In the eyes of retired actor John Chapel (Timothy Spall), there’s very little to separate crime-solving from workshopping a play. Suspects become dramatis personae, motives neatly sketched character arcs. He’s self-important, certainly. Occasionally, downright pompous. But, irritatingly, he also gets results.
So, when a car dealer on community payback plunges (or is he pushed?) from the parapet of a 12th-century castle, newly promoted DI Janie Mallowan (Gwyneth Keyworth) is instructed to enlist Chapel’s help once again. Janie is less than thrilled. The pair have been keeping their distance ever since it emerged that he has been “boffing” her mum Yvonne (Melanie Walters).
Chapel, however, is incapable of staying away from the spotlight. Donning a hi-vis tabard with the gusto of a Shakespearean leading man in doublet and hose, he throws himself into the case and heads undercover among a shady cohort completing court-mandated voluntary work.
What follows is the sort of light-hearted fare that would feel out of place almost anywhere else but fits perfectly in its BBC One pre-watershed Sunday slot. It’s a peculiarly golden stretch of television, blissfully free of cynicism, where Countryfile and Antiques Roadshow offer soothing distraction before the working week looms.
Death Valley is a natural bedfellow: proper comfort-blanket viewing, elevated by the presence of Spall, whose performance ensures it never drifts into background noise.
The slight drawback with this season 2 opener, however, is that the mystery itself doesn’t quite match the charm of its Welsh setting. The motive feels thin, the lack of evidence glaring, and Chapel’s intuitive leaps risk leaving Janie looking a touch adrift – despite her nicely judged self-deprecation.
Thankfully, guest turns from Jane Horrocks, Hammed Animashaun and Hannah Daniel inject some welcome ambiguity, while Spall retains his flair for entering and exiting each scene with a rich, creamy flourish.
As ever, Chapel carries himself like a man who believes he’s slumming it, as though a classically trained thespian assisting the police were akin to an Olympian athlete being forced into an egg-and-spoon race.
View Green Video on the source websiteAnd yet, he’s clearly relishing the chance to show off and remind anyone within earshot of his career high in Caesar, a BBC detective drama that rivalled ITV’s Lewis – “though Kevin is a dear friend,” he adds, in a line that wryly echoes Spall and Kevin Whately’s days as building-site buddies on Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
Writer Paul Doolan also has some gentle fun at the expense of the acting profession via Chapel’s CV, which includes a melodramatic 2003 documentary about the very castle now serving as the crime scene. Cue Spall, windswept and long-haired, hamming it up in a series of ludicrous historical re-enactments. “Very Roger Corman,” Chapel murmurs, chin-stroking as he watches his younger self, and convincing absolutely no one.
Pretentious he may be, but seeing that pomposity repeatedly punctured is half the pleasure. The lasting image is of Chapel quoting Keats while flourishing his litter-picker like a prop sword: playing to an audience of minor criminals who couldn’t care less and somehow stealing the scene anyway.
Death Valley is available on BBC iPlayer. Season 2 premieres on Sunday 17 May 2026.
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