Monday 10 May 2010

Lewis: Dark Matter - review


Dark Matter, the second episode in the latest series of Lewis, lived up to the standard set last week by Dead of Winter. This was a college-based story, kicking off with the death in an observatory of the Master of Gresham College, whose tangled personal life was gradually unravelled as the story developed.

One of the many pleasures of Lewis is spotting the star guests. Warren Clarke, best known to crime fans as Andy Dalziel, played the college's head porter with great gusto. His wife was someone whose face seemed familiar, and when the credits rolled, I remembered Liz Crowther as Sonia, the receptionist at Radio West in that marvellous private eye series Shoestring, starring Trevor Eve. Robert Hardy played a legendary musician, and Diana Quick his wife. And Sophie Ward was the widow of the Master.

With such a good cast, you could hardly go wrong unless the script was completely hopeless, and Stephen Churchett did a good job in blending plot with entertaining depiction of the characters and the marvellous setting. Claire Holman had a bigger part than usual, not only doing her job as pathologist, but also performing in an orchestra rehearsing The Planets under Robert Hardy's watchful eye.

Lewis and Hathaway were their usual contrasting selves: Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox are an excellent team. All in all, very good entertainment, and certainly on a par with Inspector Morse - which is, I think, praise indeed.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Martin - Thanks for this review, as always. I'm very glad this episode lived up to your expectations, as so often, they don't...

Unknown said...

I love the team Lewis and Hathaway and I loved the series with Daziel too. I remember one episode of Daziel when he gets arrested for murder in a European country and he has to find the killer before being re-arrested.

If anyone missed Lewis, they can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDomainOfArnheim#p/c/8D56698B128ED8AF/0/2yuc3ClS6qI

CD

Martin Edwards said...

Margot and Clarissa, many thanks. Thanks also for the link.
Jamie Sturgeon, one of my favourite book dealers, has been in touch to point out that I have managed to mix up Liz Crowther with Annabelle Apsion. Sorry about that - Liz played Mrs Leeming.