The Dark; The Piano

“Well, this is tartan noir – you’d hardly expect a custard-pie fight. Instead, we had exactly what you’d imagine from an ancestor of Rebus and Messiah: gloom, a twisted killer on the loose, more gloom, a tenacious but troubled detective, an extra dram of sorrow, and bodies found on windswept Highlands moors…It doesn’t feel very summery, this. An adaptation of GR Halliday’s From the Shadows, the first novel in the DI Kennedy series, it would seem more suited to being watched on a dreich January night, the wind rattling your windows, which is perhaps why I found it hard to warm to in a heatwave.”
James Jackson, The Times

“Alongside the style and confidence that already marks it out from the formulaic ITV herd is Kennedy herself. I didn’t know how ready I was to have a female detective who has her childcare arrangements sorted (a grandma! Who doesn’t even have early dementia! Played by Stella Gonet!) and a backstory that comprises more than the struggle against working-single-mum guilt and a useless husband. Tantalising hints of Kennedy’s past are provided by the local residents she meets and interviews, who seem to remember her pregnancy a few years ago with a strange degree of interest, and by the woman who seems set on returning the child to her father. Which is all of a gothic keeping with the thing, and for once thickens rather than distracts from the main plot.”
Lucy Stevens, The Guardian

“The decor at The Thistle Moor, a bleak Scottish hostelry in The Dark, is heavily reliant on taxidermy: stags’ heads on the walls, weasels fighting under glass domes, that kind of thing. But it’s the bear by the entrance that lets us know this is not a pub for soft southerners. The white wine is several degrees warmer than the welcome. Nothing about The Dark will leave you anxious to book a weekend break in the Highlands. Unlike BBC1’s Shetland, whose spectacular photography has boosted the islands’ visitor numbers by 50 per cent, this six-part thriller makes its remote rural setting look as brutally cold and damp as it is murderous. But for fans of nasty noir, it’s as fierce and satisfying as neat malt whisky.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Just when it all starts to feel too contrived, there will be a story and a performance that either breaks your heart or makes it swell. Charlotte found solace in music while supporting her husband, Charlie, through his stage four cancer diagnosis and was keeping the show on the road for their children. Desperately sad, the episode served as a tribute to Charlie and his lovely family. The story moved me to tears, as did Grace, who had lost her legs and the fingers on both hands to sepsis after contracting meningitis as a young child. Refusing to be held back and admirably devoid of self-pity, she taught herself to play the piano via YouTube tutorials, and her performance was wonderful.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph