Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Samantha Bond, Jo Martin, Cara Horgan, Natalie Dew, Mark Frost, Holli Dempsey, Rita Tushingham, Niall Costigan, Ian Barritt, Daniel Lapaine, Juliet Howland, Phill Langhorne, Sophia Ally, Tijan Sarr, Molly Hanson, Phillipa Peak, Teagan Imani, Matthew Bates, Ella Kenion, Rufus Wright, Umit Ulgen, Rishi Nair, Ethan Quinn, Amelia Valentina Pankhania, Yiannis Vassilakis, Mark Fleishmann, Matt Green, Edward Howells, Sherise Blackman, Eleanor Nawal, Tristan Sturrock, Kim Wall.

When strangers on a train conspire to murder, what the universe experiences is an unbalance, a sense of unhinged instability that such souls could act as each other’s alibi to cause harm and confound the restoration of balance.

If strangers who murder can cause mayhem, then what of those whose bond stems from their youth, not the chance meeting that is beneficial to the moment of needs of avarice or revenge, but instead one born of unbreakable friendship, those who will break the law to help disturb the peace of the nation and will cover up the crime without any second thought.

There is ultimately room for every type of detective drama on television and in other areas of entertainment, we must give way to a truth that not every crime committed requires the attendance of the hard-boiled officer of the law to solve the offence and appease the universe by restoring balance.

However, the manner in which it is presented is such that the differences between the hard-pressed reveal and the softly-softly demonstration of conclusion can be found to be appealing to one specific vision rather than having an all-consuming desire to influence and fascinate the viewer.

For every Perry Mason there must be a Ms. Marple, and falling into the same, almost television safe realm as its maker’s sister shows of Death in Paradise comes Robert Thorogood’s The Marlow Murder Club, and whilst it holds the interest in the armchair detective’s less than threatening arc of the underbelly and more violent aspects of crime, it is in danger of portraying the deceit of murder as a cosy aspect of life; that the sense of death is nothing more than a cut away and a moment of frightening inconsequence.

The setting of Marlow is akin to every detective series that wishes to show the dichotomy of the small English town or village having a darker hue than we are led to believe. Murder of course can take place anywhere, just because you have a genteel air does not mean you cannot hold the worst of humanity within your heart, and for that the setting is wonderfully idyllic and sentimentally willing to be executed for its peace.

The tale, which has its core the presence of the charming Samantha Bond and Jo Martin, and the rightful passion of character in Rita Tushingham as one of the Buckinghamshire’s town’s uptight gossips, is homely, a convincing stare down the barrel of home counties tranquility, the shock that such an event can take place in the green and pleasant setting pressuring the viewer to understand that you can be killed for a reason in Marlow as you can Salisbury, as the press would have you believe in the inner city Newcastle or Liverpool, Manchester, or Birmingham.

The Marlow Murder Club is cosy, so warm that the characters are instantly likeable but ones that can, if not portrayed with care, will tuck the viewer in beneath the duvet of life with ease. A standard fare that will be lapped up in the likes of the United States of America, Canada, and Australia, but which will be hard pressed to impress closer to home.

Ian D. Hall