Jonathan Creek

Jonathan Creek - The Judas Tree: review

An improvement on recent outings, the latest Jonathan Creek sees the magician assistant detective discover how an open and closed murder is more complex that it appears.

Jonathan Creek (Alan Davies), the scruffy magician and master sleuth, is back for a one-off special. Jonathan Creek has always been a strange sort of a show. Not remotely serious enough to be scary and not funny enough to be a full-on comedy, it's more like an offbeat version of Midsomer Murders with magic thrown in. This particular story involves disappearing houses, old men crawling through the undergrowth, beautiful women impaled on railings and deception on a grand scale. Paul McGann/p] plays a writer of murder mysteries, the success of which depend on making the reader trust everyone and then, in the most innocent and everyday details, sowing the seeds of terror. There's not much terror here but it's amiable, ingenious and very silly.

Alan Davies ('Jonathan Creek')

After the huge success of the 2009 New Year special 'The Grinning Man' it seemed inevitable that it wouldn't be long before Alan Davies put on his famous duffle coat for another Jonathan Creek mystery. Written and directed by show creator David Renwick, the forthcoming Easter special 'The Judas Tree' will see Sheridan Smith re-teaming with Davies to investigate events at a house called Green Lanterns. We caught up with the show's leading man to find out what we can expect.

A spooky Easter treat for Alan Davies fans with this one-off outing from the sporadic murder mystery series. Once again magic consultant Jonathan Creek (Davies) is inveigled into joining forces with psychic investigator Joey Ross (Sheridan Smith) when a young woman (Natalie Walter) working for a famous crime writer (Paul McGann) appears to become possessed by a vengeful spirit from Victorian times. As ever this is more howdunit than whodunit, with the convoluted plot very much designed to keep you guessing all the way to the end.

Jonathan Creek: The Judas Tree review

Intriguing, confident, engaging and perplexing in equal measure with just a dash of magic, Jonathan Creek proves perfect holiday fare.

Alan Davies: "Terrible Climate Of Fear"

You can count on QI and Jonathan Creek star Alan Davies to give an honest opinion. Last month I took part in small round table interviews in London with Alan, co-star Sheridan Smith and writer David Renwick ahead of the new Jonathan Creek film - The Judas Tree where Davies spoke about "the terrible climate of fear" in British TV today.

Alan Davies 'takes 25% pay cut'

Jonathan Creek actor Alan Davies has said he has taken a pay cut for a new episode of the BBC One drama.

Renwick confirms return of Jonathan Creek

Alan Davies is set to reprise his role as magician sleuth Jonathan Creek for a second feature-length special for Easter next year, writer David Renwick has confirmed.

The Judas Tree was initially slated to air next Christmas, but the writer said that budget issues had pushed the project back.

After a five-year absence, Jonathan Creek returned with a two-hour special, The Grinning Man. Vanishing guests in a haunted attic was the theme, with Alan Davies joined by Sheridan Smith as his latest sleuthing sidekick.

As an audience participation puzzle it couldn't be faulted. I spent the final 30 minutes hurling increasingly desperate and ultimately incorrect speculations at the screen - It's a false knife!, It's a false corpse!, The magician is the reincarnation of his grandfather! etc - but never came close to unravelling any of the several mysteries contained in David Renwick's script.

But for all its ingenuity, Renwick's work just couldn't support its excessively indulgent running time, with the drama beginning to sag long before the murderer was revealed.

Jonathan Creek is reborn, after a few years away. He's looking into a series of disappearances in the attic of a big old country pile. More than the murders, though, it's about boobs. Or it certainly looks that way from where I'm sitting. They're everywhere. All the women in the show - Creek's sidekick, her mate, the killer's wife, the porn star in the strange subplot - are wearing virtually northing, and the camera never misses the opportunity to zoom in on a plunging top or a heaving chest. Oops, one of the porn star's bursts; they weren't real, it turns out. But there are still plenty more around to focus on.

To be honest I'm finding it hard to complain about ... but no, I must, this is the Guardian, for heaven's sake. It's gratuitous, all these scantily clad women about the place, simply for the titillation of the viewer. Soft porn masquerading as murder mystery. Where's Benny Hill? Probably in that bath...