They’re calling it Dublin noir and, on first showing, there’s something very stylish about the BBC’s new three-part drama starring Gabriel Byrne. Pubs and cigarette smoke and long, smouldering looks help the cause. There’s plenty of rain too, and a lot of grey and blue in John Alexander’s film, broken up by flashes of colour and arresting, unusual camera angles.
Based on the books by John Banville (writing as Benjamin Black), Quirke boasts an impressive cast including Michael Gambon and Geraldine Somerville, with screenwriting duties shared by Andrew Davies, who penned this episode, and Conor McPherson. First outings need to hook us with a storyline but also make us want to spend time with the characters, and with Byrne in the title role there’s more than enough to hold our interest. His Quirke, a 1950s Irish pathologist, is a masterclass in less-is-more (below, Byrne with Michael Gambon).
Intense and brilliant, the doctor has his own enigmatic backstory which makes his investigation into the death of a young woman all the more intriguing. After a party in the nurses’ quarters, Quirke reckons he’ll kip down for the night in his pathology lab. To his surprise, he finds his adoptive brother, Malachy Griffin (Nick Dunning, excellent in the role), completing paperwork for a recently deceased patient, Christine Falls.
Malachy is clearly hiding something and when Quirke returns the next morning, Christine’s body is gone. Suspicious, he performs a post mortem himself and finds the real cause of death, not the one Malachy would have him believe.
There’s no love lost between these two. Malachy tells his wife Sarah (Geraldine Somerville) that he doesn’t expect Quirke to turn up for the reception in honour of their father, a city judge (Gambon): "He’d rather be propping up the bar than celebrating his father’s honour." In seeking answers, Quirke not only wants justice for Christine but rattles an already complicated framework of relationships within his own family. The scenes with Gambon and Somerville – both outstanding – are pure gold.
When Sarah bumps into Quirke in the street, he asks her if she’ll walk with him. Her eyes say there’s nothing she’d like more but she replies "No", and we’re left to wonder what this bond is between them. It can’t be hidden and is like a dark Dublin cloud hanging over her marriage with Malachy.
With two more episodes to come, Black, Davies and Byrne are tapping into a sub-genre of television crime already populated by the highly successful Foyle’s War, Inspector George Gently and the Morse prequel, Endeavour. Quirke’s world has more of an edge though, and after this first glance you can count me in.