Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tom Burke, Holliday Grainger, Kevin Bishop, Ruth Sheen, Tupele Dorgu, Jacob Abraham, Ewan Bailey, Ellise Chappell, Jack Donoghue, Emma Fielding, Mirren Mack, Christian McKay, James Nelson-Joyce, Luke Norris, David Westhead, Madeline Akua, Matt Rawle, Jack Greenless, Ben Caplan, Caitlin Innes Edwards, Stephen Hagan, Badria Timimi, Joseph Mydell, David Westhead, Ewan Bailey, Yong Kim, Liza Sadovy, Eloise Thomas, Jack Trueman, Natasha O’Keefe.

One of the grittier home spun crime dramas to hit Britain in recent years has once again more than proved its agility in knocking the viewer off their comfortable perch as the sense of avoiding justice is ever prevalent in the latest of J.K. Rowling’s male writing pseudonym of Robert Galbraith adapted for television, The Ink Black Heart, and which sees the almost indomitable pairing of Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger reprise their roles of C.B. Strike and Robin Ellacott.

The four-part drama sees the private detectives arguably at their most vulnerable, emotionally, professionally, and personally, and as they become drawn into the mysterious death of animation creator Edie Ledwell, so the feel of being under siege, being surrounded on all sides by those with motives that embrace violence and hate towards women, to the idea of unique creativity, is palpable and constricting.

In a warning to the idea of appropriation and of stealing other’s art, J.K. Rowling’s vision for the story perhaps rings more bells of alarm than most might be prepared to acknowledge, that as a writer, an artist, a creative, to see your work misused is a constant concern, and when it starts to impinge on your health, when your life is in danger, then it must be taken as serious as possible, for the gate keepers and rabid fans who see the work as being owned by them are willing to play a dangerous, grave game.

The sense of emotional peril is carried with one of Tom Burke’s most powerful performances, not just in the Strike series, but perhaps across his entire filmography, one that rivals his time on The Musketeers when his character understood the betrayal of his wife, Milady de Winter, or even on stage in the sublime Romersholm or even The Cut. The sense of desperation, of the silence of anger, of the need to finally open himself up to his colleague and friend is heartbreaking, passionate, and a positive indictment of the actor’s ability to frame the narrative within the pensive damage being sought upon him.

With terrific additional performances by Ruth Sheen, Kevin Bishop, and Christian McKay, The Ink Black Heart is an engrossing story of rage and anger overriding the mind, one that pushes at the dynamic of hate and self-righteous coveted belief.

Ian D. Hall