This marked the end of the Roy Marsden/Adam Dalgliesh series that ran from 1983 to 1998, and it is not a bad adaptation to finish off on. For a start it features Penny Downie, ten years after her appearance in A Taste For Death in 1988 (hurrah!). It also features the character Kate Miskin (double hurrah!). However, inexplicably Downie is playing a completely different character, while Miskin is played by Sarah Winman. Even more peculiarly Downie is reunited by A Taste For Death co-star Matthew Marsh, here playing the extravagantly named Drysdale Laud. What was it about A Taste For Death that saw casting agents plunder their cast for future adaptations, I wonder?
As it is, Downie is on good form here as Venetia Aldridge, a barrister who is in the middle of a murder case where her young client Gary Ashe (Ricci Harnett) is accused of murdering his aunt, who ran her house as a "place of ill repute" (so to speak). Yet the story is less concerned about whether he is innocent or guilty (there's little doubt about that), but on Venetia herself, who from the opening credits we learn that she has ten days before she will be murdered, demonstrated by a old chap pasting newspaper cuttings in a scrapbook detailing her death. It's an intriguing opening and from then on we watch as we see how her life unfolds and enemies are made, knowing that she is soon to die. Wonderfully, the makers have finally gone back to what made the series so compelling by letting us get to know not only Venetia and her personality, but her work colleagues at the London Chambers and what some may have against her. She discovers that fellow barrister Simon Costello accepted a backhander from his client to ignore nobbling of jury members in a case and threatens to ruin him. Costello is married to colleague Desmond Ulrick's niece Lois, so he also has an interest in this. Married MP Mark Rawlestone is having an affair with her, but wants to call it off as his wife is now pregnant, while Matthew Marsh's character Drysdale Laud wants to be elected as the next Head of Chambers, but knows if Venetia covets the job he will likely lose out. She calls on his help because she is disturbed to discover that Gary Ashe - the lad she is able to get off for his aunt's murder - is now dating her dipstick of a daughter Octavia and wants to buy him off. When Drysdale refuses to help, she threatens to block his appointment as Head of Chambers, leading to yet another suspect who may of wanted her out of the way.
Yet there are others who unbeknownst to her may have secret reasons of her own to seek revenge. For Venetia, what interests her about law is not about guilt or innocence, it is the flaws of "legal justice" and how she can pick holes in her opponents' case against her clients to convince the jury to believe her side of the argument. It matters little about truth and whether her client is guilty or innocent and more about winning a case, and subsequently there is the possibility that someone from a former case may be looking to seek revenge. Could the secretary Valerie Caldwell, cleaner Mrs Carpenter or even porter Harry Naughton (Porridge's 'Orrible Ives himself, Ken Jones) be a viper in the bosom of the legal chambers (if, indeed, it needs any?). There's some irony that Venetia is disturbed by the prospect of Gary Ashe hanging around her daughter, knowing what he is like, but having made him a free man just by her "principles" of law. The phrase "hoisted by her own petard" comes to mind. Yet despite this, she is not a unlikable character and because of the time taken to set the stall of the case before the murder you actually care about what happens to the character, and sum up the other suspects with a bit more depth.
Dalgliesh comes late into this mystery, called in after Venetia is found dead in her office chair, stabbed and wearing a wig with blood poured over her head - and not her own blood either! That belongs to Desmond Ulrick, who keeps a pint of his own in the Chamber fridge in case of emergencies for an operation he is due to have (as you do). Dalgliesh is, as mentioned, assisted by Kate Miskin, now played by Sarah Winman. Although still not a patch on Downie, Winman is still far more appealing than Lizzie McInnery's portrayal in Original Sin, and although she may also be rather 'official' sometimes in the role, she is a warmer character and has a better rapport with Dalgliesh. As to the suspects, some work better than others as you try to work out who could of "done it." Ian McNeice is flamboyant as Desmond Ulrick with a regular witty aside or scathing comment, while Matthew Marsh and Miles Anderson are both suitably shifty and smarmy as Drysdale Laud and the New Labour MP Mark Rawlestone. In one telling and amusing moment when presenting a united front with his wife to Dalgliesh, while at the same time lambasting rumours about him and Venetia, he asks "Surely there is a limit to hypocracy?" "I haven't found one," replies Dalgliesh witheringly. Less successful is Richard Huw as Simon Costello, who is so hopelessly nerdy you cannot possibly take him seriously as a potential killer (though that doesn't mean it isn't him, I may add). Far more likely is his wife Lois (Nina Marc), niece of Ulrick, who knows their cushy life and ambitions could disappear if Venetia reports him. However, she has sadly few scenes to set that argument for the audience. The more intriguing characters are the ones who do not seemingly have a motive, such as the slightly sinister Edmund Froggatt (Philip Stone), who inspired Venetia's love of law, and the Chamber cleaner Mrs Carpenter (Britta Smith), who heard someone in the Chamber toilets the night Venetia was murdered and who may know more than she lets on. The best out of them all in this group is Frederick Treves as Herbert St John Langton, Head of Chambers, who has a gap in his alibi because he has recently begun to forget things. The scene with him and Dalgliesh in the Crypt is nicely done and Treves gives a lovely understated performance.
However, one big, noisy problem in this adaptation is the character of Gary Ashe, who is so much a part of this murder mystery. From the beginning with his trial to the determined seduction of Venetia's idiot student daughter Octavia and then moving in with her after her mother's murder, Ashe is there throughout. Although Ricci Harnett's portrayal is certainly sinister as the disturbed Ashe, his character is utterly unlikable. Indeed, it's incredible to think that Octavia (played by the lovely looking Flora Montgomery) would be so easily swept off her feet by this charmless nark just because he fakes a fall from his bike outside her place. Octavia is so dim that even when he starts displaying psychotic behaviour, such as pasting the walls with magazine cutouts or threatening a young lad with a knife, she still sees very little wrong with him. This mystery is quite enjoyable when he is off the screen, but when he is on it he ruins the whole mood of it, despite the fact his character is crucial in some ways to the plot. And sadly he dominates the last episode as he and Octavia ride off on his motorbike to search for his former childhood hideout, and along with some genuinely unpleasant moments he just emanates a grim and depressing mood on the whole adaptation. While much of this mystery is 1980's form, he is very much a 1998's product bulldozing his way through the production.
Overall, for the most part this is a mystery very much reminiscent of the "old" P. D. James adaptations, and if it had just stuck to the Chamber murder and it's occupants this would of earned a 7/10 rating. But whenever the character of Gary Ashe appears he just dominates and depresses the production, especially in the final episode. It may not end satisfactorily for some viewers either regarding the murder of Venetia, but when it is able to just focus on her murder case this mystery can be quite enjoyable for the viewer. And at least it goes back to establishing the characters and events building up to the murder, which made P. D. James mysteries so compelling to watch in their pomp. It's just a pity that for much of this the mystery is so dominated by Ashe.
