The weekend on television Jasper Rees Pollyannish entertainment with nostalgic fun in the sun
‘We’re not foreign,” said Louisa Durrell (Keeley Hawes) to the Greek help. “You are foreign.” The (ITV, Sunday) is back for a fourth and final series of innocent jingoism, Thirties nostalgia and escapist larks in the Ionian sun.
No one seems to relish the escapism more than Hawes. Her default settings are tough as boots or mad as hell but The Durrells is a holiday from all that, as she exercises her deft comic chops as the cheerful matriarch of a fourstrong brood.
The latest development is that she’s taking in paying guests. “I hear you are running a bawdy house,” said rugged taxi driver Spiro (Alexis Georgoulis). This Greek malapropism sounds like fun but no, the closest the show strays to ill repute is the two interchangeable ballerinas who seem to have mislaid their clothes and drift about the house in silk. To thwart a police search for a revolutionary on the run, they even racily pretended to be lovers (“You can’t come up,” said one of them, “my girlfriend’s naked”).
No wonder the novels written by Larry (Josh O’connor) are getting filthier, much to his ma’s disapproval.
Larry’s long face doesn’t quite fit in this bantering ménage so it was no great surprise when he announced his departure from the family home. “Maybe Gerry will write about the family,” he mused. “He’s kinder than me.”
This is indeed a kind, Pollyannish entertainment which tries to think well of its protagonists, even the buffoonish cousin Basil (Miles Jupp, fun but badly needs to extend his range). Expertly packaged, it manages to yoke yearning romance to capering slapstick while folding in big thoughts about fascism and even female emancipation.
“It’s about the right to choose,” said Margo (Daisy Waterstone), whose thoughts turned to hairdressing as a means of self-determination. Alas she was very bad at it.
As well as escapism, this episode featured the actual escape of a radical on the run who scarpered in a tiny barque. You don’t fancy his chances of making it all the way to Malta. It’s about 400 miles from Corfu.
It’s agony watching the detectives watch the detectives. We are only two hours into the fifth iteration of Line of Duty (BBC One, Sunday) and the latest seeds of distrust being sown
among the coppers already promise to reap a bitter harvest.
Director John Strickland spent much of the episode putting Superintendant Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) under surveillance, beadily filming him through doors and panes. If the aim was to embed the idea that Ted really could be a bad penny, it worked a treat. A sick feeling gathered in the pit of the stomach at the very notion that H equals Hastings.
The millions in Ted’s fan club must all cling, as to a life raft in a force 10 storm, to the knowledge that Jed Mercurio is the master misdirector, the grand wizard of the blindside. The whole horrible set-up must surely be another one of his clever quintuple bluffs. But he does look oh so shifty.
Meanwhile, do marvel at the deep penetrating wedge that Mercurio has expertly driven between DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) and DI Kate Fleming (Vicky Mcclure). She gets the promotion, the happy family and the (slightly tedious) bragging rights as a former undercover officer. And what does he get? An ex making highly suspect eyes at him, and a secret line of communication with a rogue UCO. Suddenly Arnott’s lying his face off to his new superior. As Operation Peartree promises to go pear-shaped, the cheerless takeaway message is trust absolutely no one.
Having survived the first episode, unlike some previous guest artists, it’s now apparent why Stephen Graham signed up to play John Corbett. He compacted enough different emotions into one hour for a Hollywood showreel: wrathful vigilante, heartsick parent, cocksure druglord, hunted prey. What a performance. His scene with Compston in the car was the palpitating heart of the episode, a high-speed exchange of information that may need a second viewing on the iplayer.
So who lured AFO Jane Cafferty (Sian Reese-williams) to the dark side? As she slowly studied the options in front of her, the soundtrack pulsed and throbbed with gathering tension and for a split second you could have sworn you were watching the climax to Strictly AC-12.
The Durrells ★★★★ Line of Duty ★★★★★