Death Valley

Death Valley is a uniquely Welsh murder mystery comedy series that has been a modest hit on BBC1 and iPlayer. The creation of Paul Doolan (Trollied, Bloods), Death Valley is set in a seemingly quiet village in South Wales. It's the sort of place that will inevitably suffer a disproportionate number of murders according to TV conventions. Death Valley gently pokes fun at the cosy crime genre while creating its own combination of comedy and mystery, with a melancholy undercurrent beneath it all.

Gwyneth Keyworth (Hidden, Fflam, Defending the Guilty) stars as DS Janie Mallowan, an eager, ambitious and distinctly odd young police officer. While she is clearly a talented detective, Janie has a tendency to stick her foot right in it, invariably saying the wrong thing whether it's to a witness, a suspect or a colleague. She's weighed down by the loss of her best friend due to an apparent suicide, refusing to upgrade her ancient car because it used to belong to her, and avoiding speaking about her grief by blurting out anything else that crosses her mind.

Janie is a huge fan of Caesar, an old murder mystery series, and is thrilled to meet Inspector Caesar himself: John Chapel, the retired Shakespearean actor whose greatest hit was the series before he dropped off the radar. John Chapel (Janie invariably refers to him by his full name) is played by the great Timothy Spall, veteran of film and television. Spall's credits are too numerous to list, and he remains one of our best character actors. It's fitting then that John Chapel is an actor first and foremost, having honed his craft through years of careful observation of people's behaviour. If there's one thing he can't stand it's inconsistency of character, especially when it's a real person whose actions don't fit their personality or motivations.

Janie knocks on Chapel's door during enquiries concerning the death of a local property developer. While she's immediately thrilled to meet her TV hero, she finds herself disappointed at the misanthropic, weary hermit he's become. Rarely venturing out to do anything more than get his 2 o'clock latte, Chapel has become a recluse since the death of his wife. Both Janey and Chapel are burying their grief, although Janey is more honest that she's doing so. Chapel immediately concludes that his neighbour's death can't be a suicide because such an action would be inconsistent with his character. Janey, frustrated at her hero's jumping to conclusions and insistence he knows how to do her job, leaves to continue the investigation, only for the pathologist's report to confirm that the death could not have been suicide.

Janey finds herself returning to see Chapel to use his insights. The former actor is reinvigorated by the challenge, and the two of them quickly build an unlikely friendship and partnership. This does not go down well with Janey's superior, the limited but well-meaning DCI Clarke (Steffan Rhodri – Gavin & Stacey, Temple, Love Me). Aside from sharing privileged information with a civilian, Janey has been two-timing him with another mentor, and he's his wife's favourite TV detective to boot! The fact that Janey has long surpassed Clarke as a detective is clear almost from the off, but it takes the encouragement from Chapel to give her the confidence she needs.

Each of the six episodes presents the duo with a new mystery to solve. Doolan's love of the genre is clear throughout, from the gentle ribbing his characters occasionally give shows like Caesar to the Agatha Christie references (Janie Mallowan being named after the writer's great lady detective, Jane Marple, and her second husband, Max Mallowan). The idea of an actor or writer with crime fiction experience becoming a real life detective isn't new. Perhaps most recent is Steve Martin's character Charles Hayden-Savage on Only Murders in the Building, with whom Chapel has a good deal in common, except that Charles is still technically working. What makes Chapel's confidence in his abilities unique is that it comes not from his experience playing sleuth, but his expertly-honed insight into the human condition. He sees through people not because he acted, but because he's an actor.

The series also features Alexandria Riley (In My Skin, Silo) and Rithvik Andugula (Extraordinary) as Janey's colleagues, sardonic pathologist Helen Baxter and overenthusiastic DC Evan Chaudhry. Melanie Walters, another Gavin & Stacey regular, plays Janey's mum Yvonne, while Jim Howick (Ghosts, The Aliens) appears in scene-within-a-scene clips of Caesar as the detective's dim-witted sidekick, Constable Atkins.

Death Valley is an entertaining new take on the murder mystery genre, although the scripts sometimes struggle to balance the mystery, drama and comedy effectively. While there's a sense the programme is still finding its feet, here's hoping a second series will be ordered so that it can build on what it's already established. This has the potential to be a classic.

Daniel Tessier