Recent television: Das Boot, Murder in Provence

Das Boot

Last Friday saw the final programme in the third series of this Anglo-German production inspired by the excellent film made in the 90s.

It’s sympathies very much lay with the boat and its team.

In the penultimate episode the Royal Navy captain Swinburne who pursues the U boat with a Moby Dick zeal is outwitted by being lured in to its capture and – with most of the crew in the water – a torpedo is fired sinking the Royal Naval destroyer.

Captain Swinburne takes his life by diving into the deep.

The final episode wraps up the many-stranded plot.

I won’t spoil the plot as nowadays as many viewers – if not most – stream, rather than (like me, weaned on the radio crime drama Paul Temple by Francis Durbridge) wait excitedly for the next episode.

The Gestapo officer Geise is written out.

I sometimes wonder how the actor feels in such circumstances, recalling another great comedian of my youth – Tony Hancock.

In a spoof of the Archers – The Bowmen – Hancock is written out, only to return with a machine gun to wipe out the whole village.

Clearly there will be a fourth series of Das Boot and I will be riveted once again.

 

Murder in Provence

I was less enthusiastic about this Sunday night ITV drama.

We were promised lush scenes of Provence and lead Roger Allam is a fine actor whom I remember best in La Cage aux Folles.

Here he plays an examining magistrate called to a chateau where an aristocrat has fallen out of a window.

Was he pushed?

His brother is suspected, but he dies too.

My problem is with modern production values which requires a minimum of diversity.

Thus the gardien of the chateau – Jean Claude – was played by a black actor with a midland accent.

All this rather rendered the Provence depiction harder to assimilate and believe.

Roger Allam is incapable of acting badly, but I had a simulate credibility issue with him as he did not seem that French.

At two hours it rather dragged too.