Down Cemetery Road

Streaming on: Apple TV

Episodes viewed: 8 of 8

Murder mysteries, conspiracies and whodunnits are all the rage these days, with audience appetite for the twisty-turny genre showing no signs of abating. Down Cemetery Road is the latest addition to the ranks, taking its cues from the novel of the same name by Slow Horses author Mick Herron, and while it doesn’t reach the highs of his Slough House-set series, there’s still plenty here to sink your teeth into.

Down Cemetery Road begins with a literal bang. A dinner party hosted by art restorer Sarah (Ruth Wilson) and her partner Mark (Tom Riley) is interrupted by a nearby gas explosion. However, reported events don’t match up with what she witnessed on the night: the only survivor is missing, photographs have been doctored, there’s nothing but silence from the police and the hospital, and an Oxford suburb is refusing to acknowledge what happened. Sarah’s determination to understand the incident leads her to stumble into the path of a ‘rag-tag’ detective team at Oxford Investigations, led by husband-and-wife Joe Silverman (Adam Godley) and Zoë Boehm (Emma Thompson). When another dead body connected with the mystery surfaces, Sarah and Zoë are put on a collision course for an unconventional team-up.

The constant tonal shifts and meandering middle act throw the mystery off-balance...

Amid the inevitable ‘connect the dots’ drama, there’s a cartoon-caper level of twists and turns in this show that feels somewhat out of place. This feeling is encapsulated most by Adeel Akhtar’s Hamza, a middle-manager in over his head, whose bumbling incompetence brings out some genuine laughs. Darren Boyd’s Ministry Of Defence division head, C, delivers some of the show’s sharpest one-liners, whilst Fehinti Balogun delivers a Terminator-esque performance as government assassin Amos, who will stop at nothing to eliminate his targets.

But that sense of humour is always at odds with the seriousness of the conspiracy itself. After all, a child’s life is at stake, with a dark truth that goes right to the heart of the UK government being unravelled. The constant tonal shifts and meandering middle act throw the mystery off-balance, the show losing momentum before eventually picking up speed again.

Still, when you have Thompson giving Cruella De Vil levels of blunt-force comebacks, it’s always worth watching. Playing a character who’s “too stylish for the uniform”, she confidently takes no prisoners with her vitriol. Wilson’s depiction of Sarah evolving from humdrum reality to a greater sense of self-empowerment is also of merit, even if her transition is rough around the edges. The ladies don’t always get enough screentime together, but your enjoyment of this series still largely rests upon their shoulders.