Lynley, a new adaptation of the Inspector Lynley mysteries by Elizabeth George, is coming to BritBox in 2025.
Cast:Leo Suter as DI Tommy Lynley and Sofia Barclay as DS Barbara Havers
Creator: Steve Thompson, who also wrote Vienna Blood and Sherlock
Director: Ed Bazalgette, who also directed Marie Antoinette and The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
Producer: Suzanne McAuley, who also worked on Magpie Murders and Love/Hate
Production Company: Playground, that also produced Wolf Hall and All Creatures Great and Small
The series is expected to premiere in mid-2025. This new series will be distinct from the previous BBC series, which aired from 2001–2008 and starred Nathaniel Parker and Sharon Small. The previous series is currently available to stream on BritBox.The cast of Lynley, the new show, also includes Daniel Mays, Niamh Walsh and Michael Workeye. Filming began in Ireland in August 2024.
LUCY WORSLEY’S HOLMES VS. DOYLE: a three-part series featuring the popular British historian and lifelong Sherlock Holmes fan who seeks to answer why author Arthur Conan Doyle came to despise the character that made him rich and famous.
Throughout the series, Worsley explores the parallel lives of Doyle and Holmes in the historical context of their times. From the dying years of Victorian England, through the imperial crisis of the Boer war, the optimism of the early Edwardian years, to the trauma of the First World War, Arthur and Sherlock lived through them all.
LUCY WORSLEY’S HOLMES VS. DOYLE premieres Sundays, December 8-22, 2024, 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET (check local listings) on PBS, PBS.org and the PBS App.
Featured in over 60 original stories and countless film and television adaptions, Sherlock Holmes has intrigued and excited fans with his intellect and powers of deduction for more than a century. Over the course of three episodes, Worsley investigates the curious relationship between detective and author.
In Episode 1, “Doctor and Detective” (December 8), Lucy unearths Holmes’ origins in Doyle’s early life as a medical student in Edinburgh. She unpacks the early stories, revealing the dark underbelly of late Victorian Britain, from drug use to true crime. She explores how Doyle infused his stories with cutting-edge technological developments and traces the author’s growing disenchantment with his detective, heading to Switzerland to visit the site of one of the most famous deaths in literature.
In Episode 2, “Fact and Fiction” (December 15), Lucy explores Doyle’s desire to distance himself from Sherlock after the detective’s apparent death at the Reichenbach Falls. From the delights of the ski slopes to the horrors of the Boer War, she reveals how far Doyle went to make himself the hero of his own story. He even took on the role of detective himself in one of the most important legal cases of the 20th century.
In the finale, “Shadows and Sleuths” (December 22), Lucy investigates the return of Sherlock. Doyle began the Edwardian age delighting in all it had to offer, but as the First World War approached, the darkness of the later stories mirrored the reality of Doyle’s life. After losing his eldest son, he became an evangelist for spiritualism, and his star declined after a public spat with a famous magician. Sherlock Holmes, in contrast, found a life beyond his author on stage and screen.
LUCY WORSLEY’S HOLMES VS. DOYLE will stream simultaneously with broadcast and be available on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS app.
I remember The Ipcress File movie starring Michael Caine. The new Ipcress File streaming series is different from both the movie and the novel by Len Deighton. That being said, it is quite interesting for what it is. Great cinematography, acting, period setting, and plot twists. Let me know what you think. Make a comment.
The Ipcress File is available on AcornTV. 6 episodes.
The original “Ipcress File,” based on a novel by Len Deighton, regularly shows up on lists of the best spy films, even though it’s not very good. Pauline Kael called it overwrought and rather silly, a judgment that looks even more apt a half-century on. Its attractions are limited to Caine’s charisma, 1960s London atmosphere (grimy and groovy), some garish energy and a measure of chic sadism (the common link in Caine’s films from that time).
Perhaps it wasn't the best spy movie ever, but I liked it, but I was a big Michael Caine fan at the time. I don't remember all the details of the film which is good because the new Ipcress File TV series is quite different.
Storyline: As the Cold War rages, former smuggler-turned-reluctant spy Harry Palmer finds himself at the center of a dangerous undercover mission, on which he must use his links to find a missing British nuclear scientist.
Rotten Tomatoes says:Slick, stylish, and packing sly nods to present politics,The Ipcress Fileis a classic spy caper with a modern sensibility.
I agree with that.
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The Ipcress File is a British cold warspy thriller television series loosely based on the 1962 novel The IPCRESS File by Len Deighton. Written by John Hodge and directed by James Watkins, it stars Joe Cole, Lucy Boynton and Tom Hollander. It was first broadcast at 9pm from Sunday 6 March to 10 April 2022 on ITV.
Contrary to previous adaptations, the story has been extensively reworked, with plot and some characters radically altered and a lot of new material added, making the TV series significantly different from Deighton's original. The series is also influenced by the 1965 film, most obviously by adopting the "Harry Palmer" and "Jean Courtney" character names coined for the film. Visually, director James Watkins makes several nods to the direction of Sidney J. Furie, with regular use of angled camera work, and in places borrows almost shot-for-shot the framing of certain scenes.
One of the most recognisable homages to the film is during the opening sequence in episode 1, featuring coffee grinding and coffee making, and the very first opening shot of Palmer's glasses. Watkins said "[It was a] little wink ... the gaze is out of focus and then it finds focus when he puts the glasses on." Writing in
The Guardian Stuart Jeffries comments that "this opening reference to 57-year-old movie eyewear is a surprising gambit by director James Watkins and writer John Hodge, given their creative betrayal elsewhere of the source material."
Creative betrayal? Well, that's one way of putting it.
Father Brown, Season 11, starts on Britbox (U.S.) on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 with 2 episodes. Then there will be one episode a week until the end of March. 10 episodes total. As a bonus, Sister Boniface will appear in one of Father Brown's adventures. And, watch out for Flambeau. He's back! Of course, I miss Mrs McCarthy. I feel she made the show, not to mention Lady Felicia and Bunty. Oh well, I'm still very much looking forward to the season.
The new season picks up in 1955 where Chief Inspector Sullivan and Mrs Devine have grown closer since we saw them last. Something which hasn't escaped the notice of Father Brown and Brenda.
With a food fayre to die for, a real life crime at a crime writing festival and a village rivalry that turns deadly at the local Olimpicks, there's plenty for the gang to be busy with. Father Brown and Sister Boniface become embroiled in a murder at an arts and crafts fair, while Brenda takes a trip in time to face ghosts from her past when an old friend, Dr McClurgy, reaches out. Meanwhile Father Brown's frenemy Flambeau returns with his estranged father, Gabriel, in tow and a dangerous mission in mind...
Deadline reported today that the Perry Mason series airing on HBO has been cancelled. There are 2 seasons available, so you can watch those..but there will be no more.
HBO opted not to renew the prequel to the classic series, starring Matthew Rhys and executive produced by Team Downey’s Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey, for a third season. The news comes a month and a half after the Season 2 finale debuted April 24.
From Netflix, "Now in hiding, Assane must learn to live far from his wife and son. With the suffering they endure because of him, Assane can’t stand it any longer and decides to return to Paris to make them a crazy proposal: leave France and start a new life elsewhere. But the ghosts of the past are never far away, and an unexpected return will turn his plans upside down."
RELEASE DATE FOR THE U.K.!! Magpie Murders will premiere in the UK on Thursday, February 10, 2022 on BritBox UK. No release date yet in the US. It will appear on Masterpiece PBS, and hopefully not far behind in 2022!
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Eleventh Hour Films, MASTERPIECE and BritBox UK have unveiled a selection of initial images from the upcoming adaptation of Anthony Horowitz’s acclaimed and best-selling novel Magpie Murders, which wrapped production in London, Suffolk and Ireland last month.
The plot to Magpie Murders revolves around the character Susan Ryeland, played by Lesley Manville (The Crown, Phantom Thread), an editor who is given an unfinished manuscript by best-selling mystery writer Alan Conway (Conleth Hill, Game of Thrones) featuring Conway’s detective Atticus Pünd (Timothy McMullan, Patrick Melrose), and has little idea it will change her life.
Further cast members include Daniel Mays (Line of Duty, Des), Alexandros Logothetis (42°C, The Island), Claire Rushbrook (Whitechapel, My Mad Fat Diary), Matthew Beard (Dracula, And When Did You Last See Your Father?), Pippa Haywood (Bodyguard, Green Wing, Bridgerton) and Michael Maloney (The Crown, The Trial Of Christine Keeler). Produced by Eleventh Hour Films, Magpie Murders is helmed by director Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty, Military Wives, The A Word) and distributed internationally by Sony Pictures Television.
The site posts about all kinds of streaming services' British TV productions, but today I thought I'd post a link from their site for British TV shows on HBOMax, in case you have HBOMax. Comedy, Mystery, Drama, Reality..you name it.. Perhaps their list of British TV shows is not as obvious as those on Acorn, BritBox, and Netflix..
A few Mystery listings on HBOMax:
The Casual Vacancy: Based on JK Rowling's novel.
C.B. Strike (aka Strike): Based on the Cormoran Strike Novels by JK Rowling under the Robert Galbraith pseudonym
DCI Banks
Five Days
Landscapers: A new show: Olivia Colman stars in this miniseries about a mild-mannered woman and
her husband…and the body found in the back garden of their
Nottinghamshire home.
BritBox just announced a new crime series based on the Verlaque & Bonnet novels by M.L. Longworth. I really enjoy her novels, and I'm looking forward to this series.
Murder in Provence is being adapted for TV by Downton Abbey writer Shelagh Stephenson. Roger Allam (DI Fred Thursday from Endeavor) will lead the cast. Also in the cast will be Nancy Carroll (Lady Felicia from Father Brown)
From BritBox: “Murder in Provence follows
Antoine Verlaque (Allam), Investigating Judge in Aix-en-Provence, and
romantic partner Marine Bonnet (Carroll) as they investigate the
murders, mysteries and dark underbelly of their idyllic home.
There will be three 90 minutes episodes that will begin filming in July in the UK and France. The series will launch in 2022.
Longworth has written eight Verlaque & Bonnet novels, the first which is set in Aix-en-Provence: Death at the Chateau.
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M.L. Longworth has written for Mystery Fanfare and Mystery Readers Journal several times. Here's a link to her article on Death at the Chateau. It's a great essay about Aix and her life and research there. Unfortunately there is no free book giveaway any more, as referred to in the article...but you buy her books at your favorite bookstore or find them in the library. Her latest novel in the series, The Vanishing Museum of the Rue Mistral, was just published in April.
Britbox, the BBC and ITV’s joint-venture streamer, has acquired ITV’s John Simm drama Grace for the U.S. and Canada. The service will premiere the drama on April 27.
Told as two feature-length episodes, Grace is an adaptation of Peter James’ Roy Grace crime novels from Endeavour creator Russell Lewis. It is a co-production between Jekyll & Hyde producer Tall Story Pictures, Second Act Productions, and Derren Brown’s Vaudeville Productions.
It is based on James’ first two Roy Grace books Dead Simple and Looking Good Dead,
which introduce Brighton-based Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, a
hard-working police officer who has given his life to the job.
Last Tuesday night our mystery book group discussed a P.D. James novel. P.D. James is one of my favorite authors, and, needless to say, I've read all of her novels -- some more than once. I enjoyed the Roy Marsden portrayal of Adam Dalgliesh in the ITV productions in the 80s and 90s (still available to stream).
Now, Acorn TV and Channel 5 are teaming up to adapt the Dalgliesh stories by P.D. James yet again! James wrote 14 novels featuring Adam Dalgliesh between 1962 and 2008. The first season of the crime drama series will comprise of two-part adaptations of Shroud for a Nightingale, The Black Tower, and A Taste for Death.
Bertie Carvel will play Detective Chief Inspector Dalgliesh. The 43-year-old English actor is best known for his roles in Doctor Foster, The Crown, The Pale Horse, and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Dalgliesh will begin in 1970s England, following Dalgliesh’s career as he solves unusual murders and reveals buried secrets.
Channel 5’s Deputy Director of Programmes, Sebastian Cardwell commented: “P.D. James was one of Britain’s great crime writers and we’re incredibly excited to be creating new adaptations of her work.”
Executive producer Elaine Pyke added: “It’s a great honour to bring these much loved detective mysteries to life for fans of the books but also for new audiences. We are incredibly excited by the talent they are attracting and the opportunity to work with Acorn TV and Channel 5.”
Dalgliesh will premiere in 2021 on Acorn TV in the US and and on Channel 5 in the UK.
Silverprint Pictures is set to adapt Ann Cleeves' new mystery The Long Call for television. The producer has optioned the book which is the first in Cleeves’ new Two Rivers series.
Silverprint previously adapted Cleeves’ Shetland, which has run for five seasons on the BBC, and Brenda Blethyn-fronted Vera, which was recently renewed for a tenth season on ITV.
The book, which is published by Pan Macmillan (Minotaur Books in the U.S.) was just released today. It's set
in North Devon, where the author spent her teenage years. It follows the
reserved and complex Detective Inspector Matthew Venn, as well as an
ensemble of characters, evoking the stark beauty of the North Devon
coastline, and a community where murder and intrigue bubble just beneath
the surface.
The opening of The Long Call has Detective Matthew Venn standing outside the church as his estranged father’s funeral takes place. When he left the strict, evangelical community he grew up in, he lost his family, too. But a call to investigate a murdered body found on the beach nearby soon brings Matthew back to the people and places of his past. What he discovers there will force Matthew’s new life into a collision course with the world he thought he’d left behind.
I loved the book. It's such a wonderful addition to Cleeves' oeuvre. Totally gripping! Can't wait to see it on screen.
Coming soon to Masterpiece! on PBS: New seasons of Endeavor and Grantchester!
Endeavour, Season 6, premieres Sunday, June 16, 2019, 9/8c on MASTERPIECE on PBS.
Shaun Evans charms audiences with his portrayal of the cerebral and solitary Detective Constable Morse in Endeavour, written by Inspector Lewis creator and Inspector Morse writer Russell Lewis.
In Endeavour, Season 6, Shaun Evans has a new look as DS Endeavour Morse. The latest installment of Endeavour is set in 1969. Evans will also be putting his directorial mark on the show, heading behind the camera for the second 90-minute episode of the season.
Endeavour will also be facing new challenges, with Morse having started a new role as a uniformed officer at the Woodstock police department and embracing the fashion of the period by growing a mustache.
Alongside Evans, the new series will see celebrated stage and screen actor Roger Allam return as DI Fred Thursday, alongside Anton Lesser as CS Reginald Bright, Sean Rigby as DS Jim Strange, James Bradshaw as Dr Max DeBryn, Sara Vickers as Joan Thursday, Abigail Thaw as Dorothea Frazil and Caroline O’Neill as Win Thursday.
Following the dissolution of the Oxford City Police and the merging with Thames Valley Constabulary at the end of the last season, the new season picks up with the team dispersed as they find their feet in their various new roles.
Grantchester Season 4 premieres Sunday, July 14, 2019, 9/8c on MASTERPIECE on PBS.
Grantchester returns to MASTERPIECE with a new vicar: Tom Brittney (Outlander, Call the Midwife) who joins the cast of Season 4 as Reverend Will Davenport — man of the people and crime-solving partner to Robson Green’s Geordie Keating in 1950s Grantchester. James Norton, who plays the charismatic, jazz-loving clergyman Sidney Chambers, makes his final appearance during the series.
Confident, caring and self-assured, Grantchester’s new young parish priest channels his boundless energy into a quest for social justice. He is a man of God, but with the devil inside of him. As Geordie draws him into righting the wrongs of criminal Cambridge, Will’s own troubled past is unearthed.
About his character, Brittney says, “Will has a very strong moral compass with a thirst to change things, but underneath, there is a dark and troubled past that drives him in what he does.”
BESTSELLING crime author Peter James has announced that his popular
fictional Brighton detective Roy Grace will be on TV screens next year.
He was speaking at the official launch of his latest Roy Grace book
Dead At First Sight, the 15th in the series, at the Palm Court
restaurant on Brighton Palace Pier. Guests at the event included fellow crime writer Martina Cole, Brighton and Hove Mayor Dee Simson and Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne.
Mr James told the hundreds of guests he is “very excited” about the development. He said: “I can’t say too much about it but it’s being written by one
of the best crime writers in the TV industry and it’s being produced by
an old mate of mine.” Mr James said he was unable even to reveal the name of the TV company.
Peter James has 13 Sunday Times number ones under his belt, has achieved global
book sales of more than 19 million copies to date and has been
translated into 37 languages.
Starz acquired from Fremantle the eight-episode drama series Dublin Murders, adapted from Tana French’s novels In the Woods and The Likeness (both available from Penguin Books). Killian Scott (C.B. Strike) and Sarah Greene (Penny Dreadful) lead the cast as detectives Rob Reilly and Cassie Maddox. Production is underway in Belfast and Dublin.
Dublin Murders follows Rob Reilly (Scott) – a smart-suited detective whose English accent marks him as an outsider – who is dispatched to investigate the murder of a young girl on the outskirts of Dublin with his partner, Cassie Maddox (Greene). Against his better judgment and protected by his friendship with Cassie, he is pulled back into another case of missing children and forced to confront his own darkness. As the case intensifies, Rob and Cassie’s relationship is tested to the breaking point and when Cassie is sent undercover for another murder case, she is forced to come face to face with her own brutal reckoning.
Dublin Murders will air on Starz in the U.S. and Canada as well as StarzPlay in Germany, France, Italy and Spain in 2019.
Here's a Round-Up of some upcoming Mystery Movies, TV shows, and other media.
Lawrence Kasdan to Script & Direct Adaptation of Lou Berney's November Road. DEADLINE. Though the past several years have left Lawrence Kasdan focused in space writing Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Solo: A Star Wars Story,
Kasdan will now focus on the period surrounding the JFK assassination.
Kasdan has made a six-figure acquisition of the film rights to November Road, the upcoming novel from Edgar Award-winning author Lou Berney. The novel is just being published by William Morrow HarperCollins.
The Women Crime Writers with the Most Film Adaptations by Molly Odintz. CRIMEREADS While the world at large bemoans the lack
of opportunity for women directors, Hollywood has never felt the same
reluctance when it comes to female novelists, happily assigning the
biggest directors of the era to tackle complex subjects and reinterpret
them in filmic code. It’s easy to forget how many films have been
adapted from works by women writers, given how frequently the textual
basis for famous films has been allowed to go out of print.
Stephen King is King of Hollywood Right Now. QUARTZY This time it’s the second remake of the horror maestro’s novel Pet Sematary,
about a family that moves to a home in the woods where they discover an
ancient burial ground that can reanimate the dead. The story was first
adapted in a 1989 film directed by Mary Lambert.
Death on the Nile cast. JANUARY MAGAZINE Israeli actress Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) has joined the cast of Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile, his film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1937 Hercule Poirot novel. The movie is set for release in December 2019.
Liam Neeson & Kate Walsh to Star in Honest Thief. DEADLINE Career bank robber Tom Carter (Neeson) meets the love his life in Annie
(Walsh), who works at the front desk of a storage facility where he hid
$7 million in stolen loot. They fall head over heels, and he resolves to
wipe the slate clean by turning himself in. When the case is turned
over to a crooked FBI agent, everything becomes far more dangerous and
difficult.
BBC renews Strike for another series. KILLINGTIMES There was much frothing of the mouth when it was announced that the BBC
was to adapt Robert ‘JK Rowling’ Galbraith’s best-selling Cormoran
Strike novels for TV and through eight episodes and the first three of
Rowling’s Strike novels, we were introduced to a comfortingly familiar
lone detective (played by Tom Burke) and his assistant Robin (Holliday
Grainger). They got better as the episodes ticked by, and the hope was
that the BBC would produce more of them. Rowling’s latest Strike novel – Lethal White – is on its way, as is a four-part adaptation.
Want to find out way more about what's happening in the world of Mystery Movies, TV, and other Media? Don't miss B.V. Lawson's In Reference to Murder, especially Media Murder for Monday.
The BBC is adapting the Nigel Strangeways novel The Beast Must Die written by Nicholas Blake, the nom de
plume of poet Cecil Day-Lewis, that was first
published in 1938.
The BBC adaptation is being written by Gaby Chiappe, who wrote the Gemma Arterton feature film Their Finest and has written on a number of British crime dramas including ITV’s The Level and Vera as well as BBC’s Shetland.
It is being set up as a series, likely to be five or six episodes, and
is set to be exec produced by Nathaniel Parker, the actor known the lead
role in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.
The series could turn into a long-running franchise for the BBC as Blake/Day Lewis wrote 16 books featuring the detective.
The Beast Must Die has been adapted for the big screen a number
of times over the years including in 1969 as an Italian thriller
directed by Claude Chabrol and in 1952 as an Argentine thriller directed
by Roman Vinoly Barreto.
I can't wait for the Netflix launch (May 10) of Harlan Coben's Safe. I posted about this before, but wanted to give you a heads up of where to watch in the US.
I really enjoy Harlan Coben's books, and I've enjoyed the translations into TV series. Now we have another series, this one a UK series but with Michael C. Hall at the center of the production.
Like his new TV thriller “Safe,”
they are efficient suspense delivery systems, and any deficiencies in
character development are usually overshadowed by the satisfying
tick-tock nature of the plot and the interlocking mysteries threatening
upscale people who find themselves spiraling into trouble. Safe,
Coben’s second foray into TV after the U.K. series The Five, has a
mostly British cast, and takes place in a luxury gated community in the
English suburbs. At the center of this drama, however, is Michael C. Hall,
an American actor who speaks here with a British accent. This will be
jarring for viewers who watched him on “Six Feet Under” and “Dexter”:
It’s hard to get Dexter Morgan’s flat American pronunciation out of your
head as you watch Hall play a middle-class English surgeon.
Hall’s attempt at an English accent is reasonably successful, even if
it sounds a bit forced at times.
The good news is Safe is a
plot-driven drama that doesn’t rely all that much on extensive
conversation, and what dialogue it does have is workmanlike at best. But
in its first two episodes, it delivers on what it promises in its taut
opening scenes: It’s a slick portrait of one man’s descent into a
nightmare, one that threatens to damage the fragile connections within
several families. It’s essentially a propulsive nighttime soap opera
littered with crimes, well-appointed kitchens, and surveillance cameras
everywhere. Read the rest of the Variety review here.
Harlan Coben's 'Safe' on Netflix; 8 episodes Netflix launch date, May 10
Executive producers, Harlan Coben, Danny Brocklehurst, Richard Fee, Nicola Shindler, Michael C. Hall.
Cast: Michael C. Hall, Audrey Fleurot, Amanda Abbington, Marc Warren, Emmet J. Scanlan, Hannah Arterton, Nigel Lindsay, Laila Rouass.
China Mieville's speculative thriller The City & The City was one of my favorite books when it came out in 2009. Now BBC 2 brings it to TV. I can't even imagine how they filmed this to show all the nuances of this amazing book, but I'd love to see the production. Hope we get this in the U.S. soon. Broadcast in the UK begins this week. Thanks to Ali Karim for the heads-up.
