Prepare to be captured by this edge-of-the-seat cat and mouse with stellar leads
THE CAPTURE OF The Capture is 30 seconds of distorted CCTV footage at a Croydon bus stop. A handsome young soldier is kissing an exceptionally beautiful, smart woman. She jauntily runs for the bus after a bashful farewell. What happens next is the substance of a major, confident new drama that has all the tension and jeopardy of The Bodyguard, if not quite yet its headline-grabbing sense of occasion. The Capture is full of intuitive storytelling and modish references. While interviewing a young Asian witness at home on her new South London homicide patch, fast-tracked detective Rachel Carey (Holliday Grainger, currently very busy amassing gemstones for her CV) shows a crucial understanding of the teen phenomenon, Fortnite. On a celebratory booze-up in the pub, our unreadable ex-serviceman Shaun Emery (Callum Turner, hot) is gallantly groped by his buddies to a rowdy singalong of Robbie Williams’ Angels. Because of course he would be. It’s only in the closing frames of the first episode that they get to sit in the same room, wherein fireworks start to go off, repeatedly. Grainger and Turner are sensational as the leads. She’s been studying Helen Mirren’s turn as resented copper DCI Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect, delivering the role with a cold clarity. A franchise may well be afoot. He’s blank and moody, mouth resolutely unable to turn its edges into a smile. In his first courtroom scene, Turner gives away absolutely nothing, the hardest job for any actor to master and crucial to understanding some of the PTSD his character may have suffered in Afghan and Iraqi war zones. Writer-director Ben Chanan’s visual riffs on surveillance culture can be a touch heavy-handed. But this is a handsome and expensively scored opening hour with at least four wrong-footing moments. Though hinged on the CCTV footage spotted by the woefully underused and always brilliant Sharon Rooney (My Mad Fat Diary, Two Doors Down), the plot could lead anywhere. Little subplots about who Rachel is sleeping with and how Shaun operates as a dad feel like minor explosions waiting to happen. The Capture is a drama that will bring every single one of the Gogglebox-ers to the edge of their seats, week after week. There are few greater compliments. Begins tonight, 9pm, BBC1