009 Police Procedural – Old
As suggested at some point in the past, I am a big fan of
Imelda Staunton as DI Julie Enfield.
This quarter brought a number of outstanding episodes in this series
(1999) by Nick Fisher, such as Murder
West One- A Cure for Death. I don’t
know what for what narrative reason we needed the first five minutes taken up
by Julie having to sing karaoke at a party (other than a quip at the very end);
on the other hand, it was no hardship at all to hear Imelda Staunton belt out
“I Will Survive.” Julie’s (much younger)
DS is Lawrence Matthews, who catches some subtext even when he’s hungover. Grisly murders and corpses missing their
kidneys lead Julie to Harley Street, and eventually she catches Dr Jameson (the
ever-sinister David Collings) as a trafficker in human bodies. However, he traps Julie and is about to
remove her own organs to sell when she is rescued. This episode was directed
by Richard Wortley and also starred Ross Livingstone, Harry Myers, Tilly Gaunt,
Ben Crowe, Elizabeth Conboy, Geoffrey Whitehead, and Giles Fagan.
I think I enjoyed the second episode in the series, The Art of the Matter, even more. I can
see why such series are attractive to actors, who play an ensemble role in one
episode and the villain or a significant role in another. This episode had an interesting narrative,
which reminded me of radio drama series, The
Interrogation, with monologues coming from the beginning (along with the
weird music that seems to be part and parcel to Julie Enfield Investigates
dramas) with little context, which were nevertheless very intriguing. Jack “The Whistle” Stephens (Sean Barrett)
was a memorable character, a Northern Irish villain who whistled the theme to The Great Escape. The usually-sinister Geoffrey Whitehead got
to be the seriously lacking in judgement Andrew Olson, owner of a prestigious
gallery and perpetrator, he thinks, of “the perfect crime.” Ben Crowe—whose specialism seems to be East
End wide boys and brutes—was the curious Johnny “The Tongs” Brickman, who wants
“The Whistle” dead for blowing up his house built on ill-gotten gains—and gets
his wish by the end of the drama. Olson
has decided to have the Whistle steal a Klimt by using nitroglycerin, then
keeping the stolen painting in the gallery so that artist Kath Dyer (Elizabeth
Conboy) can be forced to make a copy (or the Whistle will break her
fingers). Olson gets the insurance money
and gets to sell the fake as well. There
was also an amusing subplot with Julie’s father and modern art.
I also enjoyed Soho
Espresso. I have to say, Javert
singing the reprise to “Stars” is the very last thing I’d ever hear at the
opening of this final episode in the Julie Enfield series. Yet, that’s what was happening as Julie, an
overenthusiastic Dad, and Lawrence catch Les
Mis is Soho. This ties in with the
murder investigation of David Simon, a shopkeeper, who, it turns out, was not
selling to a Russian mobster who wanted to the property. In return, she not only had him murdered, but
she paid off all the red light district businesses in the area to frame David
Simon, to look as though he was corrupt, unfaithful, and a pornographer. Fortunately, Julie’s instincts were too good.
And poor old Dad got so into “Lovely Ladies” that he fell over.
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