Get your coat
Last week, the New Year opened with a vengeance and DCI John Luther on the trail of a serial killer. But could the maverick copper have solved the case without his coat? We investigate
ey say clothes maketh the man. is is especially true with TV detectives. Take DCI John Luther for instance. Where would this tough East End copper be without his clobber? His trusty (and very tight) topcoat is a mantle with special powers, one in which Luther can out-run the most limber of villains, vaulting fences and haring down alleys like a Jack Russell a er a cat. Luther is rarely without this ne piece of tailoring which we suspect he also wears to bed, but as no one has ever seen him in bed, it’s quite possible that he doesn’t even sleep. And while he might live in a dump (no sign of a bed), he wouldn’t be found dead in anything else other than Savile Row’s nest.
DCI Luther also likes to wear tight trousers with his tight coat, all the better to stu his lumpy mitts into. He even does this when chasing the bad guys: a chasing style not recommended by the Met Police apparently. For some time, industry insiders have been saying that Luther will be the next James Bond. Or rather than the man inside the coat, Idris Elba, will eventually get a licence to kill. For now though, it’s a licence to thrill and with those hands where we can’t see them and that coat hugging his massive, manly frame like a second skin, DCI Luther is likely to live forever ( rumours of a sixth season abound but it might be a while coming) even with everyone lining up to nobble him and a storyline as realistic as his wardrobe.
Other famous TV coats include…
e Equalizer
is coat, the TV godfather of Luther’s, helped Edward Woodward’s ’80s exagent equalise everything including badass criminals, world poverty and the old man who lived down the lane and never did any wrong to anyone (or so he pleaded before being busted by the coat). Point this coat in any direction and God only knows what it might do. Like Luther, Mr Equalizer (it was a Yank show) could also run very fast in a hunk of fabric so huge it merited its own screen credit. e Equalizer coat later got to host a game show.
Forty Coats
Did this bewhiskered man with the bewildered look, a staple of ancient children’s show Wanderly Wagon, really wear 40 coats? We raided the RTÉ archives to check but the videotape evidence proved inconclusive. A spino show, ‘Fi y Coats’ was commissioned but never made it to air as it was too big for the standard television set in those long ago days.
Donal O’Donoghue