paul2001sw-1 The new BBC drama 'Quirke' takes us into postwar Ireland - seedy, drunken, dominated by the twin evils of the church and the wealthy and corrupt. It's a somewhat clichéd view, made palatable by the series' muted tone, although at times in the first episode I struggled to follow the softly spoken dialogue and relatively (for a murder drama) understated plot. Unlike many such series, there's an overall narrative as well as individual stories; the fact that Quirke's niece has a separate, personal connection to all three murders reduces the overall plausibility. The cast is an impressive one, but the scripts don't really call on them to do anything extraordinary; the detail with which their characters' feelings are observed is often weaker than its symbolic depiction (endless booze and cigarettes). To me, 'Quirke' fell between two stools: too low-key and gloomy to be fun family entertainment, but not truly deep either.

Prismark10 I looked forward to Quirke with Gabriel Byrne back in the British small screen after his foray to Hollywood. In Quirke he is an alcoholic pathologist in 1950s Dublin. Quirke has been adopted by the wealthy Griffin family. His adopted father is played by Michael Gambon.The family itself has hidden secrets, Quirke's own daughter has been raised by his brother when Quirke's wife died. However Quirke has also been carrying on with his brother's wife.In the three films atmospherically shot in a low budget television way, we have Quirke probing into babies being adopted out by the church, or a wide boy taking saucy pictures of married women and using them to blackmail their husbands and the final film is on the hunt of a missing girl who might have had an abortion.The film meshes dark secrets in a 1950s Dublin where the Roman Catholic church has an overbearing influence.However the final product was poor. The first film had sound issues and the films were just dull with a mundane script, predictable characterisation and badly directed. In fact they looked like television dramas from 20 years ago and forgotten that filming techniques have moved on.The series reminded me of Inspector George Gently especially with its period drama setting and the changing social scene of the 1960s north east England but Gently is miles ahead in entertainment value and production values, ironic as the early films were shot in the Republic of Ireland.Quirke is disappointing and a disappointment.

ray-cormick How low is the lowest common denominator in this. John Banville seemed to me to be a writer of Ireland past and present that you might learn something from. Holy mother of God, Quirke is terrible. I've never seen such a transparent plot line, such poor and shallow acting from stellar marquee names, so many faux hospital passes. Can I write the next episode - just gotta check Wikipedia for some autopsy references and come up with a 'startling' revelation regarding a hard drinking long lost relative of some sort or the other and then mix it up with production values ranging from low to medium allied with an occasional exotic non-1950's sounding name and they're ye are Quirke , working title Dublin Dud.

jk-692-236394 Honestly I do not know they expect to get viewers on a regular basis with only 3 episodes? It did not play like a mini series or long movie. Was it suppose to? It is well done. Different and interesting. The acting was good. But I was sure this was a TV series. Three episodes does not make a TV series. I guess it was not meant to be more. This is from Wiki. Quirke is a British-Irish crime drama television series that was first broadcast on BBC One and RTÉ One in 2014. The three-part series is based on the books by John Banville, writing under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, and was adapted by Andrew Davies and Conor McPherson. I would like to see them actually turn this into a real series.