Chilling tales across the ages

Marguerite McGrath takes a look at this week’s television.

THERE is one thing in particular that this column has taught me. When it comes to television, sometimes staying up that extra half an hour can be a very worthwhile experience. On Sunday night last, despite being very tired, I stumbled across a crime-drama on RTÉ One. I was immediately taken in by the look of it. Set in the ’60s, the colours, the clothes and the horn-rimmed glasses drew me in and transfixed me. The programme is a mini-series, called Place of Execution and it is based on the novel of the same name by crime-writer, Val McDermid. Although originally made for ITV and screened in 2008, the show has not lost any of its appeal or indeed its chilling charm. This is the chilling tale of a disappearance of a young girl in the Moors in northern England and a young detective inspectors need to solve it.
It is told with dual timelines and there is a mystery within a mystery. The 1964 elements of the show deal with the investigation and the disappearance and murder of the young teenager. While the modern-day tale centres on a journalist, who is making a documentary about the case, 50 years on. The case kick-started the career of the policeman, Bennett, who went on to become one of the most influential policemen in Britain but it seems a question hangs over some of the evidence and whether or not he manipulated it to convict the man he was certain had done the crime.
There are more questions that answers in this drama and the viewer is left to ponder much of the evidence and the testimonies of the characters not only in the 1960s but also in the modern tale. All of the characters are flawed but knit together in a tale of family and responsibility and where that responsibility lies and how it should be managed.
The journalist at the centre of the case is played by the wonderful Juliet Stevenson. She captures the obsession that journalists often acquire with stories and their need to find out more of the tale at the cost of everything else. In this case, the cost is that of her relationship with her daughter who is pretty much left to fend for herself with the result that she is finding herself in a lot of trouble. The themes of obsession and truth run frantically through this programme but they are weaved in a way that holds the viewers’ attention throughout.
Place of Execution, is a fine example of the genre and it is bolstered by some good acting from Lee Ingleby and Philip Jackson as the old and young Bennett and Greg Wise as the obnoxious squire. The Moors are always a wonderful backdrop to any crime drama and their haunting and dreary vistas are used to full atmospheric effect in this.
The mystery continues next Sunday on RTÉ One at 11.45pm.
In 1989, a crime writer changed genre and with it came a change in his life. Ken Follett wrote The Pillars of the Earth as a new decade was dawning and now 20 years later, it still survives as one of the most read and well-loved pieces of historical fiction. This year, the book was adapted for the small screen and it is no coincidence that it has attracted such a large and stellar cast. This series is very big news in the world of the small screen and if the first episodes are anything to go by, this series could be rerun for many years to come. It is the small screen’s Lord of the Rings.
The series is set in England during the middle of the 12th century. It is a time of war, conflict and extreme hardship. Historically speaking, it is often referred to in British history as The Anarchy. It tracks the emergence of the gothic from the Romanesque and deals with the notion of birth right, religion and citizenship.
It has been picked up by TV3 and is being shown in the prime-time slot of 9pm on Sunday nights.
At the centre of the story is the building of a magnificent cathedral in the fictional city of Kinightsbridge. The architecture is key to the story so it is necessary to know your pointed gothic arches from your round Romanesque but apart from that, the story is much like any other. There are star-crossed lovers, evil landowners and greedy noblemen out for what they can get. However, it is the detail that this story rises above that of other works like it. It is accessible and at the same time, complex. It has the ability to hold the viewers’ attention and like all good historical fiction, it has a soap-opera like quality to it.
The cast includes some very well-known names such as Ian McShane, Donald Sutherland and Matthew MacFayden.
This is a series to stick with and it is advisable that you watch each episode as things can get complicated, but not completely unfathomable, quite quickly. Check it out on TV3 at 9pm on Sundays.
One to watch: This week’s one to watch is a factual programme about Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina: Caught on Camera was shot on the three days in August 2005 when the city of New Orleans and its inhabitants suffered at the hands of mother nature. The hurricane brought the Gulf Coast of the United States of America to its knees and left over 1,800 people dead in Louisiana and Mississippi. Over 80% of New Orleans was drowned when the flood waters broke the levees leaving the inhabitants fighting for their lives. This documentary reconstructs the events as they occurred through the eyes of those best-equipped to tell the story, those that experienced it. Watch it on Thursday night at 9pm on Channel 4.