ITV’s predictable drama Ridley has murder with none of the mystery-Sophie Laughton-Entertainment – Metro

The Adrian Dunbar drama has a classic formula – but it’s just too predictable (Picture: ITV)

It’s the classic ITV formula – a dark, miserable murder mystery to chase the Sunday scaries away. So it’s unsurprising they’ve got their checklist refined and ready for their latest offering, Ridley. 

Tortured copper? Check – and it’s Line of Duty star (double check) Adrian Dunbar back in uniform – well, almost. He’s playing Alex Ridley, a retired detective who has been summoned back as a police consultant by ex-protégée DI Carol Farman (Derry Girls’ Bronagh Waugh). 

Tragic backstory? Check – his wife and daughter are killed in a fire by arsonist Michael (Aidan McArdle) who Ridley now uses to torture himself by visiting in prison. 

Character quirk? Check – he’s a ‘singing detective’, which mostly means a few shots of Ridley glumly sitting at a grand piano and moody jazz backing music, which pipes up incongruously anytime he walks through the door. 

Attractively bleak setting? Check – we’re up somewhere on the misty moors of West Yorkshire. 

But, ah, we’re missing something. We’ve got murder, sure – a farmer gets shot in the first five minutes – but everything that unfolds afterwards is so highly predictable there’s little mystery at all.

Ridley is set to air on ITV (Picture: ITV)

The cast do their best – but it seems their hearts aren’t in it (Picture: ITV)

Don’t get me wrong, there’s total satisfaction in working out who done it before the police do, but it usually doesn’t take them a whole hour of viewing time to catch up. The twist in these dramas does so often ‘hide in plain sight’, as DI Ridley glumly muses, but the script doesn’t usually start with the winks and nudges 17 minutes in. If it took him that long to work out the very glaringly obvious, then the exasperated DCI (Terence Maynard) has a point – he probably shouldn’t be back on the team.

Having a consultant policeman is at least a fresh-ish angle on the increasingly overdone police procedural, but I’m not convinced Ridley’s presence offers anything enlightening especially as it robs Waugh of the chance to shine as the no-nonsense new DI.

The rest of the cast do their best, but you feel their hearts aren’t really in it – there’s some dull delivery of already uninspiring lines, and even the most emotional scenes fail to give even the faintest tug on the heartstrings.

But it’s not over yet, and after finally getting to the bottom of what turns out to be a rather sad tale, Ridley treats us all to a sing song. By the time the first episode is over, you’ll be begging Monday morning to save you. 

Ridley begins on ITV tonight at 8pm.

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