No Sex Please, We're British
Birmingham Evening Mail, 12 March 2001
By Graham Young
ANOTHER week, another new police drama. This time we get two coppers for the price of one thanks to this adaptation of the novels of Elizabeth George. In tonight's story, The Great Deliverance, a famer has been murdered on the remote Yorkshire Moors. Yet Geoge is an American who lives in California and dares to set her police stories in Britain. This means that she irritates some critics by getting her procedures wrong and they say her characters have a tendency to lapse into Californian psychobabble in moments of stress.
Two years ago, The Times produced a definitive list called '100 masters of crime' and George was on it with the verdict that 'although the structure of her novels often echoes that of the traditional whodunnit, she is a natural storyteller with the knack of generating tension. Her best writing packs considerable emotional impact'.
Nathaniel Parker plays Thomas Lynley, an aristocratic inspector educated at Oxford - the murder capital of the world according to Inspector Morse! DS Barbara Havers (Sharon Small) is from the other side of the human coin, a more down to earth character not dissimilar to Pauline Quirke's Maisie. Sparks fly and feathers are ruffled but, instead of resolving itself in romance, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries attempt to steer off into more interesting human territory.
Elizabeth George says: 'The dynamic between the two characters is not one of sexual attraction, rather, I was trying to set up an antithesis.
'Lynley is from a posh background with a posh voice, educated at Oxford, with a title and money.
'Havers is from a poor background, and she's had to fight for everything she's got. Needless to say, they have huge preconceptions about each other - what I'm interested in is how they start to discover their common ground through police work.'
George says that there's more to Lynley, though, than a silver spoon in his mouth.
'I conceived him as a compassionate man. He is instinctive and empathetic and has a tendency to allow his emotions to turn into passions, which can blind him to the real issues of the case. He also lets his personal life cloud his judgement.
'That's why Havers is a good partner for him. She's the opposite extreme - always objective, lacking in empathy. It's a working partnership based on checks and balances.'
Parker is the son of former British Rail chairman Sir Peter Parker and, in recent years, he's starred in Vanity Fair, McCallum and Far From The Madding Crowd. He says he felt an immediate kinship with the character of the privately-wealthy earl who chooses to work as a police officer.
'Nobody who works with Lynley believes that he can be serious about his career, because he just doesn't need to work.
'They assume he's a dilettante, a hobby policeman. It's an understandable response - if you're an earl, why be a copper?
'I've had the same sort of thing, even though I'm not as posh as Lynley is. So I know why they cast me - I can get that upper class feeling across, and some of the baggage that goes with it.
'I can also do a convincing rugby tackle and knock a few heads together if called upon.'
The Barbara Havers of the novels is an overweight, physically unattractive woman. Sharon Small, her screen incarnation, was petite and beautiful in Glasgow Kiss and Sunburn. Before she was accepted for this role, she was asked about her attitude to vanity, but Small says she was delighted to get rid of the make-up.
'It's a relief not to be under pressure to look good,' she says.
'This role is a complete contrast to Glasgow Kiss in which I wore a lot of make-up and sexy clothes.
'My clothes here are hideous and none of them are my own! They are all mismatched colours and shapeless - the sort of clothes you can hide in.
'I'd love to say they made me look really rough, but, sadly, it's all my own work. I've got quite sharp features and it's easy for me to look grumpy.'
The story concludes at 8.45pm tomorrow and more adventures are on their way.
