Murder on the Home Front- ITV1

Blitz spirits,dark and murderous.

The memoirs of the late Molly Lefebure had been dramatised for radio previously and seemed ripe for a television version.  It seems that the Radio 4 dramas stretch back as far as 1998.

1998.07.04 15:00 The Saturday Play: Murder on the Home Front By Michael Crompton, adapted from the book by Molly Lefebure. It is 1941, and a chance encounter in a dancehall leads Molly to romance, murder and a new career.
1999.06.05 15:00 The Saturday Play: Murder on the Home Front By Michael Crompton, adapted in two parts from the book by Molly Lefebure. 2: `The Case of a Lifetime'.
2000.07.08 15:00 The Saturday Play: Murder on the Home Front By Michael Crompton, adapted from the book by Molly Lefebure. 3: `The Wigwam Murder'.
2001.02.24 14:30 The Saturday Play: Murder on the Home Front By Michael Crompton, adapted from the book by Molly Lefebure. 4: `The Secret Agent'.
2003.12.20 The Saturday Play: Murder On The Home Front By Michael Crompton. Adapted from the book by Molly Lefebure. 5. 'The Horsham Trunk Murder'.Based on the true story of Molly Lefebure, as described in her book, Murder On The Home Front.

(thanks to http://www.suttonelms.org.uk/mcrompton.html for that information) 

So, an intriguing prospect, one drama set in the Second World War was so popular that when ITV tried to cancel 'Foyle's War', they were forced to bring it back to public delight and decent ratings.  Post-mortem/crime scene drama is also a mainstay of the schedules through long-running shows like 'Silent Witness' in the UK and the all-conquering 'CSI' franchise in the US.

Bringing those two formats together should create a winner, the powerful pull of a costume drama with all the blood and gore of a contemporary crime drama.  What we actually got seemed a slightly uneasy mix of the two which cancelled each other out rather than adding to the impact of the programme.

Here was a very dark drama (both literally and metaphorically) with death and bombings all around and a killer with a particularly topical trait, yet it failed to enthrall.  There is a second part to come next week so I shall reserve judgement, but on the basis of the first, I can't see it running to even the number of episodes that Radio 4 produced.  This is a shame because the source material is such fertile ground. Here we have an example of ITV drama reverting to bad old ways.  This was no 'Broadchurch', or even the flawed but fun 'Whitechapel'.