Are beards intrinsically dodgy?
Someone at central casting ITV must have decided so because it’s the addition of fulsome face furniture that turns chiselled Poldark hero Aidan Turner into the ‘hmm, not sure he can be trusted’ centre of the decidedly off-centre yet curiously intriguing thriller The Suspect.
Turner, his admirable cheekbones smothered by a luxuriant bush that would leave Monty Don swooning, is Dr Joe O’Loughlin, a successful psychologist who, when we first meet him, is being celebrated for a courageous rooftop rescue and basking in the adoration of his lovely family, delightful home and the world in general.
But there’s something stirring under Dr Joe’s beard.
The murder of a young woman – sadly, we’re on that all too familiar plot path again – throws up curious connections to his past, connections which he ham-fistedly tries to cover up when the police come calling.
Meanwhile, Dr Joe is treating a disturbed young man fixated on the number 21 whose sole purpose appears to be to provide another suspect in the story.
There’s no denying the plot of The Suspect hangs on scarcely credible coincidences, and despite his best efforts, Turner struggles to make Dr Joe come across as anything other than guilty as charged, your honour.
One unsettling aspect of his character is that Dr Joe has recently been diagnosed with early onset Parkinson’s, which I sincerely hope is not just a plot device to make him extra twitchy. Because that would be seriously bad taste.
What it all boils down to, as the investigating DI pithily points out, is this: Is Dr Joe a rooftop hero or a sick killer?
And for all its hackneyed moody menace and slithery red herrings, I suspect I’ll be tuning in to The Suspect to find out if Aidan’s beard really is as guilty as it looks.
The verdict’s on a razor’s edge.
The Suspect airs on ITV this Monday at 9pm.
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