The opening credits of Strike – The Cuckoo’s Calling episode 1 identify the series as adapted from a book by Robert Galbraith, but viewers will be aware this is a nom de plume for JK Rowling. Not least as the series marketing has been very clear on this point.
With the Harry Potter series concluding, Rowling wanted to write a novel for adults. To circumvent the weight of expectation and the assumptions attached to being one of the most successful novelists alive she wrote under a pseudonym. Published in 2013, The Cuckoo’s Calling introduced the world to Cormoran Strike, but the world wasn’t very interested – at least not initially. Despite positive reviews, sales were low, as would be expected for a first novel by an unknown writer. One might expect this television adaptation to have been put in motion after the true author was revealed and sales shot up, but the BBC sought to set up a meeting with this exciting new novelist before the twist in the tale.
The hero of the story is private detective Cormoran Strike. He has a shabby office on the edges of Soho, is broke with a soon to be ex-fiancée, and has forgotten to cancel the temp.
Most agency workers would see the mountain of bills on the floor and leave, but Robin Ellacott is intrigued by the prospect of working for a detective and investigating the death of supermodel Lula Landry. Strike has been hired by the murdered woman’s adopted brother to examine the police investigation. Ruled a suicide, Bristow is convinced there is foul play.
Strike is a part hard-boiled noir type gumshoe and part gentile British sleuth. He has the overcoat and shuffling gait of Columbo (something we discover is a genuine disability), but while his personal life is chaotic, he lacks an obviously tortured psyche.
Tom Burke (from the BBC’s Musketeers and War and Peace adaptations) plays the lead role with charm. An able bodied actor, Burke did seem to take a little while to settle into a convincing gait for a one legged man, but this may have been a ploy to make the revelation of his injury a shock to viewers unfamiliar with the source novel.
Bright, attractive, and perky Holliday Grainger plays Ellacott like a character who has wandered in from an Enid Blyton story. However, fans of the novel will know there are as yet unrevealed depths to the character.
As an opening episode, this laid a solid foundation. Director Michael Keillor has a CV that includes episodes of Line of Duty and Mr Selfridge. Production values were on a par with American cable drama (the series is co-produced for US channel Cinemax). Location filming in central London added greatly to the atmosphere.
Strike is an intriguing character who both fits and confounds crime fiction conventions, and the interplay with Ellacott as his ‘Watson’ was engaging. The mystery was teased just enough to pull in the audience but screenwriter Ben Richards knows that it is the central characters who are the real puzzle and sensibly concentrated on providing a sketch of Strike that we will enjoy seeing coloured in future episodes.
Just discovered these series after 5 years since their première. Have binge watched and loved them. Long may they continue.