CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night’s TV

Traces

Rating:

Rick Stein’s Secret France

Rating:

After flagging up the forensic crime drama Traces (Alibi) in this column yesterday, I wasn’t going to mention it again.

It’s on an obscure pay-to-view cable channel that mostly airs reruns of Father Brown and Death In Paradise — wholesale repeats, provided as an added extra by the likes of Sky, BT or Virgin, to bulk out their schedules.

Since Alibi isn’t available on Freeview, you might not be able to receive it . . . and if you can, you probably didn’t know.

But Traces is very good. It’s the station’s first venture into original drama, and for fans of police serials where cold cases dredge up ancient secrets, such as Unforgotten or Dublin Murders, it’s a pacy thriller well worth seeking out.

Molly Windsor stars as Emma, a tense, impulsive trainee forensics specialist who returns to Dundee, her home town, to take up her first lab job. 

But coming back to Scotland brings a rush of memories of her mother’s murder to the surface — and she decides to start investigating.

The show was created by veteran crimewriter Val McDermid, so it’s no surprise that the emphasis is on police procedures and the science of detection. 

In the opening scene, we watch the chief forensics officers (Laura Fraser and Jennifer Spence) picking through the charred debris of a nightclub fire where three people burned to death. Their enthusiasm for the job is almost gleeful.

Just as realistic is the advice Inspector Neil McKinven (Michael Nardone) gives to Molly. ‘I think you need to stop sleuthing. Be very careful of what you say, to whom you say it,’ he warns. Amateur detectives don’t hear that nearly as often as they should.

Written by Amelia Bullmore, from Scott And Bailey, the attention to detail is fastidious. 

One scene is dedicated to explaining why barcode labels don’t burn, and how fire doesn’t always destroy fingerprints. Another, involving pig bones and a hacksaw, shows what we can learn from a dismembered body.

Crime dramas on the BBC too often feel patronising, as though Auntie thinks such schlock is beneath her — unless it preaches a right-on political message, of course.

Traces is in deadly earnest. Crime is Alibi’s business, and they are clearly determined to get their first home-grown murders absolutely right. 

The cast is top-notch, too, including Line Of Duty’s Martin Compston and John Gordon Sinclair (the naive young man in Gregory’s Girl, long ago).

It’s just a shame that, for many, it’s so difficult to find. Your best bet might be the on-demand catch-up site, UKTV Play.

Equally frustrating was the final recipe on Rick Stein’s Secret France (BBC2), as he arrived in Provence to show us how to make a tarte tatin with a confit of aubergines and tomatoes. It sounded horribly bitter.

Rick obviously didn’t much fancy it himself, because he abruptly handed over the bake to an assistant called Valerie, who apparently had no head.

Watching her disembodied hands chopping vegetables was rather creepy. Perhaps after so many glasses of rose, Rick was too far gone to cook.

He just wanted to eat, and for reasons I couldn’t quite fathom he spent his last day getting stuffed with the bassist from Dire Straits, John Illsley.

Perhaps they’re great friends, though from the way Rick sneered that the rocker moved abroad ‘to spend more time with his royalties’, I’m not too sure.

Maybe it was a test-run for a new series, where he dines out with semi-famous musicians — the kind you wouldn’t recognise in a supermarket even though you know loads of their songs.

Next week, brunch with the drummer from Duran Duran.