UNEARTHING SECRETS (UNFORGOTTEN, SERIES 1)

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There's something oddly comforting about the first series of ITV's 'Unforgotten'.

A police procedural in the classic mould, the Chris Lang penned and Andy Wilson directed series goes about its business with not too much fuss.

There are no shootouts, no high octane car chases or pounding music.

It's not addicted to delivering twist after twist like Jed Mercurio's 'Line of Duty' or 'Bodyguard'.

Series one of 'Unforgotten' is just a solidly made, painstakingly crafted police thriller about the hard graft of cold case investigations.

Even the no nonsense way it begins sets the tone.

We are catapulted straight into the discovery of a skeleton in the cellar of a building undergoing demolition in London.

At first Nicola Walker's DCI Cassie Stuart and Sanjeev Bhaskar's DI Sunny Khan are not sure how long it has been there and are not ruling out the possibility the body is a thousand year old.

However the discovery of a car key confirms it could be within the past 65 years.

Foul play is suspected as the skeleton suggests the victim received a blow to the head.

Eventually Cassie and Sunny's hard work pays off and the trail leads them to the discovery of a diary that identifies the body as being missing person, Harley Alexander-Sule's Jimmy Sullivan from Liverpool.

Forensics uncover a list of names in the diary with some telephone numbers, giving Cassie, Sunny and their diligent team of cold case detectives something to sink their teeth into.

This leads them to Ruth Sheen's Lizzie Wilton, a woman married to Brian Bovell's football coach Ray Wilton who is active in the Afro Carribbean community but she harbours a shameful secret from her past.

Trevor Eve's magnate Sir Philip Cross is being lined up by the Government as a Business Tsar but the case threatens to expose his dodgy East End past.

Tom Courtenay and Gemma Jones' Eric and Claire Slater have retired to Ely in Cambridgeshire but he is wheelchair bound and she is suffering from dementia.

Bernard Hill's Anglican priest Father Robert Greaves is juggling with some discrepancies in the parish accounts when the cold case team comes his way.

All of them have connections to the London circles that Jimmy Sullivan moved in and the reopening of the investigation sends tremors through their family lives.

Lang's no frills approach enables a talented cast to inhabit their characters, revel in their evasiveness and gradually strip away deception after deception until the killer is eventually revealed.

Hill, Eve, Sheen, Jones and Courtenay are excellent as the prime suspects.

Novell, Hannah Gordon as the wife of Father Robert, Cherie Lunghi as Shirley Cross, Dominic Power and Adam Astill as the Slaters' sons Les and Matt, Zoe Telford and Tom Austen as Bella and Josh Cross, Claire Goose and Tamsin Malleson as Ellie and Caroline Greaves provide solid support.

Ade Oyefeso impresses as Curtis, a teenager from a troubled home in a tower block who Brian coaches on the football team and Lizzie takes under her wing, making it her person Al mission to help him fulfil his academic potential.

Tessa Peake Jones pops up as a volunteer in Father Robert's parish centre and David Troughton as his boss in the diocese.

Frances Tomelty has a touching role as Jimmy Sullivan's long grieving Irish mum who is just looking for closure.

Of all the suspects, Courtenay and Sheen probably steal the most thunder.

However 'Unforgotten' thrives because of Walker and Bhaskar's understated lead performances.

They make an endearing detective pairing - eschewing the usual histrionics of flawed police series heroess and coming across as genuinely decent and believable.

The glimpses we get of Cassie's home life with her father, Peter Egan's Martin Hughes and son Adam, played by Jassa Ahluwalia, are refreshingly low key.

Andy Wilson's direction is also far from showy.

Wilson maintains a steady and effective pace, knows exactly when to let his images do the talking but he also draws strong performances out of his experienced cast.

The first series of 'Unforgotten' more than justifies a second.

It is also a great example of how a TV series that avoids the sensational can be more effective than those that rush headlong into the relentless pursuit of thrills, spills and credibility stretching twists.

Sometimes less delivers a whole lot more.

(Series one of 'Unforgotten' aired on ITV between October 8-November 12, 2015)


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