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The Good Ship Murder is a new escapist whodunit drama from Channel 5, led by Jack Grayling, former cop and now the lounge cabaret singer on this luxury Mediterranean cruise ship.
Catherine Tyldesley (Scarborough, Viewpoint) takes the role of First Officer Kate Woods, protege to the Captain, but to Jack, she’s rather an ice queen. He clearly fancies her, but is she likely to reciprocate? She tries to give the impression she’s impartial, but from their first meeting, I figured I’d bet my house that something will happen in due course, because I’ve watched more TV and movies than the number of hours I’ve been alive.
I wonder if she’ll realise that he looks like the guy who won that there X-Factor! (Okay, so I know it IS Shayne Ward!)
Also in the cast, is Claire Sweeney (both Scarborough and, of course, Brookside!) as Beverley Carnell, ‘the face of the ship’ to the passengers, but she doesn’t have too much to do in the opening episode, so I expect her time to shine will come later.
When it comes to the passengers, Beverley thinks she’s spotted a potential mystery shopper, while another woman is marrying soon after being widowed, with her new beau heard talking about her money. Is he a conman?
Either way, when they head for an excursion at La Rochelle, in SW France, someone’s soon dead! But whodunit? Some people are acting dodgy, for sure, so do they have a motive? Either way, no spoilers from me, here.
And because they’re on a cruise ship, one character trots out the classic lin from Jaws, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat!”
The Good Ship Murder is light, entertaining fluff to relax to, which is probably what Channel 5 do best when it comes to drama, following the likes of The Madame Blanc Mysteries on two series and counting, and the new version of All Creatures Great And Small, running for four series so far.
However, I do find it odd when potential implements are picked up by one of the characters doing the investigation, without using any gloves, so their fingerprints will show up…
So far, I’ve only seen the first episode, and it ends with Mr Ward singing a tune to a waiting audience. If I had to guess, I’d say that every episode ends this way, so the audience hear a number of tunes being filmed, as opposed to just one.
Check out my trailer reaction below, along with the time from August when Catherine Tyldesley made headlines with ‘Cakegate’!
The Good Ship Murder begins tomorrow night on Channel 5 at 9pm. It’s not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but when it is, it will be listed on the New DVD, Blu-ray, 3D and 4K releases UK page.
If you miss it, you can watch the each episode on My5 after transmission.
Director: Gordon Anderson
Producer: Sandra MacIver
Writers: Jeff Povey, Paul Matthew Thompson
Cast:
Jack Grayling: Shayne Ward
First Officer Kate Woods: Catherine Tyldesley
Beverley Carnell: Claire Sweeney
Piers de Vreese: Geoffrey Breton
Chafiq Harrak: Cosh Omar
Nero De Wolfe: Tommaso Basili
Paulette: Jane Slavin
Cecile Ray: Olivia Marie Fearn
Luca Di Marco: Manuel Cauchi
Ella Jones: Olivia Fenton
Anoushka Barrymore: Karine Ambrosio
Sergio Besso: Chris Dingli
Stephanie St. James: Terry Bamberger
Det. Francesco Ricci: Edward De Gaetano
Harris Di Marco: Jamie Laird
Charlie York: Fergal Coghlan
Yuval Goldmann: Nikolai Tsankov
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.