Inside Man
Available on: BBC iPlayer
Inside Man is the latest drama from Steven Moffat, the man credited with bringing Doctor Who back from the televisual afterlife. Though I am not a self-professed Whovian, I am aware of the sardonic dialogue that characterised Moffat’s time as showrunner and believe it to be a styling that can be fairly placed under the Marmite category. Put simply, you either like it or you don’t.
Having now watched Inside Man, I think I might be leaning towards the latter. While I appreciate that you have to suspend your disbelief with any drama, this show – and in particular its characters – are so unbelievable that it’s hard to take anything they do seriously.
Take David Tennant’s vicar for example. Upon learning that one of his congregation has been looking at child porn and that, due to an unfortunate series of events, this might implicate his teenage son, his immediate reaction is to nearly bludgeon to death (albeit accidentally) and kidnap the woman who could take the information to the police. Rather than, you know, tell her the truth and ensure the paedophile goes to jail. Oh, and he has a catchphrase (‘I’m a f***ing vicar’) that he says a lot.
Another issue I had with this series is the miscasting of many of its key characters. Stanley Tucci is many a thing – all of them good – but he does not make for a convincing murderer. Tucci has long been a fine actor but he carries no menace and here delivers a benign Hannibal Lecter impersonation. Tennant, having played a convicted killer with aplomb in Des, would arguably have been better placed in this role, with Tucci perhaps making for a more convincing man of the cloth.
There are also a series of bizarre side characters that make Inside Man even more implausible. One of them is Tucci’s cellmate, who we are expected to believe has brutally murdered countless women although all we see him do in the show is drop camp wisecracks. Kate Dickie also pops up in the last episode for no apparent reason, just one of many bizarre turn of events that occur over the series’ four episode run.
There is enough drama to keep you invested in Inside Man, something that can always be said for Moffat’s work. It’s just a shame that that doesn’t guarantee that it’s any good.
