Irvine Welsh's Crime

Welsh does excel at dangerous sleazebags, and doesn’t disappoint here: the rancidly misogynist officer from series one, played by Jamie Sives, has been replaced by another, played by David Elliot.

What lifts it above the ordinary is an incendiary performance from Dougray Scott.

The production is surprisingly clichéd, as it happens, but still a highly watchable sort of detective drama, frankly because it gives the viewers what we want.

Again, it’s really hard to get excited about anything in Irvine Welsh’s Crime outside of Dougray Scott’s performance. But once again his performance draws viewers into the story.

Ignore the name and the potential and it’s a serviceable cop show.

We’re on board for Crime for Dougray Scott’s lead performance. The rest of the series feels like it could be from any procedural we’ve seen on either side of the Atlantic.

That people are bigoted, especially within the police, isn’t a problem story-wise. That’s real. But it’s the clunky, retrograde way it’s depicted, as if the script were pulled from a drawer where it’s been buried for the last 40 years.