The Escape Artist with David Tennant is brilliantly acted but has a bin liner of a plot

TV Review

The Escape Artist [BBC I, Oct-Nov 2013] had an ingenious central idea, lots of brutality and blood, and good acting by a superb cast. Unfortunately its dramatic impact was frequently stalled by a bin liner of a plot

In each of its three episodes, the watchers in our household uttered cries of frustration at clunky plotting rather than of horror at the almost obligatory scenes of blood and violence meted out by almost obligatory psychopath. Wife victim returns to lonely cottage where she has seen creepy said psychopath; Slick Barrister Tennant seeks revenge v cunningly with implausible plot line [another ‘Oh no it’s not that one’ moment].

They used to say Naomi Chambers could model a plastic bin-liner and make it look good. David Tennant almost pulled off the bin-liner trick, but even his acting couldn’t sustain the dramatic thrust of this bin-liner of a production, written by David Wolstencroft (creator of Spooks).

Other views

Other reviews have been cautiously ambivalent, with mentions of great acting mingling with references to the ludicrous plot and the violence. As Grace Dent of the Independent put it with irony

[I]f I’m going to sit through another “And you’ll never guess what? He cut her vagina off! And then he shoved it in her mouth!” sort of drama, then I’ll choose one with Tennant, Okonedo and Kebbell. And let’s be fair here, the victim did return to a deserted cottage where she’d seen the killer previously. A good defence lawyer would say that she was asking for it.