Robert Lindsay is Jericho - Memorable TV News and Features

Australia... ABC Network starts Sunday 11 June 2006 @ 8.30pm

Like an evening spent in a smoky Soho Jazz club, new detective drama Jericho positively drips with the flavours of the late 1950's. With its pukka opening titles and theme music that are remeniscent of an episode of Edgar Lustgarten's Scotland Yard and oodles of period detail the show more than presses all the right buttons for classic Sunday evening crime entertainment.

Robert Lindsay, who apart from the lacklustre My Family, has scarcely put a foot wrong throughout his career is on fine form as Detective Inspector Michael Jericho, playing with a suitably laconic appeal that really suits the era, in 1958 of course the police were still very much seen as figures of authority and Jericho has a very confident air about him, quite happy to kick a door in where necessary but not the kind of copper who is quick to violence, Jericho actually has something of a troubled past, revealed in the second episode The Killing of Johnny Swan, involving his father, also a copper.

Jericho has a pair of assistants in the shape of solid Sergeant Clive Harvey (the brilliant David Troughton) and new boy DC John Caldicott (Ciaran McMenamin) and plotwise the series manages to combine classic murder mystery with some interesting segue ways on life in Britain in the 1950's, the first episode looks at the race issues then prevelent in Britain with the arrival of large numbers of West Indians and the second episode is sports led, focusing on a Roger Bannister-Chris Chataway style team of runners.

Certainly recommended viewing.

EPISODE ONE - A PAIR OF RAGGED CLAWS
Distinguished Detective Inspector Michael Jericho is revered by the public and colleagues for his expertise in crime solving.

But the Scotland Yard officer is uncomfortable in the celebrity spotlight. He grimaces at newspaper headlines hailing him a hero, and at his picture splashed across the cover of a best selling magazine.

Jericho’s quest is not for notoriety, but ridding crime from the streets of London.

It is 1958 and ugly racism is rife in the capital. Roy Marlowe, a young Jamaican is found brutally murdered in the street. Jericho, and his loyal colleague and friend, Detective Sergeant Clive Harvey (David Troughton) are sent to investigate the killing.

At the bus depot where Marlowe worked it quickly emerges that he was the victim of racism. Jericho discovers that Marlow had had a fight with fellow worker, Albert Hall (Alfie Allen). Office girl Dawn Masters (Brooke Kinsella) seems particularly disturbed by the news of Marlowe’s death. Does she know more than she is saying?

The investigation is interrupted when Assistant Commissioner Graham Cherry (Nicholas Jones) summons Jericho to investigate the mystery disappearance of wealthy businessman Sir Nicholas Wellesley (Michael Fenner). His wife Lady Clare (Francesca Annis), and their children Anne (Natalie Lunghi) and Edward (Tom Burke) have received a ransom note from kidnappers claiming to be holding Sir Nicholas. They have asked for Jericho to deal with the case personally. This leaves Jericho’s rival Detective Inspector Ed Keegan (Rupert Farley) to take on the murder case.

Sundays @ 8.30pm on the ABC.

Robert Lindsay Interview Here and ten Jericho facts here.