Father Brown (2013-)

The Father Brown stories by G.K. Chesterton have been made into films and movies before. Alec Guiness played the priest/detective in the sixties, and in the seventies a series was made with Kenneth Moore. He did a perfect job, but unfortunately the series have not stood the test of time that well, in my opinion. Due to the way it was filmed it looks like a play that has been recorded and the pace is very, very slow. And, even worse, they kept the pauses in the episodes on the dvds, so three times per episode the screen goes to black. Very annoying.

Last year a new series was made, with Mark Williams as Father Brown. (we know him from Harry Potter where he played Arthur Weasley) I think he does a splendid job as Father Brown, a good man with a good heart. For Father Brown saving a person’s soul is more important than catching the criminal.

If you want a series that follows the stories to the letter, this is not the series for you. They kept some of the stories, but often they wrote a new story or only used the essence of a story.

I personally like it that they gave Father Brown a village and a parish (somewhere in the Cotswolds), because now you also get to know some of the villagers like Lady Felicia or Mrs. McCarthy who is the parish secretary.

If you want gritty stories and clever plots with lots of twists, this is probably also not a series you will like. This series is all about atmosphere. They captured the look and the feel of the fifties perfectly (Father Brown was transported in time). If you like series like Midsomer Murders or Rosemary and Thyme, than Father Brown is a series you will love.

Series one is out on dvd and series 2 was broadcasted on television, and will hopefully be out on dvd somewhere in the (near) future.