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Sherlock Holmes with a Dublin twist is such a charming premise that it’s a bit embarrassing that no one has thought of it before. And that’s what we got, more or less, in Dead Still (RTÉ One, Sunday).
This thriller set in Victorian Ireland is unabashedly pulpy, silly even, and draws on the rich tradition of 19th-century Irish gothic horror (show runners Imogen Murphy and John Morton obviously know Charles Maturin’s Sheridan Le Fanu). He is not about anything and he does not take himself seriously. I mean it as a compliment when I say that it is the most “little RTÉ” that RTÉ has put on the airwaves in a long time.
Also, to the extent that budget allows, he paints a vivid portrait of a country that, while not nestled within the Empire, was certainly somewhere nearby. Belfast actor Michael Smiley has a stylish Anglo-Irish accent like Brock Blennerhasset, a photographer in Dublin in the 1880s who specializes in “memorial portraits” – the photography of the recently deceased.
“Commemorative Portrait” was the macabre Instagram of its time. Apparently, the last memory of a dead relative was a happy photo of them: very out of date but arranged to appear alive and posed with their closest and loved ones. The way the world is going right now, don’t be surprised if it comes back.
Blennerhasset is a master of this creepy art. However, his comfortable life in a Georgian home is thrown into chaos when a photographic plate of his latest “client” disappears. Turns out it’s been stolen by the dead woman’s grieving husband. He is a convict, a Fenian, and speaks with a broad working-class accent. His wife’s wealthy family naturally disapproves of it.
The disappearance of the plaque brings Blennerhasset to the attention of Dublin Metropolitan Police detective Frederick Regan (Aidan O’Hare). However, Regan has greater concerns, in particular a series of murders in which the victim presents himself as one of Blennerhasset’s subjects and bleeds out.
There are echoes of Netflix’s recent New York thriller, The Alienist, from the 19th century, when Blennerhasset is joined by his niece Nancy Vickers (Eileen O’Higgins, who played the best friend from Saoirse Ronan’s hometown of Brooklyn) and the distraught gravedigger. Conall Malloy (Kerr Logan). to track the plate. And so the game is on.
Murphy and Morton don’t hit you over the head with that, but Dead Still also alludes to the tensions around class and identity in Irish society that would eventually explode like a powder keg. Detective Regan’s accent identifies him as working-class from the north side of Cork City (what a great novelty to hear a Leeside accent that goes beyond the “Stage Corkman” normally found on Irish television). And so the crybaby Blennerhasset clearly sees him as a glorified messenger.
Yet these sociopolitical components are allowed to bubble in the background, while all too often a domestic series would cost you your head. RTÉ doesn’t deserve all the credit: The show is produced in association with the American broadcast network Acorn, where it premiered over the summer.
It’s new and interesting nonetheless that it seems to have stemmed from an alternate universe where Irish TV isn’t just about small town shenanigans, dodgy Dubs, or recycled Amy Huberman comedies. Dead Still isn’t perfect: the production values are sometimes rickety, the quirky soundtrack annoying, and there are holes in the plot. But he departs from the groupthink of television dramas and dares to be his thing. That is why it deserves praise.
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