Just the one episode
I don’t really watch television. Not properly. Not since BBC Four used to put those Scandi-crime dramas on a Saturday night and I could spend an evening somewhere bleak, windswept and full of people with things they weren’t telling the police.
I have a few beloved box sets and streaming favourites I return to, but a new series has to give me a reason.
The Northumbria Mysteries had one. We’d crossed paths with the production crew a few times over the summer, knew roughly what they were making, and were looking forward to seeing our corner of the world on screen.
Lucy and I had agreed we’d watch it together.
Then she went away to visit family this week.
Well. One episode wouldn’t hurt. She’d never know.
Never mind the murder. Where’s that?
Almost immediately, I was distracted.
The priory. I knew that priory. But for a few moments I couldn’t put a name to it.
Brinkburn.
Of course. We’d been there with friends one Sunday, looking at possible wedding venues. Slightly different atmosphere on this occasion.
Then another scene.
Hang on. Where’s that?
The camera angle had thrown me, but suddenly it clicked.
Morpeth.
It didn’t take long to realise I was watching two programmes at once. One involved a murder investigation. The other involved me trying to identify buildings before the camera moved on.
So far, the second was winning.
Two familiar faces
I like Robson Green. I like his obvious affection for Northumberland, and I’m always pleased to see him showing people what we have up here.
And I like Liz White, who plays the detective. Although whenever she appears, part of me is still waiting for Annie from Life on Mars to ask Sam what on earth he’s talking about.
That’s my problem, admittedly. Actors are allowed to move on, even if some of us are still watching the same box sets.
But three episodes in, with two actors I like and scenery I love, I’m feeling rather underwhelmed.
It isn’t Scandi-crime, and it doesn’t have to be. I don’t need every fictional detective to have a collapsing marriage and a kitchen lit by a single miserable bulb.
There’s room for something gentler.
Even so, this feels like Sunday-evening television with its slippers already on. At times, it could make Midsomer Murders look positively breathless.
I’ve since discovered it actually launched at two o’clock on a Friday afternoon.
Fair enough. My internal television listings weren’t far out.
The entirely imaginary pitch meeting
Somewhere around episode three, my mind wandered into a production meeting.
To be absolutely clear: this meeting exists only in my imagination. I have no inside knowledge of how the programme came about, what anyone said, or what Robson Green likes to do after work.
But in my head, it goes something like this.
“You know I love Northumberland, right?”
A little sideways glance. Looks down, then back up. Blue eyes smiling.
“What about a crime drama set here? I play an awkward chap. Bit down on his luck. Made a few mistakes. But very canny. Very likeable.”
A pause from the other side of the table.
“Haven’t you already done that?”
“No. I was a clinical psychologist in Wire in the Blood.”
And that, I think, gets somewhere near my difficulty.
It all feels a little familiar.
The road beside the cheese farm
I remember watching Wire in the Blood and seeing someone walking along an otherwise unremarkable road.
No grand landmark. Nothing I had any particular right to recognise.
“Eh? Isn’t that next to the cheese farm at Blagdon?”
That was me hooked.
I spent plenty of that series spotting familiar places too. But underneath the pleasure of recognising a road or a building, there were stories I wanted to follow. It drew on Val McDermid’s Tony Hill and Carol Jordan books, and for me the mysteries had a pull of their own.
That’s what I’m missing here.
I’m enjoying the locations more than I’m wondering what happens next.
There’s also a small naming trap for local readers. LJ Ross has a book series called The Northumbrian Mysteries. That extra “n” is doing useful work. A familiar-sounding title shouldn’t lead you to assume you’re watching her books brought to the screen.
For my money, Robson Green, Liz White and Northumberland are doing most of the heavy lifting in this one. Take those away and I’m not sure I’d have reached episode three.
But Northumberland is there. So, apparently, am I.
An unresolved incident at Beadnell
Besides, I have a particular reason to keep watching.
One Sunday afternoon, walking the coastal path near Beadnell, we saw a light aircraft dip very low towards the beach beyond the dunes.
From where we stood, it looked alarmingly as though it was coming down.
We waited for the sound we very much didn’t want to hear.
Nothing.
Then we remembered.
“Ah. The Northumbria Mysteries.”
We assumed we’d stumbled across another bit of filming. I still don’t know quite what was happening, which means the series has managed to leave me with at least one mystery I want solved.
It just happens to be one I brought from home.
Credit where it’s due
I’ll probably see it through.
Perhaps the stories will grow on me. Perhaps I’ll settle into its gentler pace. Either way, I’ll keep recognising a bend in a road, a stretch of beach or a building I’ve passed a hundred times, and feeling pleased to see it there.
For all my grumbling, it’s a beautiful showcase for Northumberland. If it makes someone come up here, pull on their boots and discover these places for themselves, that’s something worth thanking Mr Green for.
I may not be gripped by every mystery, but I’m very fond of the setting.
Now I just need to get back to episode one before Lucy comes home.
And practise looking surprised at Brinkburn.