Code Of A Killer: tank tops, bad bobs and the dawn of DNA profiling

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/apr/06/code-of-a-killer-john-simm-david-threlfall

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It’s well documented that in the Godfather movies, an orange is a symbolic portent of death. Don Corleone even makes some fake teeth out of orange peel to amuse his grandson, foreshadowing his heart attack. I suspect Michael Crompton had this in mind when scripting two-part police thriller Code Of A Killer, which opens with a close-up of a Feu Orange traffic-light air freshener dangling from a rear-view mirror. Its “delightful fragrance” was enough to turn your Ford Fiesta Mk II into a Terry’s Chocolate Orange on wheels. Dare we assume this one belongs to a harbinger of death?

A very specific caption tells us that we’re in Narborough, Leicestershire on 21 November 1983, 7.30pm. It’s the true story of the rape and murder of two teenage girls, three years apart in neighbouring Leicestershire villages, and Crompton wants us to pay special attention. The conviction Code Of A Killer tactfully dramatises was the first ever to be proven by DNA fingerprinting, a technique developed at the nearby University of Leicester by geneticist Alec Jeffreys, played by John Simm. A still-boyish leading man more typically found playing the cop (Life On Mars, Prey, Intruders) or the hack (Exile, State Of Play), it’s refreshing to see Simm simulate a scatty prof in a tank top, wool tie and white coat, with a beard to mask a childhood sulphuric acid scar on his chin (an accurate biographical detail, like the fact that he brought a dead cat home as a kid and dissected it on the dining room table).

While Jeffreys, the sort of workaholic who’ll walk out of the lab wearing safety goggles if not reminded to take them off by an assistant, gives Simm plenty to play with, the detective, DCS David Baker, is less well known. Though a more opaque character from forensic history, Baker is played with a miniaturist’s skill by another big TV name, David Threlfall, who really looks as if he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders as he fails to catch the culprit. In one particularly effective, wordless scene, he gets to do that thing where a colleague lifts the police tape to let him pass under it and approaches the second victim. It’s shot in dreamlike slow motion for maximum impact by director James Strong (who perfected this technique on both series of Broadchurch), but you can read the sense of failure on Threlfall’s screwed-up face, his weird bobbed haircut pasted to his head and a sense of letting a local community down etched into his tight lips.

Shot in real Leicestershire locations, Strong’s muted, downbeat look suits the gloomy mood, allowing flashes of hope, such as sunlight glinting through leaves, to add pathos. Along with the flat east Midlands scenery of boxy 60s-built houses, the cast valiantly attempt flat east Midlands vowels, with full marks to doughty supporting stars Lorcan Cranitch and Andrew Tiernan (both of whom have the motherlode Cracker on their CVs). On the heels of Peaky Blinders and Raised By Wolves, it’s springtime for once-rare Midlands accents on TV.

Jeffreys and Baker are both portrayed as dedicated to their respective fields (literally, in Baker’s case, as his blokey officers comb every inch of the local green for clues while a draughty cricket pavilion acts as their incident room), but it’s the former, toiling into the small hours at the lab with myoglobin and acetates, who gets to say, “Eureka!”, and inadvertently invent the CSI franchise. When a local lad is charged with the killings, we’re sceptical, as he doesn’t drive a car, so the Feu Orange can’t be his. Call the man in the white coat.

Drama loves a true story in these uncertain times, which in this instance means spoilers can be found in the Wikipedia entries for Jeffreys, DNA profiling, and the name of the killer, which I’ll keep to myself. Though the early-80s signifiers are on-the-nose (Lydia Rose Bewley’s assistant says she’s going to see the Smiths, “a new band from Manchester”), it’s still a grim tale well told. Jeffreys’s next big case was to identify the remains of Nazi torturer Josef Mengele. I’m hoping ITV has it in development.

Code Of A Killer begins on Monday 6th April, 9pm, ITV