ago and yet had semi-forgotten the plot to the extent that one of the plot twists in Dickensian completely took me by surprise. I am now thinking that I should re-read it.

Dickens' dream

When I first heard about this programme I assumed it would be a feature length or maybe a three-parter at most, and was therefore bemused to discover it was a twenty-part series in half hour episodes - apart from the last. I had a bad feeling about it, probably that it would be horribly cliched and somehow such a pastiche that it would be comical in a bad way (I am not underestimating the humour in Dickens). After all, many of his plot lines are very serious and often dark too. The theme music is a huge cliche, borrowed from Hans Zimmer's Sherlock Holmes and Ripper Street for that 'Victorian' sound.

However, I began to enjoy it as a murder mystery almost straight away. Stephen Rea as "the Detective" Mr Bucket was a sheer joy to watch in the role.  He has a side kick in the person of Omid Djalili, whose understanding of science helps him with forensics.

As the series continued, I increasingly warmed to the characters, and although at first the references to Dickens' novels seemed like in-jokes for the better-read viewers, by the end of the series I realised that a person who really loved Dickens would really love this, because the writers and production team had somehow managed to reach to the heart of what makes Dickens good and re-create it.

I have a no spoilers rule on this blog, and all the more so here since I don't want to include spoilers for Dickens novels too, but the interweaving of the main storyline with the sub-plots was very cleverly done.

There were some great performances. I will mention Tuppence Middleton's brilliant performance in particular. She was playing a morally good, sweet woman in Dickensian alongside an unpleasant and immoral woman in War and Peace and carried it off with great success. One had sympathy for both women.

Some specific points emerged for me in particular. One was the huge difficulties that women experienced in the Victorian era. Some of the scenes (with Nancy and Fagin, Miss Havisham, Honoria etc) brought tears to my eyes. Another point, following on from that, was Dickens' passion for social justice and his keen understanding of what being born to poverty could mean. Another was what a keen observer of human beings he was (something he has in common with Austen and actually, JK Rowling). Psychological portraits were actually right at the centre of Dickensian, despite it also being wonderful family viewing. There is also a great deal of humour in the novels, and so too in the television series. 

I'm sure children of school age as well as adults could enjoy it and learn a great deal about British history from it. 

I am really excited for a second series!

The Curious Case of the Christmas Murders

This blog post is a catch-up on three murder mysteries which were on over Christmas and New Year.

First of all, the one we'd all been looking forward to the most...

Sherlock (**)

Victorian Sherlock - still considering that moustache...

I can offer you two alternative ways of look at this - either it is an artistic failure, or some kind of folly.

Failure:  

I was deeply dismayed when I realised they were making a Victorian Sherlock. The original Sherlock Series (1&2) were interesting, bright, and original precisely because they didn't have the Victorian feel of other versions of Conan Doyle's books. The modernity is the twist, so to remove that simply means it loses its twist! I am a huge fan of everything nineteenth century, especially nineteenth century London, so by all rights I should have been delighted, but I was already worried that the writers were scraping the barrel for ideas. Unfortunately, this was largely correct.

Oh dear. Any of you who are on Twitter will have realised that the vast majority of Sherlock fans were immensely disappointed by this vamped up, yet confused offering from Messrs. Gatiss and Moffat.  I don't have a TV licence so patiently waited until I could legally download the episode, which meant an hour and a half of people live-tweeting their annoyance. One of my friends commented that the writers had lifted lines from the first episode of Sherlock into this one. I was a bit less assiduous when I was watching it but I had a similar sense that I'd already seen it.

There have been a number of more cogent reviews than I can offer, detailing where it is that Moffat is going wrong. It has been suggested that he is playing too much to his fan base. I suspect that the huge pressure on him to produce something brilliant every time is part of the issue (this applies as much to Doctor Who by the way). Perhaps he's exhausted. Perhaps he just needs a really good editor to tell him to work on his plots?  Watching the previous series of Sherlock (3) I concluded that Stephen Moffat just needed a nice cup of tea, a chance to calm down, and maybe a tough editor. He could yet learn a great deal from the classic murder mystery writers such as Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Margery Allingham. Their work is dramatic but doesn't leave the viewer/reader bewildered and exhausted, trying to keep up. (And then there were none is a good case of the slow burn, especially the first episode. See below).

Folly:  

The problem is that at least some of the hardcore fans did love it. I think it is fair to say that it only worked if taken as some sort of fantasy project. In other words, the New Year Special bore approximately the same relationship that nineteenth century follies do to real castles.

As a child I was always incredibly disappointed when I was promised a castle (Blaise Castle for example, in Bristol) and then discovered that it was 'only a folly'. I always wanted to go to a 'real' castle. (I could have done with a Tardis, in retrospect). However, if you treat the folly for what it is, it is  both an interesting piece of British history and quite a jolly place to visit. As an adult, I'm probably as interested in the strange Gothic fantasies of the nineteenth century as I am in the original medieval castles.

Blaise Castle. Picture from Wikipedia.

As a folly, the Victorian Sherlock almost works. The viewer knows what 'real' Victorian Sherlock was like, and we can laugh at the little in-jokes, and enjoy the Gothic appeal of the New Year Special.

However, even taking this into account, it was hardly the best of episodes... We all hope it will make a little more sense at some point when the next series appears. I hope Stephen Moffat invests in a box of Yorkshire tea and a friendly, but tough, editor.

And then there were none (***)

This was a three-part series just after Christmas. The premise is simple and implied in the title. 10 strangers arrive on a small island, and one by one are killed off.  I won't put any spoilers in this in case you haven't watched it, but it was superbly acted, very dramatic, and scared the living daylights out of me! If you like being scared I highly recommend it. As someone who has watched murder mysteries and read them from the age of 10, I am not normally this scared of a television programme, but this was both a true thriller and a true horror.

Arriving on Soldier Island - all looking smartly dressed and - importantly - still alive here!

A great cast, including Charles Dance.

My main concern (the reason why this has only got 3 stars in my rating) is that it was overly gory for my taste. Do viewers really need to see all the bodies and blood? I am worried that series like Game of Thrones (in which Charles Dance also appears) have rather dulled our senses and now we expect this kind of gore at all times. The storyline is quite sufficiently dramatic as it is without adding to the drama in this way.  

I probably wasn't the only person to find this a bit much for my nerves. Many fans of ITV's versions of Miss Marple and Poirot would have found this very different, even difficult to watch. It is necessary to add the caveat that in Agatha Christie the darkest side of humans is ever present, and occasionally her books can be quite grim. However, to a large degree the presence of the detectives makes them much more 'cosy'. The lack of positive characters in this for me made it a much gloomier affair, but perhaps it struck the right tone for just after Christmas! Overall, very well done though, just don't blame me if you get nightmares.

Dickensian (****)

Unlike the other series in this post, I didn't even know this was going to be on television until the first episode had already aired, and I was initially very cynical about it, thinking that it wouldn't really work. I love Dickens. I read many of his novels as a teenager but in the last two years have decided to plough through the others, after reading Simon Callow's brilliant theatrical biography of him (which I highly recommend.) Since then I am excited by all things Dickens. 

The series is in half-hour episodes, and is, as you'd expect, fairly light-hearted, although there are some serious undertones/themes throughout. The premise is that Bob Marley, Scrooge's partner from A Christmas Carol, has been murdered. The rest of the characters are all derived from either A Christmas Carol or other Dickens novels. This series captures the essence of the Victorian period much better than the Sherlock episode, and is very cleverly done indeed. It features some great performances, including Stephen Rea as the detective (who is also starring in the BBC version of Tolstoi's War and Peace), Omid Djalili and Anton Lesser, who makes a very good Fagin. Perfect winter time viewing. The soundtrack is rather a pastiche (think Hans Zimmer's Sherlock Holmes crossed with David Arnold's Sherlock, the soundtrack to Ripper Street, I'm sure there was some Inspector Montalbano chucked in), but otherwise I don't have a bad word to say about it! I'm not sure what someone who has never read Dickens would make of it, but I think it would still be very enjoyable if you didn't get the references. A bonkers mash-up!