This mediocre noir should have been left out in the cold
For those tired of Nordic noir, how about the Canadian version? You still get cold weather, thermal outerwear and murders, but you don’t have to concentrate on the subtitles. The first three series of Cardinal ran on BBC Four and now it has been deemed worthy of a move to BBC Two in a trio of double bills. I’m not quite sure why. It has the feel of a daytime series or one of those cheap films they show at two in the afternoon on the more obscure drama channels, except every now and then we get a very grim shot of a maimed corpse, and no daytime show would so cruelly dispense with a little old lady as happened in episode two. The victim in episode one was a politician reported missing by his wife, who ended up being tied to a log in the snow and freezing to death.
The politician and his wife had an open marriage. Could this be a clue to his killer? Well, you’d think so, but cop duo John Cardinal (Billy Campbell) and Lise Delorme (Karine Vanasse) didn’t seem to be investigating it. They were busy having scintillating exchanges in the car. Her: “Are you OK?” Him: (soulful pause) “Yeah.”
The series is based on Giles Blunt’s crime novels, set in the fictional town of Algonquin Bay in Northern Ontario, and I suspect the stories work well on the page. On screen they fill an hour-and-a-half in satisfactory fashion, while doing nothing remarkable. Campbell has just enough charisma to carry the series, in a distinctly unshowy style – he started his career as a Dynasty character who died at the Moldavian royal wedding massacre, so perhaps he’s been toning things down ever since. I think there is supposed to be some romantic tension between Cardinal and Delorme, but it manifests itself as her announcing she’s moving to Toronto, and him telling her he’s happy for her when he isn’t really, and then we cut to more snow.
Where other shows have made a feature of their snowy locations – Fargo, Fortitude – here it just means they can do murder-by-hypothermia and everyone wears a parka with a furry hood. It also makes for horrible lighting – instead of considering whether or not the widow’s everpresent police friend was in on the crime, I found myself wishing she had consulted a Farrow and Ball colour card when decorating her house. The whole thing was so chilly that it left me craving a show that is the absolute opposite of this in every way: Death in Paradise.
ABradley Walsh: Happy 60th Birthday was the equivalent of opening a shinywrapped present to discover a pair of your own socks lifted from the laundry basket. Of course it was also going to be a cuts job filled with clips from Walsh’s career, but couldn’t they have packaged it together with some new stuff? Like, oh, I don’t know, an interview with the man himself ? Or least some interviews with people who admire him and might have some kind words to say about him?
What we got instead was a little vignette from Walsh’s life – his first job as a factory worker, brief stint as a professional footballer, then stand-up comedy, television presenting and acting – interspersed with Walsh reminiscing about these things on Parkinson or This Morning, clips so old that we’re talking This Morning with Richard and Judy.
I bow to no one in my love for Bradley Walsh, and he was entertaining in every performance shown here. He’s an old-school variety artist with a gift for interacting with the public, a skilled comedian (not everyone can get laughs from retro jokes such as: “I went to France. I had an omelette, girl next to me had frogs’ legs and chicken breasts… but a smashing personality”), a surprisingly good actor, and host of Britain’s best quiz, The Chase (please don’t write in, Pointless fans). But even I thought ITV were laying it on a bit thick when they repeatedly described him in gushing terms such as “one of our most adored national treasures”.
They also treated us to “rare, neverbefore-seen footage” of Walsh fluffing his lines while recording various gameshows. Surely it had never been seen before because it was dull. Briefly, we saw clips of him acting in a Ken Loach film and opposite Sir Derek Jacobi in The Old Curiosity Shop. In a parallel universe, there is another Bradley Walsh tribute film in which Loach and Sir Derek offer their tributes to his talent.
At the end came a plug for Beat the Chasers, ITV’S new spin-off. Would it be too cynical to suggest that was the ulterior motive for the programme?
Cardinal: Until the Night ★★ Bradley Walsh: Happy 60th Birthday ★★