Mark Bonnar

Guilt, BBC Two, review

An unexpected Scottish treat with a pitch-black tone.

The police in Guilt (BBC2) are also showing no interest in getting to the bottom of the murky maelstrom of crimes . . . murder, fraud and now money-laundering. It doesn't help that one of the detectives is in the pay of the city's kingpin (Bill Paterson).

'I'm a businessman now, but a businessman who in the past committed significant amounts of extreme violence,' he growled at dodgy lawyer Max (Mark Bonnar). Bonnar is at the dark heart of this crime drama. He conveys such brittle, superficial charm we can't help guessing at what festers beneath.

All comedy in the script has leached away. There was nothing funny about the dockyard beating meted out to private eye Kenny. Like Max and his brother Jake, we've been lured into something much more dangerous than we expected.

Mark Bonnar and Jamie Sives (trivia: they are old schoolfriends from a Leith primary) are Max and Jake, who run over an old, dying man as they drive back tiddly from a wedding. And, of course, try to cover it up. There are welcome Coen brothers echoes here, though it's written by Neil Forsyth (Eric, Ernie And Me, the much-missed Brian Cox vehicle Bob Servant), and it's also got something of Scott Smith's A Simple Plan about the plot, in the inexorability of tiny lies leading to outrageous, yet just credible, developments. It's very funny, and inlaid with a bittersweet dose of unwholesomeness, like sucking on a furry boiled sweet from too long under the sofa. Also: much decent music trivia - well, what's your standout Bowie album? And was there really a fine "early Rod Stewart... before one of the great artistic collapses of our time"?

Guilt, series one, episode two review

Eight months and many thousands of programme hours in, the new BBC Scotland channel has an appointment-to-view hit on its hands with the comedy drama Guilt.

Guilt: bonny murder thriller with surreal twists

Guilt (BBC2), starring Mark Bonnar and Jamie Sives as two Edinburgh brothers who can't bear the sight of each other, is a murder thriller that might have escaped from the imagination of Billy Connolly. Convoluted, paranoid and hypnotic, it was also mordantly funny.

The humour gets bleaker as the plot thickens in this tale of two brothers trying to cover up their guilt after a hit-and-run. Max (Mark Bonnar) pays the dead man's neighbour a visit. Meanwhile, Jake (Jamie Sives) takes a shine to the victim's niece. This episode airs on BBC Two next Wednesday.

Guilt review

Plenty of guilty pleasures from darkest Scotland.

Guilt, BBC Two review

Neil Forsyth stylish drama gathers conviction and momentum after a slow start.

Guilt, review

The writing was sharp, bleak, and of-the-moment.

Guilt: A fabulously funny black comedy

In this moral satire, two Scottish brothers discover the perfect victim. Can they get away scot-free?