Based on three novels by Kate Atkinson – Case Histories, One Good Turn and When Will There Be Good News – this recent BBC One series features the adventures of former soldier, onetime policeman and permanently good-natured private investigator Jackson Brodie, played by Harry Potter villain Jason Isaacs.
In an overcrowded television detective market, Case Histories manages to distinguish itself by virtue of a lead character who is unfailingly kind, unstintingly sensitive and unbelievably patient.
Yes, he has his demons – his sister Niamh was murdered when he was a child and he is haunted by the memory; his estranged wife is in the process of taking his beloved daughter Marlee to New Zealand; his PI business is distinctly undersubscribed – but in spite of frequent eye-rollings, glances to the sky and muttered swearwords at the irritants of day-to-day life, Brodie isn’t an embittered Rebus or a curmudgeonly Morse.
He doesn’t have a gambling problem or a drug habit (although he does live in self-imposed squalor, loves his ciggies and spends too long listening to eclectically melancholy folk music artists like Kris Delmhorst and Mary Gauthier) and although he gets his fair share of female attention throughout the series, the truth of his unrequited heart lies with former colleague DC Louise Munroe (Amanda Abbington). ‘Bloody hell, you’re beautiful,’ he tells her in the confused moments after an up-close-and-personal encounter with the front end of a train. ‘I love you.’ He forgets this later, but this doesn’t change what he is: a thoroughly decent character – not boring or pious, but a good man nonetheless.
Each of the three two-part stories successfully combines at least three plot strands: a case that Jackson has been hired to investigate, Jackson’s private life, and the real case that Jackson has stumbled into by chance; and while Kate Atkinson’s complex novels have been cut-down for those age-old virtues of detective drama, conciseness and clarity, there’s more than enough twists and turns to keep viewers interested – even those who aren’t already swung by Isaacs’ brooding good looks and his character’s bluff, occasionally blundering charm. He’s not quite as interesting as the aforementioned Rebus or Morse, but Case Histories is far more watchable than more middle-of-the-road monstrosities like Midsomer Murders.
However, the real star of the series is the City of Edinburgh. The decision to switch locations from Cambridge allows the sprawling beauty of Auld Reekie – from Arthur’s Seat to the New Town, the wintry landscape on the outskirts and the lights of Princes Street and the Royal Mile at night – to shine, providing a depth and understated melancholy that perfectly mirrors Jackson Brodie himself.
Extras: Sadly, there’s not a great deal of additional material to speak of. It would have been nice, for example, to see a feature about the wonderful selection of acoustic and folk music used throughout the series – and perhaps an audio commentary. But although Case Histories is spread across two discs, all the discerning DVD purchaser gets in addition to the main feature is a fifteen minutes-long behind-the-scenes documentary featuring interviews with actors Jason Isaacs, Amanda Abbington, and Kirsty Mitchell; producer Helen Gregory, who describes Jackson Brodie as ‘the ultimate female fantasy: very masculine and very strong but he has this sensitivity and warmth’; and the writer upon whose work the series is based, Kate Atkinson, who admits: ‘I do think that Jackson is basically a woman… he has a kind of feminine sensibility.’
Atkinson also confesses that she likes the move of the series to Edinburgh and was pleased to see the show portray a lighter side of the city: ‘This is not Rankin’s Edinburgh; this isn’t Rebus. It’s about a different kind of place. Edinburgh looks ravishing.’ It does; but that’s hardly an adjective you could apply to a DVD that’s not so much vanilla as completely without flavour.
Released on DVD on Monday 27th June 2011 by ITV Studios Home Entertainment.