A supremely confident return for Broadchurch
Boy, it’s great to have it back. Blockbusting whodunit Broadchurch (ITV) returned for its third and final series – our last chance to savour the dream duo of DI Alec Hardy (David Tennant) and DS Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman). Two of our finest TV actors, shoved into crumpled suits, deprived of sleep, then made to bicker their way around Dorset, reluctantly cracking crimes together. What could be more fun?
The pair’s swansong case, however, was anything but fun. They were summoned to investigate when local farm shop worker Trish Winterman (powerfully portrayed by Julie Hesmondhalgh) sat down on the police station steps and said she’d been raped. “Do you believe me?” she asked, her voice heavy with defeat. “Yes,” replied Hardy, instantly and emphatically, to my huge relief.
This was a supremely confident way for writer Chris Chibnall to open the series. The opening shot was simply waves washing onto Broadchurch’s now-familiar beach – with 11 million of us having watched before, we knew exactly where we were and felt an anticipatory tingle – before flinging us headlong into the crime.
Colman crept into view and quietly introduced herself to the traumatised victim. Tennant lurked discreetly in the distance, out of focus. Hesmondhalgh, doing all her acting with bewildered face and broken body language, didn’t speak until the eightminute mark. This only made her character’s plight more gripping.
It was a visceral, vanity-free performance from Hesmondhalgh, who has said she welcomed the chance to play a rape victim who wasn’t young and attractive, like so many screen portrayals. This enforced the point that rape isn’t about sex – it’s about power and violence. Her turn was tough to watch but brought the horror vividly to life. The police procedures were well-researched and reassuringly thorough.
Chibnall teased us with a potential culprit – shady mechanic Jim Atwood (Mark Bazeley) – but expect this to be a red herring, dangled to distract us. There will be many suspects and there are seven weeks of twists to come. We were also reintroduced to the Latimer family from previous series, although clumsy exposition made these scenes less convincing.
Meanwhile, by-the-book Hardy and the more empathetic Miller resumed their squabbling. “It’s not Trumpton, I don’t know everybody in town,” barked native Miller at outsider Hardy. When he grumbled about her knocking on his door at 2.00am, she told him: “Don’t be a t--t about it.” Oh Olivia, how do we love thee?
After the disappointment of series two, it looks like this superlative drama might bow out on a high. Prepare for your Monday night viewing – and Tuesday morning conversation – to be monopolised.
Mary Berry might have bowed out of The Great British Bake Off but the marquee matriarch hasn’t hung up her oven gloves just yet. Mary Berry Everyday (BBC Two) was the first fruits of her admirable decision to stay loyal to the BBC rather than “follow the dough” to Channel 4.
Berry began the six-part series in Scotland, whipping up dishes inspired by her own Highland heritage. Her hearty food was big on butter, potatoes, meat and cream. None of your newfangled kale or “clean eating” malarkey for our Mary.
She was infectiously enthusiastic, declaring dishes to be “Delectable!” “Delicious!” and, her favourite adjective, “Scrumptious!”.
This wasn’t edgy cooking or coolly presented. No bish-bash-boshing or sliding down banisters like Jamie Oliver, no seductive pouting like Nigella Lawson, no effing and jeffing like Gordon Ramsay. Berry’s style was more in the Delia Smith ballpark: gentle, instructive, reassuring.
Bake Off fans might have noticed an absence of innuendo. It was clearly Paul, Mel and Sue leading Mary astray in the tent. Yet she did demonstrate her fondness for a tipple: red wine featured in two dishes, a generous helping of single malt in another and she tipped a wink to camera that she’d be finishing off the leftovers later.
As you might expect from an 81year-old sharing her home-cooking secrets, Berry was in misty-eyed, nostalgic mood. She reminisced about her father keeping livestock during the War, recalled her grandfather’s fondness for a wee dram and used her mother’s antique ricer. As she proudly said: “Mum was cooking right until the end of her life and she died at 105.” I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the indomitable Berry did the same.