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Identity is in many ways a pretty traditional crime drama, but it does boast a topical edge: in an age of credit cards and CCTV cameras, where the internet is the home of basically everything, this particular group of crime-fighting masterminds battle identity theft. All the usual suspects can be found on the team: the tough, no-nonsense female boss; the charming maverick genius with a shady past and a sexy accent (in this case, Irish); the underlings who exist basically just as plot devices to do the legwork; and the computer whizz who stays in the office to do the googling (and by that I mean, she finds out all the useful information.)
I actually enjoyed Identity much more than my snarky tone might imply. I wasn’t expecting much – some recent British crime dramas have left me cold (I’m looking at you, Luther), while ITV airing this on a Monday evening in July doesn’t say much for their confidence in it. And the first episode did have some pretty ropey elements: the resolution was much too quick, and would the apprehension of a 24 year-old serial killer who’s posing as a school pupil really be left up to two senior officers, one of whom is wearing a lovely tight white skirt and an exceptionally practical-for-running set of heels?
But, for all this, Identity has much to recommend it. The script veered into the clichéd at times, but it did have some fun, snappy dialogue. The set up of John Bloom’s personality (Aidan Gillen) was standard crime show “dangerous, rebellious genius” fare, but it’s given an interesting twist by the fact that he spent so long under cover: the man who created his own identity catching people who steal the identities of others. And the ending, where he appears to still have links to his undercover past, was an intriguing set-up for future episodes (and those shots of him striding through London were pretty cool.)
As with so many of these programmes, the thing really saving it is top-notch acting. The character of Martha Lawson returns Keeley Hawes firmly to Spooks territory, and she manages it with ease and aplomb. Aidan Gillen fares equally as well as John Bloom, with just the right balance of mystery, charm and danger, although I’m hoping there’ll be no forced sexual tension between them. Of the supporting members of the regular cast, Holly Aird most obviously stands out, managing to make her character more than a cliché, although I personally was glad to see the return our screens of Elyes Gabel (best known for playing the rather wet but sweet Guppy in Casualty). The guest stars were all fine, although I wasn’t entirely convinced by Josh McGuire as the mastermind identity thief and murderer.
I’ll be interested to see how the characters develop over the course of the next five episodes, and how well they manage to sustain and vary the central idea of identity theft. Identity wasn’t half bad at all, which is considerably more than I was expecting, to be honest.
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