A show so sinister, it’s as dark as a bat in a graveyard at midnight

Asoldier returns to Britain in Napoleonic times, only to learn that his family is ruined and the girl he loves is married to a weakling. All the world thought he was dead and wishes he was. so he scowls, and broods and vows to make them pay.

isn’t there a law against stealing plots? if Tom Hardy marries a redhaired kitchen wench in Taboo (BBC1), the estate of Poldark author Winston Graham will have the neatest case of plagiarism ever seen in the courts.

But there’s little romance in this spooky, violent version. Taboo puts the ‘dark’ into Poldark.

For a start, Hardy plays a psychopath, a man called James Keziah delaney, who looks and talks as though he would rip out a man’s gizzard for spilling his pint. And it would be a pint of brandy — delaney isn’t the type to cock his little finger and sniff a shandy glass.

He’s a tattooed thug, a former slaver who mutters spells in an African language and communes with the dead. His sweetheart is his half-sister, their father was murdered and everywhere he goes there’s this flipping glockenspiel echoing in the background. it would drive any man mad.

it’s dark in other ways, too, lit largely by candlelight and filmed in cavernous warehouses at night. in a black silk hat and a coat billowing to his ankles, Hardy is about as visible as a bat in a graveyard.

And it lives up to its ominous title. Jefferson Hall as delaney’s vicious brother-in-law uses all manner of language, including the N-word. The last white actor to say that on the BBC was Ballard Berkeley, the Major in Fawlty Towers, and the context was rather different.

Taboo is written by steven Knight, creator of Peaky Blinders, and it’s highly stylised, as you’d expect. Hardy arrived home standing on the prow of a boat, cloaked like death, and morbid themes ran through every scene.

Body snatchers stalked graveyards. delaney killed time in morgues, looking at the suicides dredged from the Thames and summoning the ghosts of slaves with his incantations. He even stole the pennies off his own father’s eyes.

This is morbid fare for a saturday night, but the cast is so good that, just as with Peaky Blinders, it would be unwise to write it off too soon. There’s edward Fox, and he’s just playing a corpse. No lines, no action — he lay there and got dissected. it’s the ultimate cameo.

Jonathan Pryce is the villainous head of the east india Company, a politician and oligarch in one. oona Chaplin is the half-sister, and Nicholas Woodeson plays a slippery lawyer.

such a line-up isn’t a guarantee of excellence: remember 2015’s Jonathan strange And Mr Norrell, also a Napoleonic drama, which had fantastic actors, ghosts and ravens, just like Taboo. it was utterly dire.

Taboo was slow in places, and hard to see. There were moments when Hardy was unintelligible because he was speaking in tongues, and moments when he was just unintelligible.

But the show has atmosphere and a strong story. it might just turn out to be excellent. There was no need to hope for the best as Endeavour (iTV) returned for a fourth series.

This sixties detective drama, which began as a prequel to inspector Morse, has become the most gripping and satisfying crime thriller on TV, as well as a superb period piece.

shaun evans has made the character of Morse his own, which is extraordinary when you consider it once belonged to John Thaw. roger Allam as the morose, heroic, utterly decent inspector Fred Thursday matches him.

endeavour is unique, in that the sidekick, plodding along behind the genius sleuth and occasionally keeping his wilder flights in check, is also his senior officer. The fact this seems so natural is a sign of the show’s excellence.

The teasing element of the puzzle, so pleasing in Colin dexter’s original books, was present, though this time it was a chess game rather than a cryptic crossword.

letters and numbers on changing-room lockers spelled out the moves of a chess opening, the King’s Gambit. Highly ingenious, hugely enjoyable.