Skip to content
Steeltown Murders is one of those dramas which is based on real events, but with additional scenes createed. You know the drill.
It’s set in both 1973, and early 2000s, so I figured when we see Philip Glenister in the decade that home furnishings forgot, I’d keep expecting him to say that for lunch, “I’m ‘avin’ ‘oops!”
But no, he’s in the more recent decade, as DCI Paul Bethell, looking into the now-cold case, even though the set design doesn’t seem any different. The existence of computers rather gives it away, however.
The case centres around the Llandarcy murders, and where we join the story, a woman called Sandra had been killed three months earlier, so the cops think she should be linked with them, too.
There’s a lot of plot explanation, talking about how some attacks may or may not be linked to others, plus looking for suspects, checking with eye-witnesses etc, and given that it’s a cold case, they go visiting witnesses who were around back in the day. Plus, there’s other elements I obviously don’t want to reveal ahead of transmission, because the whole point of making a drama, is that you find out the key aspects that happen when you watch it!
Safe to say, though, that it does feel like it takes a fair while for Steeltown Murders to get going, but then the opener is just part 1 of 4, hence so far, it’s like only watching a quarter of a film, so I will stick with it and see how it goes.
I understand all episodes will be online after the first one airs, so that’s how I’ll see them, since there were no subtitles on the preview, and the Welsh accents can be a bit too strong sometimes.
Steeltown Murders begins on BBC1 tomorrow night at 9pm, and the whole series will then be available on the BBC iPlayer.
The series is available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release on June 19th.
Director: Marc Evans
Producer: Hannah Thomas
Writer: Ed Whitmore
Music: Sarah Warne
Cast:
Phil ‘Bach’ Rees: Steffan Rhodri
DCI Paul Bethell: Philip Glenister
Jackie Roberts: Karen Paullada
Karina Bethell: Elinor Crawley
DCS Ray Allen: Oliver Ryan
Geraldine Hughes: Calista Davies
DS Chris Wynne: Richard Corgan
Sita Anwar: Natasha Vasandani
John Dilwyn Morgan: Ben McGregor
DS: Vic Jenkins: Richard Elfyn
Dai Williams: Keith Allen
Mr. Croiset: Walter van Dyk
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.