DUTCH MASTER BACK ON THE BEAT

Van der Valk is gunning for Amsterdam’s crooks again (minus his wife and THAT theme tune)

The great TV detectives never die – they get rebooted. In recent years nearly a whole squad has been brought back to life: Inspector Morse (Endeavour); Jane Tennison (Prime Suspect 1973); and, of course, Sherlock Holmes with Benedict Cumberbatch.

The latest blast from the small-screen policing past is Amsterdam’s Piet Van der Valk. Viewers with long memories will fondly recall the classic ITV show that ran sporadically from 1972 to 1993, with Barry Foster as the brooding maverick detective, and particularly its much-loved theme tune, Eye Level (which became a surprise chart hit with the Simon Park Orchestra).

In the new series of three featurelength thrillers – based on the novels by Nicolas Freeling – gimlet-eyed

Marc Warren (pictured) plays the eponymous detective whose flagrant disdain for police rules is matched only by his appetite for snaring wrongdoers.

He may have a rough and ready manner but there’s a determined focus to Van der Valk’s policing: ‘It’s not rocket science. Someone’s dead. We find out who killed them through a process of gentle but ceaseless prodding.’

The other star is the location.

Look out not only for canals, cobbled streets and coffee shops, but also a distinctively Dutch, laidback attitude and a coolly open mind about even the most outré sexual practices among interview subjects and suspects.

And forget about high-speed car chases when you’re in two-wheelloving Holland: as the opening episode begins, our hero is pedalling away furiously on a bicycle in hot pursuit of a criminal making a fast getaway.

Not everything from the original has been carried over: you’ll look in vain for Van der Valk’s wife. This detective is very much a single man with a busy love life, and he has a strictly working relationship with the only woman he regularly sees, police partner Lucienne Hassell (Maimie McCoy, left).

As for the music, the old theme tune has gone (TV nostalgists can head to YouTube to see Noel Edmonds introducing the Simon Park Orchestra on Top Of The Pops when they hit

No 1). But does it really matter? Gritty, compelling detective drama never goes out of fashion. It’s good to have our old Dutch back on the beat.

PICK OF THE WEEK VAN DER VALK Tonight, ITV, 8pm