Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Bertie Carvel, Carlyss Peer, Michael Culkin, Sara Stewart, Michael Maloney, Silas Carson, Yaseen Aroussi, Daisy Waterhouse, Barbara Marten, David Pearse, Alistair Brammer, Michael Amariah, Charlotte McCurry, Alex Hope, David Bamber, Liz Crowther, Marsha Miller.

The trouble with the law is that it does not take into consideration the actions of those who implement it.

Justice not only comes with a price, and as the statue insists, is blind, but if wielded in the wrong hands can be a weapon more potent than that in which it is in place to discourage, to outlaw.

A Certain Justice is P.D. James at perhaps her most acerbic and insightful of the measures taken to absolve the guilty of their crimes by those to whom the upholding of the law should be seen as sacrosanct. For some, the art of winning is more powerful a motive than that of proving innocence or guilt, and the smell, the taste of persuasion is heady a drug to resist.

The great American poet, Robert Frost, arguably said it best when he spoke of the injustice of law, “A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer”, for the facts of a case are as often irrelevant when placed who has the more convincing argument, who is the finer orator, who can command the show of a trial with a keener voice and authority, and often what is right, what is obviously guilty, is lost in maelstrom of appealing conviction and unswerving desire to win.

For Adam Dalgliesh Justice is more than just a mechanism to be revered, it is the responsibility of the state and the individual to see that it is not tainted by the callous calls for vengeance, it must be preserved in common sense and empathy for the victim. A Certain Justice, clean, dedicated to the truth no matter what is unturned, or what viewpoint stands in its way, that is how the drama of the murder of criminal lawyer Venetia Aldridge is to be solved, and the part that one of her clients, Garry Ashe, plays in her death.

The British system of justice is fallible, it is driven by the press and politicians in the hope that their agendas will be met and careers made for life, with never a thought for the police that have to implement it, nor the public that have to suffer under its scrutiny; and for that Adam Dalgliesh, played with his own supreme sense of empathy by Bertie Carvel, brings the case to its conclusion.

With terrific performances by Sara Stewart, Michael Maloney, and David Bamber, this adaption of P.D. James’ 1997 novel is gratifying and perceptive to the call for a more urgent review of law and those who misuse it in a professional capacity.

Unyielding in its presence, A Certain Justice is examined and found to be guilty of brilliance.

Ian D. Hall