3 out of 5

Created by: David Wolstencraft

The twisty-turny murder mystery mini-series – often with an especially noteworthy – or, on the flip-side, ruinously discredited – lawyer or detective as narrative anchor has been a BBC stock-in-trade for a while.  And lately David Tennant seems to be in quite a few of them, which is fine as he brings a believable common-man approach to roles along with the acting flexibility to make ranges in emotion – from unhinged to calculatingly brilliant – achievable.  The success of these minis is always going to be based on a multitude of factors beyond just story and actors – overly flashly or too-dry direction can raise or lower the standard; too short or too long of a timeframe can do the same; and over-reliance on an It factor is a killer for any type of media – in the minis, it tends to be reliance on withholding the whodunnit until a flash of last-minute reversals.

‘The Escape Artist’ is a bit too short, packing almost all of its information into its middle (and least compelling) chapter, and its all about withheld information.  But there’s a nice little shift that makes its 1st and 3rd episode end-pieces thrilling: that the crime at its core is almost incidental.  There are lingering questions of who was actually involved and dot dot dot, but by keeping the story focus more on Tennant’s barrister Will Burner’s trial (heyo) and tribulations, we get a character drama overtop some nefarious murders.  (Generally it’ s the other way around but pretends to be a character drama anyway.)

Toby Kebbell is the creepy Liam Foyle, who collects birds and maybe also kills people.  Foyle is uniformly slimy; while the mini never explicitly states that YES HE DID THESE THINGS – and lets the lawyer’s arguments give us doubt about what we may think or see – the character is still scripted to be totes evil.  Toby plays him primarily one shade, which is just a slightly different shade of the weirdo he played in Rocknrolla, so the jury (jesus christ) is still out on his abilities, but series director Brian Walsh and writer Wolstencraft didn’t seem to push for much more.  In episode one, Burner helps get Foyle off of some dastardly charges by working some technicalities.  But maybe he should’ve tried to hide his dislike of his client, as the tables turn: Burner’s wife is murdered and Will sees Liam at the scene.  Thus Liam is back on trial… this time represented by Will’s rival, who uses the same slippery techniques to argue for Foyle’s innocence.

Episode 2 goes a bit too full-steam-ahead with its procedural nature as names of characters we’re only half-introduced to are frequently dropped and Will’s mind kicks into overdrive as to how to set things right, dribbling legal jargon in the same rapid-fire fashion.  It doesn’t quite translate to the thrills I think the creators were intending; I would rather have spread this out over two episodes and allowed Liam and Maggie Gardner (that rival, played by Sophie Okonedo) to develop more fully as characters.  Maggie in particular gets the ‘this character here’ holding spot in the series, as her motivations are a little cloudy and seem to fluctuate to match a needed tone, especially as things are wrapping up.

But if you’re going to get one thing right, it should be the centerpieces, and Will and his son, Jamie, have a very real presence on the screen; very natural, very believable, both responding to events realistically, thus making the tragedy and response that much more impactful.  And Walsh and cinematographer David Higgs) do a good job of finding a palette that works well for all scenes – day is day, night is night, cold is cold and warm is warm – and the camera captures events with a spring in its step but maintains a responsible tone throughout.

By slightly shifting our focus away from the twists and turns, ‘The Escape Artist’ climbs to one rung above the norm, with no little amount of thanks to David Tennant’s abilities in carrying his character.  It has its hiccups, but moves past them with a learned grace.

Yes, ‘calculatingly brilliant’ is an emotion.