Death of an Expert Witness

This was the first of the adaptations of the P D James books of Adam Dalgliesh, which is unfortunately unavailable to the public in video. If it come again onto your local television station, it is a must see!

Roy Marsden makes a perfect Dalgliesh! Tall, mysterious Dalgliesh is the best man available and is picked by New Scotland Yard to investigate murder and intrigue in a highly sensitive government department.

Jowly Geoffrey Palmer plays a part far different from the relaxed comedy parts of late, and Barry Foster cuts a dash as Dr Maxim Howarth. The plot twists and turns and the viewer will be kept literally guessing 'Who done it' until the last scene! A great night of entertainment for mystery fans. Well worth a look!

Having very much enjoyed "Original Sin" (one of the later P D James adaptations in this series), I was disappointed by "Death of an Expert Witness". The main actors - Roy Marsden, Geoffrey Palmer, Cyril Cusack, Brenda Blethyn, Fiona Walker - are very good, as one would expect, but most of the minor characters are played really badly - sometimes so badly as to be embarrassing or amusing. This may well be in part down to the direction, which is inexplicably poor from the normally excellent Herbert Wise, who must have been going through a bad patch. Also I hated the device of occasionally making Dalgleish's thoughts audible: it simply doesn't work.

A pity the team didn't remake this adaptation in later years.

The first of the Dalgliesh detective series will surely put intelligent viewers off. First, at four and half hours long it is about 300 percent as long as it should have been. What seems like endless scenes of cars arriving, departing, and moving down roads, and of Dalgleish sitting and thinking to himself are just two of the ways the script is padded almost beyond belief. If this is being down in the first two parts of this three part series to establish an air of realism all this is thrown to the winds in part three when the major characters act in a downright silly way. Clichés abound. With a murderer on the loose, a young girl, who hitherto would faint at a frown, decides to take the shortcut home through the dark woods, announcing her reason for doing it to the audience as if the justify so silly a behavior in the mind of the viewer. The final coup de gras in this respect is when Superintendent Dalgliesh and the confessed murderer go for a walk alone in the countryside while the murderer explains the reasons for his criminal behavior. As someone who has just finished teaching the mystery as a part of a course in Modern Drama I count myself among the great fans of the dramatized mystery story. However, I fell asleep more than once trying to get through this one. 'Nuff said. Unless you are ready for your nap skip this one and go to 'The Black Tower' or one of the other later programs in the Dalgliesh series.

Well, yes, it's long, but the interweaving of characters takes time. P. D. James brings us into the scenes by offering stories in the first half about the major suspects in a murder that takes place half-way into the series. While you want to get to the 'who did it?' part, relax, enjoy the stories. None are irrelevant or thin, and they all add depth to what otherwise would be just another detective procedural.

British mystery at its absolute finest. Death of an Expert witness is long, but loaded with rich content, compelling characters, and fine performances, a masterclass from lead actor Roy Marsden.

Some will find the direction and pacing too laden, but it's that pace that allows the story to develop, the characters to grow, and the resulting conclusion to come as a big surprise.

It's very much a product of the elegant eighties, with Lesbianism something of a taboo subject, and Stella referred to as a friend, rather then partner, and of course we get some eighties glamour, in the form of Domenica, who genuinely looks dazzling at times, a fine performance from Meg Davies.

Marsden stands out of course, but he's in good company, Fiona Walker and Geoffrey Palmer shine, only Andrew Ray feels somewhat wooden as Bradley.

It's a great story, from a book I'd highly recommend, but this is a fantastic adaptation, and very faithful. This is the best of the PD James adaptations, and I must at this point highlight the sublime music, the score is one of television's greatest.

A truly great watch. 9/10.