One of my favourites airing so far on TV this year
I like a good legal drama, Rumpole of the Bailey, Kavanagh QC and Perry Mason are especially great, so I had high hopes for Silk. And I really enjoyed it on the whole, as did my parents and sister, who is studying law at college.Now I do agree about some parts of the drama being on the unrealistic side, the episode with the racist police officer wasn't as solid in the legal details as the rest of the episodes and I didn't completely buy how quickly Martha Castello came back to work after her miscarriage. In fairness though, I did find some aspects of Judge John Deed unrealistic.
That said, Silk is a great programme that ranks among my favourite TV series airing so far this year. Visually, Silk is quite stylish with skillful camera work and striking location shooting. I quite like the music too, the main theme is very driven and does stick in your head for a long time after, decide for yourself whether that is a good thing or not, I personally loved the main theme while my brother found it annoying. And the background scoring is beautiful, haunting and does a credible enough job to bring some flavour to the scene it features in without intruding too much.
I was quite impressed with the series' writing. It is often thoughtful and intelligent with the odd spot of wry humour, such as how Maxine Peake uttered some of her lines in the first episode. It is even better though in the courtroom scenes which are really quite tense sometimes yet always compelling, some of the verbal sparring and observations between Castello and the witnesses are a real joy. The stories are constantly interesting, well-structured and well-paced, the direction throughout is taut and the characters are at least credible and not too sketchy.
The acting also helps lift. I especially want to praise Maxine Peake, who is just wonderful here. Her facial expressions and gestures are wonderfully judged and her delivery of lines is a joy to behold in that she especially made some of the weaker dialogue of the first episode in particular seem credible! It was also great seeing Rupert Penry Jones playing a complete ass while also showing a somewhat sympathetic side. There were also some enjoyable supporting performances, with old favourite Adrian Dunbar in the final episode standing out amongst others.
All in all, a great series even with the lack of realism. I also hope there is another series, as this showed so much promise, though unlike some of the gems of last year like Garrow's Law and Sherlock, Silk doesn't fall into the trap of being too short. 9/10 Bethany Cox
score 9/10
TheLittleSongbird 3 April 2011
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2408100/14384
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