Reading (U&Albi)
Rating: One star
For a man who loves the macabre so much that he is known for his ghost stories on the Beeb at Christmas, actor Mark Gatiss seems surprisingly hostile to spiritualism.
As 1940s detective Gabriel Book, in Bookish he dropped his usual arc and endearing mannerisms to lay waste to all mediums and psychics – calling them “filthy, crooked, lying, disgusting pigs.”
Gatiss, who both wrote the screenplay and starred in it, apparently doesn’t have much time for conventional religion either: “If there is a God, He’s a cruel and disgusting thing,” he snarled.
And if we still doubted his opinion, he organized a fake séance to discourage some believers in the afterlife. “It’s extraordinary what these people believe,” he sneered.
For a man who loves the macabre so much that he is known for his ghost stories on the Beeb at Christmas, actor Mark Gatiss (pictured) seems surprisingly hostile to spiritualism
His disgust is clearly real, but it seems an odd contradiction from an artist who has often relied on viewers’ instinctive attraction to the supernatural – for example in his beautiful 2020 retelling of the Dracula story.
Mr. Sneed, the hapless medium in this two-part murder mystery, was definitely a fake and an extortionist to boot. But the plot could have been intriguing if Gatiss had allowed elements of the paranormal to seep in, as so often happens when people hold séances, whether they are serious or not.
Much of the dialogue consisted of Book lightheartedly pontificating to the minor characters, such as Mrs. Book (Polly Walker), whose role is to stand gaping at his ability to quote Dickens and Moliere.
Jason Watkins played Sneed, with a black wig sliding off the back of his head like Ozzy Osbourne in a wind tunnel. When the lights came up after a séance, he was discovered with a knife in his heart – with a dead man’s fingerprints on the handle, which was a smart move.
But from the moment we discovered that the psychic’s assistant (Saffron Coomber) sitting across from him was a former circus performer, it was clear who threw the knife – especially after she threw a piece of chalk at Book’s sidekick Jack (Connor Finch) with the same deft flick of the wrist.
The show’s real problem is Book himself, a cold and tiresomely smug character who, in the rare moments when he isn’t talking, is like Larry Grayson sucking on a lemon drop.
We are meant to believe that the police allow him to investigate crimes because of his friendship with Inspector Bliss (Elliot Levey). But that ruse only works if, as in Grantchester, there is a close bond between the amateur sleuth and the professional detective.
When Book inquired about Bliss’ wife, it was clear the two barely knew each other.
After two and a half hours, Simon Callow lifted the whole show with a brief cameo as a spy master, complete with eye patch. Effortlessly full of intrigue, he resembled a character from a Le Carre novel who appears in Midsomer Murders.
