Midwinter Of The Spirit (ITV) has hit our screens at exactly the right time.
As a supernatural thriller featuring gruesome murders and jumpy little scares, it’s perfectly suited to the approaching chill of autumn evenings but there’s another reason why I’m welcoming it just now: it is being broadcast in direct competition with BBC1’s Doctor Foster.
Doctor Foster’s plot is stuffed with high drama and implausible scenarios and takes itself very seriously indeed, whereas Midwinter Of The Spirit, equally dramatic and over the top, has a kind of camp feel: it knows it’s quite absurd but is determined to charge ahead and entertain us regardless, and makes Doctor Foster seem very dour.
Anna Maxwell Martin plays Merrily Watkins, a gentle Church of England vicar who is also a single mother and a widow. Lots of boxes are being ticked here in trying to create a character who breaks stereotypes. As the series opens, Merrily is on a training course to become a Church Of England exorcist – or “Deliverance Minister” as they prefer to call it. The CofE are perhaps squeamish about the word “exorcist” with its connotations of spinning heads, projectile vomiting and Catholicism.
The show declares its brand of subdued humour in the opening scenes because the exorcism training course is set up like every other tedious company training scheme, with the recruits being made to watch videos and answer questions then slip out the back for a quick cigarette on their tea break. They could be learning about customer service not demonic possession.
Frustratingly, the best part of these opening scenes was David Threlfall who plays Huw Owen, the exorcist trainer. He looked like a holy hippy, being a laconic bearded scruff with a rough accent and round John Lennon specs glinting amidst all the facial hair, but he quickly vanished from the screen as the attention moved to Merrily’s attempts to go it alone as an exorcist. I haven’t watched the second episode yet, but I hope Threlfall’s character makes a full return as he invigorated the story and prevented it slipping off into a satanic version of Murder She Wrote.
And his weary expertise will be required as Merrily finds it hard to be an exorcist. There’s no indication as to why such a gentle, anxious creature as she took up this job unless it has something to do with her recently deceased husband. Or maybe she simply found trickling water on brats’ nappers a tad unrewarding, but if she had been hoping for an easy introduction to the job she is disappointed.
Someone must have scrawled her phone number on a churchyard wall because she’s soon receiving calls summoning her to all manner of awful cases: a man has been crucified in a forest, an evil abuser lies on his deathbed in hospital, some devil-worshippers have been up to no good in their basement, and a local clergyman, Cannon Dobbs, goes mad and starts shouting and attacking people. All of these cases require Merrily’s attention - although we don’t immediately know why (for example, why would the local cops immediately call upon a nervous, newbie exorcist upon finding a murder victim pinned to a tree?)
Therefore, suspension of disbelief is required: we must accept that the cute little Herefordshire parish in which Merrily works has been suddenly plagued with murders and satanic abuses requiring her to dash hither and yon to pray and investigate, fret and gasp. Patience is also required as the first episode was a stramash of disparate storylines which will hopefully cohere as the series progresses. Even so, it was delightfully spooky and good fun for the dark evenings.
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