Dirk Gently

Dirk Gently review: Sleuth will out

There are some beautifully comic moments in a gripping, galloping plotline, including an awkward hug the pleasingly empathy-free Gently has to give to a weeping, wronged wife; the close parodies of detective drama with lines such as "the grown man who cried Pentagon" set to a sizzlingly suspense-filled soundtrack, and some simple sledge-hammering clad in blue underpants.

Dirk Gently review

Douglas Adams would probably have liked it - but that's not to say the purists are going to be satisfied.

Dirk Gently episode 1 review

I'm not entirely sure what's missing, but perhaps it's because both Dirk and his sidekick Macduff aren't as well-written as they perhaps need to be.

Writer Douglas Adams had a breathtakingly fertile mind, and TV has sometimes proved a limited medium for capturing his flights of fancy. But Howard (Misfits) Overman has plucked the comic essence of Adams from his novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and worked it into a digestible, enjoyably eccentric format.

A well-received pilot in 2010 has spawned this three-part commission - a first for BBC4 and we hope not their last - starring Stephen Mangan as the shambolic, slightly annoying gumshoe and "Everywhere Man" Darren Boyd as his flinching sidekick.

The endearingly chaotic story about Pentagon surveillance, horoscopes and a toy pig is suitably Adamsian, and overall it makes for a quirky alternative to Sherlock - I think it can go quirkier still. But the show belongs to Boyd: without expending any effort, he has all the funniest moments.

Dirk Gently: The case of the missing electric monk

It's a tricky business, steering Douglas Adams's dodgy sleuth Dirk Gently from page to screen. Howard Overman tells Benji Wilson how he did it.

Since 2010's largely successful pilot episode based on Douglas Adams's comic detective novels, public appreciation of bromantic bickering between sociopathic north London super-sleuths and their prissy but redoubtable sidemen has risen considerably. A fluffy pig, some bogus horoscopes and an extramarital affair are the dots that Stephen Mangan's 'holistic' private eye - a shaggy-haired Sherlock with a belief in the interconnectedness of seemingly random coincidences - and grounded associate Darren Boyd must join to stop some global meltdown or other. It ditches the more ornate lunacy and the dark, portentous undercurrents of the Adams originals, but just enough of his charm, fun and spirit of closeted anarchy remains to appeal to fans as well as newcomers.

The thousands of creative decisions behind Dirk Gently

One man, Douglas Adams, wrote two and a half books about the adventures of holistic detective, Dirk Gently, and now over 100 people have collaborated to bring his character to the small screen for a new series which starts tonight.

The late Douglas Adams, upon whose work Dirk Gently is loosely based, once served as script editor during Doctor Who's original run, so the links are inherent anyway. But television really doesn't need another straggle-haired, loose-limbed, people-phobic, geek-chic eccentric solving crazy puzzles with assistance from a more diffident and human sidekick. It's probably only a matter of time before they revive Catweazle starring Ben Whishaw as a sexy nerd wizard in a pin-striped smock (I really shouldn't be giving them any ideas).

Stephen Mangan is fine as Gently, a conceited, bumbling, shabby detective who conducts "tangential investigations" based on his belief in the interconnectedness of all things. But his borderline charming performance isn't enough to rescue this micro-budgeted production from resembling a CBBC version of Sherlock.

The gritty cheapness of original BBC4 comedies such as The Thick Of It and Getting On actually works in their favour, as their dark, jittery essence practically demands flat lighting etc. But Dirk Gently, in trying to create a much lighter and more fantastical mood, is ill-served by its cheapo aesthetic.

Everything about it is far too slight: slightly likeable, slightly funny, slightly clever, but never enough to really succeed as either comedy or drama. And while the decision to downplay the science-fiction concepts found in the original books makes sense from a budgetary point of view, it also exacerbates the general feeling of pointlessness. It's just too generic and ordinary. And Douglas Adams was never generic and ordinary.

Video: Interview with Dirk Gently star Stephen Mangan

On the set of the BBC4 comedy drama, Mangan tells RT about Dirk's detective powers, breakfast habits and heroic hair...

Audio: Stephen Mangan on the return of Dirk Gently

Nikki Bedi talks to actor Stephen Mangan, who returns to our screens in the guise of Dirk Gently, Douglas Adams' self-styled 'holistic detective'.