Based on Stephen Booth’s Peak District-set novels, this new crime drama stands out from the crowd
What’s this? A new crime drama on Channel 5 that’s neither cosy nor set in 5’s favourite county, Yorkshire? Cooper and Fry might follow the old trope of a pair of mismatched detectives, but in straying over the border into Derbyshire, it’s at least breaking some new ground – and is immediately seductive thanks to its two brilliant leads.
DS Ben Cooper is played by Rob James-Collier (gay footman Thomas Barrow in Downton Abbey), while former Doctor Who companion Mandip Gill is DS Diana Fry. Naturally, they’re at odds; he’s a local copper who’s spent his life on the rural beat of Edendale, while she’s mysteriously relocated from Leeds. As Cooper’s superior lays it out: “Sickeningly over-qualified and she willingly swaps the bright lights of Leeds for Edendale.”
Fry’s relocation looks set to be an ongoing mystery. She refuses to take persistent calls from someone called Dave, who eventually texts to say: “Wherever you are, I’ll find you.” Meanwhile, Cooper has a mystery of his own to solve outside of the crime-of-the-week – the identity of the person who murdered his policeman father. He’s even covered a wall of his mother’s kitchen in one of those collages of suspect photos, Post-it notes, maps and arrows so beloved of crime dramas. His mother is a clairvoyant, by the way; you’d think she might be able to help.
But back to the titular duo’s first case together, after workmen discover a decomposed body in the grounds of a dilapidated farmhouse. The corpse has had its left hand removed, a severance that will eventually lead Cooper to suggest a piece of local folklore involving protection from evil. Urban copper Fry naturally rolls her eyes at all this rustic nonsense, although her new colleague has, in fact, sniffed out a lead that takes them to a care home and the farm’s agitated previous owner, Raymond (Eamon Rohan).
Cooper and Fry makes great use of its Peak District setting (Photo: Helen Sloan/Paramount)
The drama is based on Stephen Booth’s Peak District-set novels and the story, which also involves a teenage runaway and an Eastern European contractor with something to hide, has its far-fetched coincidences. Fry, for example, has a lightbulb moment while reading the ingredients on a packet of cold-and-flu decongestants that leads her to realise that they’re dealing with a crystal meth lab. And I had my eye on Raymond’s over-protective carer from early on, and wasn’t surprised when she was revealed as a bad’un. Nevertheless, it mostly rattles along plausibly enough, the main purpose of this opening episode being to introduce the eponymous leads.
And while Cooper is initially antagonistic towards his new big-city colleague, of course, they come to respect each other. Fry certainly gives as good as she gets. Persistently asked why she relocated from Leeds, Gill’s character replies that she’s “been paid by the government to broaden the gene pool”. And when Cooper jokes about city folk probably never having seen a spade, she tells him not to worry, “I’ve been around plenty of tools in Leeds”.
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Fry even saves Cooper’s life when he’s cornered at the meth lab by Raymond’s carer’s rifle-toting father. I’ve never read the books, so I don’t know whether their relationship will ever develop beyond the purely professional, but Cooper and Fry are both unattached and seemingly well-matched.
In any case, the sure test of a new show like this is whether you are tempted to watch the next episode, especially with so many crime dramas to choose from. Thanks to these two central characters, I am.
‘Cooper and Fry’ continues on Wednesdays at 8pm on Channel 5 and is streaming on My5
