Criminal Record, a twitchy crime drama set in London, premieres on Apple TV Plus January 10. Peter Capaldi plays Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Hegarty and Cush Jumbo is Detective Sergeant June Lenker. The two clash over an old murder case —Lenker feeling the wrong man is sitting in prison, and Hegarty looking to protect his legacy. Lenker is a Black woman in the early days of her career, and Hegarty is a white man nearing the end of his run in law enforcement.
The show comes from Paul Rutman, who executive produces with Elaine Collins, Capaldi and Jumbo.
Rutman and Collins told B+C the idea from the show came from a conversation between the two. Collins had been watching a number of what she calls “high-end documentaries,” and the two were mutually interested in the role confessions play in investigations.
Rutman said Lenker and Hegarty offer a look at the world from “two very different lenses.”
“Their different world views drew us into drilling into issues and questions about gender and institutional racism,” he added. “We hold a magnifying glass up to what it feels like to be in those moments.”
Capaldi was the twelfth doctor in Doctor Who. His film work includes the two Paddington movies and The Fifth Estate.
Collins said Capaldi injects real mystery and smarts into his character. “He brings a lot of intelligence to the role — the intellect is clear when you watch him play the part,” she said.
Jumbo played Lucca Quinn in The Good Wife and The Good Fight, and is a veteran theater actress as well.
“There’s something very, very honest and real and unguarded about the way she acts,” Rutman said, adding that Jumbo has a knack for playing the underdog, and always comes across to the viewer as eminently “relatable.”
A review of Criminal Record in The Guardian said the two actors “are great alone. Together, they’re mesmerising.”
The review adds, “If ever there is going to be an award invented for best joint performance, make it this year, for them. Capaldi is terrifying as the cold predator sniffing round his prey, searching for weakness, prepared to wait for a quick, clean kill. Jumbo is fantastic as an opponent far from unaffected by all he brings to their contest – experience, connections, an indeterminable amount of malevolence – but resolving to go ever harder at him and at the truth about Mathis’s conviction and Burrows’s killer.”
Entertainment Weekly called the show a “can’t miss drama.”
Variety, for its part, described Criminal Record as a “brilliantly twisted crime drama.”
