A BIT CORKED (HOLDING)
Conleth Hill is one of those actors who you feel could really blossom in the right lead role in a TV show or movie.
The Northern Ireland born actor, from Ballycastle on the Antrim coast, served his time in the 1990s as a stage actor in independent production companies in his homeland like Tinderbox and Dubblejoint as well as in Belfast's Lyric Theatre.
However his big breakthrough came with the part of Charlie, an extra in Marie Jones' comedy 'Stones in His Pockets' with Dubblejoint Productions.
That production took him from the West Belfast Festival/Feile an Phobail to the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, Edinburgh, the West End and Broadway.
© ITVHill's performance earned him an Olivier award for Best Actor and a Tony nomination.
But it also opened doors to other eye catching roles on the West End and Broadway.
In another Olivier awarding winning performance in 2003, he wowed audiences and critics as Roger DeBris in the West End production of Mel Brooks' 'The Producers' with Lee Evans and Nathan Lane.
He secured another Tony nomination for his performance as Ivan in the Royal Court's production of Conor McPherson's 'The Seafarer' with Jim Norton and Ciaran Hinds after it transferred from the West End to Broadway.
© ITVOnscreen, though, Hill is probably best known for his performance as the former slave eunuch Varys in HBO's 'Game of Thrones'.
However there have been other notable TV performances as the wheelchair bound mother of Peter Kay's Geraldine McQueen in Channel 4's 'Britain's Got The Pop Factor.. And Possibly A New Celebrity Jesus Christ Superstar Strictly On Ice,' as Elsie, the Smurfette in the comedian's BBC1 sitcom 'Car Share' and as the medium, Carlos Santini in the final series of 'Derry Girls'.
He's also worked alongside Larry David in Woody Allen's movie 'Whatever Works,' joined Ciaran Hinds and Kerry Condon in Terry George's Oscar winning short film 'The Shore,' played The Observer editor Roger Alton in Gavin Hood's 'Offiicial Secrets' with Keira Knightley, Matt Smith and Matthew Goode and was terrific as Aido, a construction worker in Phyllida Lloyd's Irish housing drama 'Herself' with Claire Dunne.
It is great to see Hill at last being given the chance to carry a drama series as the lead in ITV's four part adaptation of Graham Norton's debut novel 'Holding'.
© ITVSet in the fictional village of Duneen in Norton's native West Cork, actress Kathy Burke occupies the director's chair for the adaptation of the chat show host's novel by the former 'Eastenders' producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins and Karen Hogan.
The miniseries boasts a strong Irish cast which includes Oscar winner Brenda Fricker, Charlene McKenna from 'Peaky Blinders' and 'Pure Mule,' 'Father Ted''s Pauline McLynn and Siobhan McSweeney of 'Derry Girls' fame.
It is also shot in West Cork, where its creator likes to spend his summers near his home town of Bandon.
Hill plays local Garda Sergeant PJ Collins - an easygoing police officer in a quiet village where, it seems, little happens.
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© ITVWhen human remains are discovered by builders demolishing a house, all that changes.
The remains are believed to be those of Tommy Burke who disappeared twenty years earlier and left McSwenney's alcoholic housewife Brid Riordan at the altar.
Tommy was having an affair at the time with McKenna's reckless Evelyn Ross and there is a real air of tension between both ladies.
Clinton Liberty's Detective Linus Dunne is dispatched from Dublin to drive the investigation because PJ is regarded as too inexperienced and lackadaisical to manage it properly.
© ITVLinus rooms in the Garda station where PJ lives which is run by Fricker's no nonsense housekeeper Lizzie Meaney.
Detective Dunne also catches the eye of Demi Isaac Oviawe's shop assistant Aoife Akingbola whose gossipy boss, McLynn's Mrs O'Driscoll keeps sticking her nose in how the investigation is progressing.
Early on in the investigation, PJ has to apologise to Mrs O'Driscoll and other villagers for Detective Dunne's brasher approach.
His decision to exhume the bodies of Tommy Burke's parents during Mass, so he can compare DNA samples, ruffles feathers.
© ITVAs the investigation proceeds, PJ begins to find himself getting increasingly drawn into it and the lives of the chief suspects.
Brid is unhappily married to Gary Shelford's Anthony Riordan, a local farmer and is raising their two kids.
She also has a demanding mother, Olwen Fouere's Kitty Harrington who is bed bound.
Evelyn is currently having a fling with Sky Yang's talented 17 year old GAA player Stephen whose mum, Eleanor Tiernan's teacher Susan is planning to move to San Francisco with her lover, Amy Conroy's Florence.
© ITVTo complicate matters further, Florence is also Evelyn's sister and has been loathe to break the news that she is emigrating because she knows Evelyn will react badly.
Another sister, Helen Behan's Abigail Ross is romantically involved with the local publican, Lochlann O Mearain's Cormac Byrne and fiercely protective of her sisters.
The further PJ and Detective Dunne dig into Tommy Burke's disappearance, the more ripples it sends through the entire community.
But with PJ also a bit of a comfort eater, is he able to handle the emotions the case triggers?
© ITV
There's no doubt there's a lot of interesting storylines at play in Burke's version of 'Holding'.
However the show moves at a disappointingly slow pace and the execution is uneven.
To Burke and Norton's credit, there are reflections of modern Ireland in the show.
Florence and Susan amusingly say one of the reasons they are leaving West Cork is they are tired of the locals gushing about the "little gay family" every time they go to the pub.
© ITVAnother character's revelations about his sexuality are handled as well as you'd hope.
Duneen is also as multicultural as every other Irish city, town and village these days in the post Celtic Tiger era.
However you kind of want 'Holding' to have the gritty, provocative humour of something like 'The Guard' with Brendan Gleeson.
And while 'Holding' celebrates the progress Ireland has made as a pluralist society, it doesn't completely shake off a sense of Oirishness.
© ITVFricker, Fouere and McLynn's characters feel like stock older women we've seen loads of times before in a lot worse and a lot better dramas.
A festival in which the locals do various party pieces is a wee bit cringey.
The Ross Sisters' spoken word rendition of Cork indie band, the Sultans of Ping FC's cult classic 'Where's Me Jumper?' is meant to amuse.
However it doesn't quite have the same impact as Billy Murphy in 'The Young Offenders' reclaiming the Frank and Walters' song 'After All' as a great Cork anthem.
© ITVThis is typical of a production which just feels like a mixed bag.
And it doesn't help that 'Holding' surfaced in the same year as Sharon Horgan's excellent Apple+ TV black comedy 'Bad Sisters' which showed how you can take a small town murder mystery and present it in a really inventive way, squeezing all the comedy and drama out of it.
It has to be acknowledged that Hill seizes the opportunity to be the lead and handles it really well, even if PJ like 'Holding' takes a while to get going.
Behan, Liberty, Tiernan, Conroy and Oviawe are good value too.
© ITVWhile it is good to see Fricker back onscreen, she is trying to make the most of very slim pickings.
McSweeney, McKenna, McLynn and Yang are also pretty one note throughout.
Burke and her cinematographers Martin Fuhrer and Michael Lavelle make the most of their west Cork locations with Drimoleague and Castletownshend looking particularly well.
However the pacing of the show makes 'Hamish Macbeth' feels like 'NYPD Blue'.
© ITVWhile proving just about watchable, 'Holding' is nevertheless a frustrating viewing experience.
Often you feel like you are watching the show out of duty instead of any great eagerness.
That is never good.
And you can't help feeling that while Conleth Hill does his best, he deserves a much slicker vehicle than this.
('Holding' was broadcast on ITV oin the UK between March 14-April 4, 2022 and Virgin Media More in Ireland during April)
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