TV CHOICES

Dalgliesh Channel 5, 9pm

PD James’s crime novels about police detective and poet Adam Dalgliesh have been filmed for TV before. He’s previously been played by Roy Marsden and Martin Shaw, and while their performances were perfectly fine, Bertie Carvel’s incarnation is arguably closer to the Dalgliesh of the books; he’s well on the way to making the role his own. The first series went down well with viewers when it aired in 2021, and now a new run is heading our way. It will feature two-part takes on the novels A Certain Justice and The Murder Room, with Death of an Expert Witness getting the ball rolling. Originally published in 1977 and the seventh novel to feature Dalgliesh, it takes place in the Fens and charts the investigation into a scientist’s murder.

The Curse Channel 4, 10pm

Last year, Channel 4 launched a six-part comedy crime drama featuring the likes of Allan Mustafa, Steve Stamp, Tom Davis and Emer

Kenny. Set in the early 1980s, it followed the fortunes - or otherwise of a gang of hapless small-time crooks who ended up embroiled in a massive gold heist. Think Brink’s-Mat but with the intelligence and tragedy replaced by laughs, and you get the picture. Now The Curse looks set to strike again - the first two episodes of the second series air this week, and pick up where the previous run left off.

The gang members who managed to evade the police are now living on the Costa del Crime; Albert and Tash have invested in a restaurant and hotel, while Sidney, who’s now calling himself Andrew, runs a bar.