Review, Karen Pirie, Fake or Fortune, The Couple Next Door

The Herald Scotland

a day ago

Much of the credit for that goes to Lauren Lyle in the title role. Playing Pirie like some sarky granddaughter of Taggart and cousin of Rebus, she dominates every scene she is in. No mean feat when you are up against James Cosmo.
Cosmo played an oil tycoon whose daughter and grandson were kidnapped in 1984 and never seen again. Pirie, newly promoted to inspector, was assigned the case. Assisting her, as in the first series, were her secret boyfriend, DS Phil Parhatka, sidekick DC Jason Murray, also known as 'Mint', and Bel the blogger.
The series is not above cliche, starting with moodily lit interrogation rooms (would never happen: see 24 Hours in Police Custody). Similarly, Pirie and her superior, DCS Simon Lees (Steve John Shepherd) retain the stereotypically surly maverick and shouty boss relationship.
But the writing was tight and slyly funny, the plotting tight as a drum, and every member of the talented cast pulled their weight. The scenes between Sir Brodie and Pirie, the old lion with the still terrifying roar versus a squeak of a lassie, were alone worth another Bafta.
In Lyle's more than capable hands, Pirie remains a mystery in her own right. The character is tough yet not above tears, empathetic yet cold, driven but for what reason? Who is she, really? Watch out Pirie, you're in danger of becoming a national treasure.
There was a clash between Karen Pirie and The Narrow Road to the Deep North (BBC1, Sunday), but nothing iPlayer couldn't help with. If you are yet to catch up with this adaptation of Richard Flanagan's novel about a young Australian officer imprisoned by the Japanese, I'd urge you to do so quick as you can. On the evidence of the first episode this handsomely shot five-parter could be one of the year's best dramas - and the most harrowing, too.
Jacob Elordi and Ciaran Hinds play the younger and older Dorrigo Evans, once a medical student heading off to war, now an ageing writer still imprisoned by the past. The three-stranded tale relies heavily on flashbacks, which would usually interrupt the flow of the story, but not here. The performances are outstanding, with Elordi a star in the making and Hinds, the elder statesman of the piece, his usual subtle self. The scene where he was being interviewed/lectured by a young journalist about the realities of war, was watch through the fingers fare. And of course, looming over everything is what we know is coming when Evans and his squad get to the PoW camp.
Fiona Bruce, presenter of Fake or Fortune? (BBC1, Monday) earns between £410,000-£414,999 a year, the same as Nick Robinson but less than Alan Shearer. What's that got to do with a popular primetime docuseries about art, you ask? All will be revealed.
The new run of Fake or Fortune? opened with a painting of a pretty summer scene, bought at an art fair for £140 by Barry, a carer. It was unsigned, but when Barry took it out of the frame (top tip), the inscription said it was a portrait of Clementine Churchill by her husband Winston, painted June 1916.
With some works by Churchill fetching millions, this had the potential to be 'a right result', as they say in the art biz. But only if Bruce and her co-presenter, the art dealer Philip Mould, could prove its provenance.
They made a stylish pair. He was dapper enough to get away with wearing a scarf, Monty Don-style, and Bruce had 'scarfed up' for the occasion with a groovy number of her own. Add a buttery soft biker jacket and jeans and she was good to go.
That's the thing with Bruce, the BBC can send her anywhere and she will pass muster. She is this generation's Sue Lawley, posh but not too posh, and able to hold her own whether she is reading the news, anchoring Question Time, or doing lighter fare such as this and Antiques Roadshow.
If you ask the high heid yins at the BBC, it takes a very special skill set to do all this, hence Bruce's big bucks salary. But is that actually the case, or could any competent presenter do it?
Over tea in a palace, Barry filled Bruce in on his unsuccessful attempts to authenticate the painting. He wasn't taken seriously by the auction houses 'because of the way I speak, the way I dress, I just don't look like the typical art dealer'.
I half hoped Bruce would launch a broadside at snooty auctioneers. Instead, she smiled and said: 'It's quite a rarefied world, isn't it, the grand auction houses?' Anyone looking for searing, insightful commentary about the art business would have to try the shop next door.
She was much better when they visited the handwriting expert. In a programme that was full of people hedging their bets, Barry finally got a straight answer. He was so shocked he almost cried. Bruce was there instantly with a comforting arm around his shoulder. It could have been awkward or seemed patronising, but instead it was just a lovely human moment.
The expert consensus was that only the auction houses could authenticate the painting. The auctioneers, in turn, said it was up to the experts. All the running around had been for nothing, albeit they got a programme out of it. Barry will have to wait for more answers. As for Bruce? I think the jury is still out on that one, too.
The Couple Next Door (Channel Monday-Wednesday), a psychological thriller about suburban swingers, played out over six nights. If it was anything like the first series, it was going to be a long haul.
But what do you know, all concerned had upped their game. While it was still a heap of weapons-grade silliness, it was a better-acted, better-plotted, better-directed heap of weapons-grade silliness.
Instead of traffic cops and yoga instructors the protagonists this time were doctors and nurses. Lottie the heart surgeon (oh, the irony!) was married to Jacob, an anaesthetist. Lottie was so busy with her job and an ailing dad to look after she had to schedule sex with Jacob, a man so dull he could have put his patients spark out with his conversation alone.
Lottie couldn't complain though. Life was good, if predictable. Then a nurse named Mia turned up at the hospital and moved in next door.
With her heavy European accent and mysterious past, the beautiful Mia intrigued Lottie and flattered Duncan. Smouldering glances over a patient's open chest cavity soon became flirty conversations over glasses of wine, and before you know it our couple had become a throuple and clothes were being torn off all over the shop.
The good times on the sofa and in Antwerp hotel rooms could not last, though. Lottie and Duncan's well-ordered life had been turned upside down. Regrets? They had more than a few.
The Couple Next Door began life as the hit Dutch series, Nieuwe Buren ('New Neighbours'). Both are filmed in Belgium and the Netherlands, hence the slightly unusual houses on wide open streets that make the place look like America.
Written by David Allison (Marcella, Trust Me), this series powered along, fuelled by plot twists that ranged from unlikely to flat-out bonkers. There was far more going on at the hospital than an on-off threesome. Frankly, it was a wonder anyone left the place alive, such was the carry on.
Jacob Elordi, left, plays a young medic in The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Image: Curio Pictures/BBC/Sony Pictures Television)
Annabel Scholey was a solid centre of credibility as Lottie (even if she did look disconcertingly like Kate, Princess of Wales). Plaudits go again to Hugh Dennis who scrubs up well as a serious actor.
There was plenty to question (wouldn't the police be called in to investigate wrongdoing rather than leaving it to hospital administrators to play detective?), and more than a few cliches (particularly in the sex scenes). But if it was noirish nonsense you are after, The Couple Next Door supplied it by the bucket load.