Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Bertie Carvel, Carlyss Peer, Richard Harrington, Sam Hoare, Margaret Clunie, Deborah Findlay, Dominic Rowan, David Hargreaves, Lara Cohen, Ezra Carlisle, Chris Robinson, Stuart Graham, Perry Millward, Alyth Ross, Carolina Main, Debbie Chazen, Francis Mezza, Conor Hinds, Shanaya Rafaat.
What passes for love can bring a person to their knees, and what love can destroy, so its darker emotional sibling, jealousy, can murder.
P.D. James’ Death Of An Expert Witness is arguably the great novelist’s most admired work, or at least her most famous, and it is one that has surprisingly few, if little, adaption. This surprise is framed by the heart and nature of the novel, one that follows Agatha Christie’s motives, if not style, of bringing the essence of character to the plot and the fact that murder is often brought on by love and the spectre of jealousy.
Returning for a second series, Bertie Carvel inhabits the poetry loving detective with a sense of overriding authority, and whilst a couple of other notable actors have inhabited the character with a passion, it is to Mr. Carvel that the sympathetic nature of the man becomes fully rounded, and which plays delightfully against the rough side of policework with a sense of understanding from the viewer and the armchair detective.
Whilst modern detective adaptions play more into the hands of external evidence, the overuse of cameras, computers, DNA evidence, the fact that the viewer is given on screen a detective who utilises their wits, charm, and grace in which to solve the crime before them, is a refreshing reminder that justice can be served without resorting to the digital and cold-hearted approach of today’s systematic detection.
It is to this end that Death Of An Expert Witness has heart and soul, the detective understands the motive of the mind of the killer, for he, in this case the sublime Adam Dalgliesh, has touched upon the emotional state in his own humanity, and not rely solely on the soulless application of machines and science.
Along with Bertie Carvel, Richard Harrington, Margaret Clunie, and Carlyss Peer give excellent and substantial performances in which colour is added directly to Helen Edmundson’s sensitive and considerate adaption.
Murder is personal, but it is also a secret designed to gnaw away at the heart, it takes a gentle soul to understand that death itself requires tact and sympathy in which to see the murderer as more than just a killer, they are a broken mind driven by extreme emotion. For this end there is arguably few who can see such a moment as well as Adam Dalgliesh.
Ian D. Hall