blazing an eccentric trail at the box office or Death In Paradise mopping up on BBC One. Likewise breaking out the banner for amateur sleuthing and hokey plots is Jane Seymour in the, returning to the Irish airwaves after doing well on the Acorn streaming platform in the US.
Harry Wild is nothing like that. It’s lightweight, and the production values won’t knock your socks off – but it doesn’t work itself into hysterics over the fact that it is set in Ireland, and Seymour charms as a latter-day Miss Marple unleashed on D4.
In a recent interview, Seymour attributed the success of Harry Wild – which has a respectable cult fan base in the US – to two factors. First, casting an older woman as protagonist. “I don’t think they’ve ever had a series with a woman in her 70s in the lead, a very independent woman full of life. She’s changed her career this late in her life; she was a professor, and now she’s a detective,” she told a US entertainment website.
The obvious point to make is that it’s all hugely straightforward – a masterclass in adequacy. The plot is perfunctory, and you won’t be surprised to discover that the dead man’s wife is innocent and that the culprit turns out to be a police mole working for an imprisoned gangland box while serving as assistant to a senior garda.