Jemima Shore Investigates

I saw some episodes when they were originally broadcast and vaguely remembered them being disappointing but times are hard these days in the search for mystery drama that I haven't seen a dozen times before so I thought I would revisit this one on the grounds that, whatever my memory, anything with Patricia Hodge can't be totally bad.

Miss Hodge is indeed a delight, as ever; not just for looking and sounding heavenly (even when wearing some of the more frightful 80s fashions - it's the frills and ruffs I can't stand) but because she does have true star acting ability that commands attention without any apparent effort.

But that is it on the plus side.

To say the plots are weak is over generous; simplistic, trite, and sometimes barely a plot is more like it. There is an almost total lack of momentum to the stories and an overall feel of watching a school play written and directed by 11-year-olds but acted by an embarrassed and bored staff.

The patently minuscule budget doesn't help but many a low budget project has produced much better than this.

I suspect the root cause is that Antonia Fraser is a lousy writer but so well connected that nobody dared do a radical adaptation of the books to turn them into something decent.

Jemima Shore is a popular tv interviewer, one who deals with hot topics and controversial figures, she also finds time for amateur sleuthing.

A twelve part series from ITV, unfortunately it ran for just a single series. ITV viewers would have seen Jemima Shore prior to A Splash of Red, the character appeared in Quiet as a Nun, part of The Armchair Thriller series, only there the character was played by Maria Aitken.

Patricia Hodge of course stars as Jemima, and she is quite wonderful, a great actress and perfect for the part, she is sophisticated, elegant and very beautiful. Expect long and meaningful stares to the camera, stares seen only by Doctor Sam Ryan in Silent Witness, there are perhaps too many of them. Each week Jemima has a new chap, she's like a female Morse.

A series of mysteries, some are whodunnits, but each has suspense and intrigue. All bar one, A Model Murder deal with the middle classes, it's a high brow affair, so expect 80's glamour, lots of tweed, high collars, dinner parties and crystal wine glasses.

I can see from other reviews that the show isn't for everyone, on the whole I really did enjoy it, however there is a big variety in quality, the standout episodes for me were The Damask Collection and The case of The Dancing Duchess, both were excellent, Doctor Ziegler's Casebook was poor and Cha!ber of Horrors was dire.

Expect plenty of well known faces, you'll see Tom Baker, Larry Lamb, Bill Nighy and Constance Cummings, the standout performance for me was Hugh Burden in The Dancing Duchess, that was also my favourite episode.

A shame there was just one series, there was more mileage here.

8/10.