Quarter 2 Reviews- 010 Police Procedural- New

010 Police Procedural – New 

I was extremely impressed by Mark Lawson’s adaptation of Polish detective story bestseller Rage, very topical and with wonderfully idiosyncratic characters.  While the drama revolves around the traditionally high incidences of domestic violence in Poland, it is still told from the point of view of a male detective, the self-absorbed, sarcastic, insightful womanizer Teodor Szacki (Bryan Dick)—hence its thought-provoking, ambiguous message. Teo has moved from posting to posting, restless and seemingly unhappy about the state of justice in Poland.  While in Warsaw, his boss was “Russian feminazi” Olga Kuzniecow (Alexandra Mathie).  She is his boss once again in Olmsted.  Teo’s live-in girlfriend, the much younger Klara (Rachel Austin), followed him from Warsaw and is furious when he breaks up with her, seemingly so his teenage daughter, Hela (Caitlin Ward), can move in with him temporarily while her mother is pursuing scholarly study in the US.  Despite Teo’s general likeability, the way he misunderstands women and his failure as a parent make him deeply flawed.  Case in point, he fails to take the domestic abuse report of Maria K (Claire Benedict) seriously, an error that comes back to haunt him.  Along with all these great characters, the gruesomeness of the crime is horrifying and intriguing.  A body is found in an underground bunker and immediately dismissed as a German.  However, not only is the skeleton remarkably complete, the way the flesh has been stripped from the bones is suspect.  Eventually, Teo’s pathologist uncovers the fact that the person was melted alive using lye crystals activating by his sweat and tears.  A sinister conspiracy arises.  It’s a really thought-provoking mystery.  The original novel was by Zygmunt Miloszewski.  This production also starred Jonathan Keeble, Mina Anwar, Olwen May, Isabel Thompson, Georgia Devain, Tamsin Wickremeratne, Ryley Nixon, and Beatrice Webb.  It was directed by Polly Thomson, produced by Eloise Whitmore, executed produced by John Dryden, and was a Naked production.