Van Der Valk (ITV 2020, Marc Warren, Maimie McCoy)

In this crime drama series Piet Van Der Valk and his team investigate crime on the streets of Amsterdam. Van Der Valk’s team also includes his right hand woman Lucienne Hassell, tech expert and newbie to the team Job Cloovers and Sergeant Brad De Vries. Van Der Valk’s boss is Chief Commissaris Julia Dahlman. The other regular is gruff, no-nonsense hard drinking pathologist Henrik Davie.

Van Der Valk had been a major hit for ITV on it’s original run between 1972 and 1977 (and a short revival in 1992) with Barry Foster in the title role. So much so that the theme tune scored a number one on the UK pop charts. Major changes from the seventies series saw Van Der Valk foot loose and fancy free rather than the happily married character of the seventies show. In fact he sleeps with one of the main suspects in the opening story. In a somewhat quirky move Van Der Valk lives on a boat.

The theme music contains a nice little liet motif nod to the original series tune Eye Level by the Simon Park Orchestra.

Interestingly Amsterdam, which of course is a central figure in the series, doesn’t look overly different from the seventies series, updated vehicles and so on but the cityscape looks timeless.

production details
UK / ITV – ARD – All3Media – NL Film & TV / 3×90 minute episodes / Broadcast 26 April – 10 May 2020

Characters: Nicholas Freeling / Music: Matthijs Kieboom / Writer: Chris Murray / Producer: Keith Thompson / Executive Producers: Michele Buck, Chris Murray, Louise Pedersen, David Swetman, Sebastian Lueckel,

cast
Marc Warren as Piet Van Der Valk
Maimie McCoy as Lucienne Hassell
Luke Allen-Gale as Brad De Vries
Elliot Barnes-Worrell as Job Cloovers
Darrell D’Silva as Hendrik Davie
Emma Fielding as Julia Dahlman