Gripping whodunnit nears end

The excellent Broadchurch is hurtling towards a gripping finale this Sunday.

Finally (surely) we will discover the truth about Detective Inspector Alec Hardy (David Tennant).

We know Alec is an experienced detective from the city who recently arrived in Broadchurch, wanting a quiet life after a scandal-tinged work history.

But why is he a Scotsman?

Is that why he is so rude?

And why does he have facial hair too long to be designer stubble, and too short to be a beard?

Is it something to do with Doctor Who?

Broadchurch is a compelling whodunnit set on the Dorset coast (in England somewhere, apparently), in which Hardy and his off-sider Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller (the very good Olivia Colman) scour the quiet seaside town for the killer of 11-year-old Danny Latimer.

A labyrinth of twists and turns has smeared suspicion on 99% of the Broadchurch residents, most of whom have dark pasts and a maze of secrets to obscure and conceal.

Sunday's penultimate episode brought the sharp and shifty dealings of the disturbingly unpleasant Susan Wright to the fore.

Susan is played by the normally very, very nice actress Pauline Quirke, better known as the only slightly dodgy Sharon Rackham (previously Theodopolopodos) in the long-running comedy series Birds of a Feather.

Pauline began her career aged 8 with an appearance in Dixon of Dock Green, and later had her own TV show, Pauline's Quirkes in the 1970s, with pop music (probably nice pop music), teenage topics, and comedy sketches.

But with just the curl of a lip and arch of a brow she turns into a piece of malignant seaside trailer park trash with some dirty secrets and a flair for falsehoods.

That's acting, that is.

Child abuse, incest and adultery are rampant in Broadchurch, and DI Miller's family is starting to look well dodgy.

Whatever its breathless climax this Sunday - and I can't wait - ITV has announced Broadchurch will return for a second series.

This Saturday at 7.30pm, Prime TV is broadcasting, as a tribute to the recently deceased Rik Mayall, Jonathan Creek: The Clue to the Savant's Thumb.

Mayall appears as the wheelchair-bound detective Gideon Pryke, in a special shown in the UK last year.

The show also features Mayall's Young Ones' co-comedian Nigel Planer, and the fabulous Joanna Lumley.

The Clue to the Savant's Thumb begins with Lumley's character re-visiting the Catholic school that was the scene of death and horror half a century before.

Planer's character meets with an early and bloody death, after which DI Pryke rolls in, crippled, we hear, by a sniper's bullet.

Somehow, I'm sure Jonathan Creek (Alan Davies) will be the one to solve the crime.

Charles Loughrey

 

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