Until I Kill You (ITV1) | ITVX
The Day of the Jackal (Sky Atlantic/Now)
Junior Taskmaster (Channel 4) | channel4.com
Asia (BBC One) | iPlayer
We all know the drill with the majority of serial killer dramas. Dark night. Deserted street. Woman hurrying home. The obligatory shot of bare legs lying on grass as the body is found by a dog walker… check, check, check.
Even strong examples from the genre succumb to such cliches, so it’s interesting to see Until I Kill You (ITV1), a new four-part true crime drama written by Nick Stevens (The Pembrokeshire Murders). It’s adapted from Delia Balmer’s 2017 book Living With a Serial Killer, which details her relationship with the murderer John Sweeney, who tried to kill her.
Anna Maxwell Martin plays Balmer, originally from Canada and working in London as a nurse in the 1990s. A self-avowed free spirit (“a traveller, not a tourist”), she’s abrasive, rude and difficult. Sweeney, the Liverpudlian carpenter boyfriend she moves into her flat, is portrayed by Shaun Evans – best known, of course, as Endeavour Morse. Acting here in his native accent, his Sweeney is the anti-Morse: straggle-haired, deceitful, mean. In a drama full of threat, one of the scariest moments is when Balmer wants to dance with Sweeney in a pub. “Fucking sit down,” he murmurs coldly.
Before long, Sweeney attacks Balmer, strips her, binds and rapes her (it’s quite hazy; you see very little). He also confesses to the murder of a previous girlfriend, model Melissa Halstead, and has made macabre sketches of her mutilated torso. Sweeney is later convicted of two murders and suspected of more. Released on bail, he attempts to batter Balmer to death.
Until I Kill You is about many things, not least Balmer’s scalding fury at Sweeney, and at a criminal justice system she feels repeatedly fails her (“He’s a psychopath,” says Balmer to her police family liaison officer. “What’s your fucking excuse?”). It’s also a study of PTSD: the mess it makes of human beings. While Maxwell Martin and Evans are both superb, the real Sweeney is nudged into the background. This becomes Balmer’s story: that of an unsympathetic, foul-mouthed, imperfect victim powered by survivor’s rage rather than guilt. Like a lot of true crime shows, Until I Kill You can be bumpy and repetitive, but it succeeds as an uncompromising female-centred take on a well-trodden genre.
Ronan Bennett, who delivered the peerless Top Boy, is the showrunner for a Sky Atlantic re-spin of Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal. The 1973 film adaptation starred Edward Fox. Here, Eddie Redmayne is the Jackal, gentleman assassin, all designer jumpers, glacial demeanour andsteady trigger finger, executing people from improbable distances. When he’s hired to pop a philanthropic mega-rich tech bro (yawn, getting bored with tech bros, in drama and real life), MI6 operative Bianca (Lashana Lynch) is on his case.
I’ll give you the bad news first. TDOTJ is 10 episodes long and frequently feels like it, however many European countries it glamorously hops around like a hyper-violent travelogue. Far too much time is wasted on the domestic lives of the Jackal and Bianca: in a thriller about an international mercenary I’m not sure anyone cares how much he loves his wife, even if she is played by Úrsula Corberó from Money Heist.
Despite all these drawbacks, it’s extremely good: hyper-tense, bold and meticulously acted by Redmayne, Lynch and other players, including Lia Williams as an MI6 boss and Charles Dance as a shadowy tycoon. Subplots, hitches, characters, twists, explosions, car chases and customised guns keep things moving in a busy, high-octane mix. Nor is it a basic fight between good and evil: Bianca emerges as the Jackal’s ruthless match. Sometimes you get the impression that Bennett wants to get as far away from Top Boy and the drug gangs of the Summerhouse estate as he can, to the point where you feel you’re indulging in a Mission: Impossible film marathon. Still, for assassin fare, it’s all very classily done, and, like the Jackal himself, takes no prisoners.
I was concerned about Junior Taskmaster, the new children’s version of the hit scorn-fuelled Channel 4 comedy challenge show. Was this wise? Would small contestants cry? Taskmaster alumni Rose Matafeo (of the brilliant Starstruck) and her assistant, the exuberantly moustachioed Mike Wozniak, sit on the presenting thrones in place of Greg Davies and show creator Alex Horne. With Junior Taskmaster operating as a tournament with heats, the winner’s trophy is supposed to be a replica of Matafeo’s head, but it resembles a Medusa from Temu. The tasks are suitably ridiculous: messing about with mashed potato; crushing digestive biscuits through a sieve.
Crucially, Junior Taskmaster retains the mischievous air of the adult version, and the kids are gobby and spiky – no one looks as if they’re going to burst into tears, except perhaps Wozniak. It should probably air around teatime rather than its present 8pm slot, but it works.
David Attenborough knows his audience, and how much we relish all that is beautiful, strange and just plain bonkers about the natural world. His new seven-part BBC One series, Asia, transports the viewer to “the largest continent on Earth”, with its three oceans and 21 seas.
Staying mainly in the water, the opener is Finding Nemo with added menace. Moorish idol fish are pursued by grey reef sharks. Fur seal cubs are trampled underfoot by brawling males on the Tyuleniy Island colony in eastern Russia. A manta ray has the plankton and dead skin nibbled off its body by butterfly fish, as if it were a marine spa day. In coral reefs off the coast of Japan, the impossibly cute sea bunny, the Beanie Baby of the ocean, resembles a squirt of shaving foam with bunny ears.
Now 98, Attenborough no longer paces around sunbaked terrains or crouches behind rocks, but he narrates and appears in a studio setting. Asia emerges as a reminder of all that could be lost if we don’t stay alert, but it’s also pure natural-world magic.
Star ratings (out of five)
Until I Kill You ★★★★
The Day of the Jackal ★★★★
Junior Taskmaster ★★★
Asia ★★★★
What else I’m watching
Lucan
(BBC Two)
This three-part docuseries about the elusive peer is made more poignant by the involvement of Neil Berriman, whose birth mother, Sandra Rivett – the Lucan children’s nanny – was murdered the night Lord Lucan disappeared in 1974.
Dispatches: The King, the Prince & Their Secret Millions
(Channel 4)
Here’s the eye-popping deep dive into royal finances that’s been causing a stir. It explores how Charles and William’s private estates make millions leasing land to public services, including the NHS, schools and the prison service.
Shetland
(BBC One)
More crime and chunky knitwear for detectives Ashley Jensen and Alison O’Donnell in the latest series of the ever-watchable reboot of the Scottish whodunnit series.
