fri 29/03/2024

Vera, ITV1 | reviews, news & interviews

Vera, ITV1

Vera, ITV1

Brenda Blethyn shines as Ann Cleeves's rumpled Geordie detective

ITV1 really, really loves that succulent two-hour slot in the middle of Sunday evening, and anything that goes in there has the legacy of Morse, Lewis, Frost, Miss Marple et al to live up to. The latest cunning plan for Detective Sunday is to recruit the rather excellent Brenda Blethyn to play DCI Vera Stanhope in adaptations of Ann Cleeves's novels, set in the author's native North-East.

In fact, with the lineage of TV detectives now long enough to stretch to the moon and back several times, choice of location is becoming critical as a means of telling them apart. Vera is well served by its Northumbrian milieu, which ranges from the streets of Newcastle or Gateshead up the coast to Whitley Bay, Blyth and a potential assortment of historic sites including Holy Island and Bamburgh Castle. Much of the atmosphere of this opening episode derived from scenes set in windy sand dunes next to moody expanses of beach, with bare countryside dotted with medieval ruins stretching away inland.

Murder, Cleeves wrote, and our killer du jour had a penchant for choking his (OK, it was a male) young victims with thin cord, then arranging the corpses in or near water, decorated with a selection of local wild flowers. Why are crime writers so keen to burden their killers with so many fetishistic rituals? Perhaps it just makes it easier for their imaginary detectives to catch them.

Vera_team_trimSlightly disappointingly, resolution of the case came down to the familiar perm-one-from-four routine (if it wasn't that one then it must have been the next one, kind of thing), with Stanhope's suspicions centring on a group of bourgeois male bird-watchers whose relationships proved to be murkily incestuous. But the mechanism of the plot was largely there to hang the quirks and oddities of the protagonist on, and Stanhope has quite a few to be going on with (DCI Stanhope and her team, pictured above).

She's in the throes of dealing with the death of her father, who was a difficult, bullying character by the sound of it, and in the opening scenes Stanhope watched as her young sergeant, Joe Ashworth (David Leon), tipped pop's ashes into the Tyne. Stanhope is resolutely spinsterish, and apparently terrified of young children. When Ashworth gently wondered if she'd like to be godmother to his new-born baby, she went virtually rigid with shock, and had to look at some crime-scene photos to make herself feel better. She has little interest in fine dining or haute cuisine, and is apt to swig lustily from a bottle of whisky for relaxation. Her dress sense is Oxfam-gumshoe, with all expense spared. She makes Columbo look like Tom Ford.

Vera_ruin_trim_02Her style of detection is dowdy aunt with a chip on her shoulder - the first victim had been placed in a bath "like some poncey installation at the Baltic", as she tangily put it - mixed with spasms of seemingly genuine emotion, as when she desperately barked at her colleagues to get their fingers out so they could save missing 14-year-old Laura, who was looking ominously like the killer's next victim. Behind her bumbling-old-biddy-who-doesn't-know-much schtick, she is of course scarily shrewd and intuitive, and capable of slicing open alibis with razor-edged questioning (Stanhope with picturesque Northumbrian ruin, pictured above).

It's too early to say if Vera is going to be great, but this opener was skilfully paced to keep a nice balance between plot and character development, the locations lend real depth, and Blethyn is quite capable of turning Stanhope into an addiction. Strong support, too, from David Leon as Ashworth, who brings authentic Geordiness to the part despite being altogether far too pretty. Blethyn has admitted she took to studying Cheryl Cole on The X Factor to get her Tyneside accent in shape. She doesn't sound Welsh or Pakistani, so it must have worked.

rating

Editor Rating: 
4
Average: 4 (1 vote)

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Comments

Strong support, too, from David Leon as Ashworth, who brings authentic Geordiness to the part despite being altogether far too pretty. This is a poor choice of words as it seems you are saying that he is too pretty the be from Newcastle. I hope this is not what you meant as people form the north east are often as beautiful as the ravishing landscape.

No, Novocastrian, what I meant was that David Leon was too pretty to be a gruff and gritty police detective. Apols to anyone in the north east who thought I was trying to abuse them. I lived in Whitley Bay a long time ago (and loved it), so I'm well aware that the locals are all absolutely gorgeous.

No, no no! My wife and I are voracious fans of tv crime drama and this is the worst we have seen for a very long time. Totally unbelievable plot and filled with characters you simply didn't care about. And as for Vera herself - words fail me. Blethyn is 64 for Gods sake. How many detectives are still working at that age? At least with Frost we aged with him but even then he became a joke. I cannot listen to Vera's screeching voice ever again. Simply dreadful. On a positive note the countryside looked lovely

I live in Kent and with referance to Vera, North East accent was so strong i could only understand about one in ten words especially where brenda was concerned She was not helped by the quality of the sound track, however if that had been perfect i still think i would not have coped with the dialect.I was so looking foreward to it but i suspect like a few million other viewers south of Manchester. I changed channel,had to. A tip from me to you -- the further you move from Kings English the fewer viewers you will have and an unsaleable product. This programn only catered for people around Newcastle. Funny , you have only had good reviees. George Payne

Yes David Leon is beautiful, but so talented too. Ignorant to say the programme was for people around Newcastle. I have watched my DVDs over and over again and I'm a Londoner. The accents are delicious - though Geordie is hard to fake and Brenda suffers at times - and the supporting and lead actors just brilliant; I enjoyed the way they intoned every line. Only thing is, the plots weren't exciting enough and the 'a-ha moments' weren't convincing. Bring on series 2. I shall be glued and buying it on DVD.

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