Local Crime and Spitfires (Foyles War)

Member Name: aefra

Product:	Foyles War
Date:	10/12/03 (2379 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Absorbing storylines, Historical atmosphere

Disadvantages: **

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br>I am not an avid fan of tv. I check the evening schedule and decide what I shall watch or tape and often don't bother. However, sometimes - just sometimes - I am lucky enough to catch a drama series that I want to tell everyone about - and Foyle's War is one such.

Set in Hastings during WW11 Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle, played by Michael Kitchen, has been refused recruitment to active service and spends the war years dealing with crime in the small coastal town. From the first short series this was a drama which viewers and critics (although some were patronising) accepted with enthusiasm and a third series is already scheduled.

Among the many detective series on tv there are those which make relaxing yet forgettable viewing such as Midsomer Murders or Bergerac. Then there are those fine dramas in which the actor who plays the main character becomes so inextricably linked that despite other great perfomances they will be thought of forever as Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren), Morse (John Thaw) or Frost (David Jason). So I believe Michael Kitchen will now always come to mind as Foyle, so much has he made it his own.

Alongside Foyle is young Detective Sergeant Paul Milner (Anthony Howell), released from active duty having lost a leg in action and vicar's daughter now a WAAF driver, Samantha Stewart (Honeysuckle Weeks). Foyle's son Andrew (Julian Ovenden) is an RAF pilot based at the nearby airfield and, although the emphasis is civilian, real spitfires fly for us. Screenwriter and creator Anthony Horowitz (Murder in Mind, Midsomer Murders) gives us the reality and atmosphere of a time when life carried on regardless despite rationing, bomb shelters and road blocks manned by the Home Guard.

The 1940's is recent history, yet another lifetime for those of us who remember that period and just afterwards. Crimes which are hardly reported nowdays made the front pages of nationa
l newspapers, yet would be overshadowed by reports of loss of life during bombing raids. A convicted murderer was hanged as could be anyone found guilty of spying. Racketeering was an affront to the War Effort and dealt with severely while the police force was reduced drastically by the loss of officers to the armed services. The population left behind found themselves manning factories, driving public transport and anything else needed to replace those "called up" and Foyle's War places us in this time effortlessly.

The crimes investigated for us are local but often coloured by the wartime atmosphere, such as the death in prison of a concientious objector or that in the first episode of the beautiful but haughty German wife of a local squire. A recent episode began in London with the violent death of a secretary as she fell from the high office building belonging to a major food and commodities distributor. Switching back to Hastings, the home of the titled head of the company is burgled by a local man, although apparently nothing taken. In the local court we meet a barrister who is a refugee from pre-war Germany and a personal friend of Foyle. What is his interest in finding the safe-breaker and why is the local tycoon desperate to find whatever was taken from his safe and not reported? As another murder takes place, this time locally, Foyle finds himself suspecting his friend of involvement, yet all is not as it seems.

Over two hours the mystery unfolds and with the culprit discovered Foyle finds that someone in Government has decided that things should be allowed to lie. Yet we know that Foyle, quietly assertive and unwilling to let things go will bring things to a satisfactory conclusion for both himself and the viewer as well as retribution for the villain. Meanwhile other threads run beside the main investigation, sometimes tieing in with it other times not, but always an additional focus to keep our attentio
n. After a busy day I have often found myself falling asleep during the last half hour of an enjoyable feature length programme, but am always fully awake until the last moments of Foyle's War.

This is a drama which has me slipping easily backwards into a short era in which a telephone operator spreading rumours would be convicted of sedition, country houses were used as "funk-holes", in which some of the rich could live out the war in relative luxury whilst evading call-up and spitfires flying low over tennis courts were somehow re-assuring.

Foyle is middleaged, conservatively dressed - as he would have been during this time - and his personality always understated. So what is it about Michael Kitchen's portrayal which is so attractive and is already gathering followers? Here we have a character who is reserved even with his son, always perfectly and naturally good-mannered yet with confident assertion. When emotionally-moved or challenged by higher authority, we see him pause for a second or two, his mouth pursed thoughtfully upwards and to one side, before issuing a soft statement rather than the expected reply or making an unassailable point. His strength is undoubted and we can trust that behind the mild exterior and unreadable eyes his mind is calculating the next move. Yet there is humour beneath the dignified exterior and we smile when the merest lift of his lips indicates amusement. He has been called a new sex symbol and, although I wouldn't go that far, has certainly added to his fan base during this series.

Interestingly, Detective Foyle did exist although the tv storylines are fiction. Filmed on location in Hastings the local population had the fascination of watching people clothed in 1940's apparel crossing their streets and yellow traffic lines disappearing temporarily beneath glue and cat litter to ensure authenticity.

Foyle's War won a BAFTA award after the fi
rst series of 4 episodes and with the support of guest actors of the calibre of Edward Fox and Robert Hardy as well as those who regularly bring a familiar background to the storylines I am happy to stay in and watch ITV for two absorbing hours each sunday evening.



Note: Videos of each episode are available from Amazon.

Summary: