Foyle's War
Finished the third episode of this classic mystery drama set during WWII.
Set in Sussex, Hastings in particular, it's not too dissimilar to
Poirot, maybe it's because of the frequent use of Sussex, perhaps the influence of creator Anthony Horowitz who also worked on the series with the dodgy tached Belgian detective, and also because it's set two or three years after the Suchet series.
Michael Kitchen is excellent as Christopher Foyle, a very dry and efficient Detective Chief Superintendent pretty much ordered to deal with local matters as the country prepares for whatever the Germans might throw at us. Whilst the first episode dealt with anxiety and ill feeling towards Germans living on the south coast at the time, the second could loosely be classed as Foyle's Dunkirk as it entwined the mammoth boat and ship evacuation with a nicely thought out murder mystery.
Tonight's episode concerned the murder of a child and brought into play the child evacuees from London, the advent of the Italians joining the war as well as the fallout from the death of a conscientious objector in a police cell.
This episode had a very good cast in John Shrapnel, Sophia Myles, David Tennant and a nicely subdued Danny Dyer who falls for Foyle's driver Sam. Special mention to Sam (Honeysuckle Weeks) she's excellent, a tremendous foil for er' Foyle.
It's interesting that Horowitz takes the stories down if not unconventional avenues then ones that war time stories don't normally venture. For instance Foyle investigating a suspect who supposedly works at a hush hush munitions factory, until Foyle uncovers it to be an even more hush hush, extremely confidential coffin factory because the War Office are preparing for the worst...
It's these unconventionalities that keep it interesting and perhaps edgier than
Poirot which i likened it to earlier, in that respect it deals with the grittier aspects similar to that other classic series
Inspector George Gently , although that was set twenty years later in sixties Northumberland.
Anyone who likes any of the series i've mentioned here will almost certainly enjoy the others as well.
Michael Kitchen and Honeysuckle Weeks