PICK OF TODAY’S TV

THE INSIDE MAN, 9PM, BBC1

WHAT links a vicar in a picturesque English village, an American death row inmate and a maths tutor locked in a suburban cellar? That’s the premise of this darkly comic four-part drama from Steven Moffat, the writer who breathed new life into Doctor Who

and Sherlock Holmes (both of which are available on BBC iPlayer). To say much more, though, would spoil your enjoyment of this brilliantly original new series. ‘Let’s keep it mysterious,’ said Moffat, when describing the plot. ‘Most detective shows are whodunnits. This one is more like a “who will do it”.’ We can tell you that it boasts three great leads in David Tennant as the god-fearing Harry Watling, Stanley Tucci as wife-murderer and former criminologist Jefferson Grieff, and Dolly Wells as the mousy tutor Janice Fife — and one day the paths of these three very different characters cross in the most unexpected way. Tennant is brilliant as a holy man caught in the most hellish situation, but it’s Tucci (pictured) who steals the show as Grieff, a debonair killer who runs an unusual consultancy service from his prison cell and looks like a more kindly version of Hannibal Lecter. ‘Everyone is a murderer,’ he says wisely. ‘You just need a good reason and a bad day.’ As this story begins, that bad day has just arrived, and it’s about to get a whole lost worse . . . It continues tomorrow and concludes next Monday and Tuesday.