User reviews

Norman Bohun is a cad, messing around with a local married woman Elizabeth Barnes, it comes as no surprise when he ends up dead. Father Brown is on hand to uncover the truth despite the presence of Inspector Valentine.

I think it was obvious, even from this very first episode that this show was going to be a big success. It's light viewing, nothing too serious, hence it's early afternoon time slot, but really well acted, humorous, and intriguing enough to watch.

Some very enjoyable performances, the main cast are as watchable as ever, it's just a shame that Sam Hoare was bumped off so early on, he's a really good actor.

Mark Williams is a joy as Father Brown. This is so different compared to the version from the 1970's.

The brother of the vicar of the village where Father Brown has his parish church is a cad and a wastrel. When he's found near the church tower with his head smashed by a very small hammer, the local blacksmith is the first suspect, but it's his wife who confesses the murder!

But you know she hasn't done it. Someone else has - and the victim being an obnoxious fellow there's a whole pool to choose from. It's a very good episode, the first one to start of a great series. Of course, the other attractions are Lady felicity's singing voice. This episode has a good mix of humour and mystery. It's well-acted.

A literal and figurative title. A crude, offensive man has his head crushed by a hammer. He is about as unlikable as one can get. Apparently he has been living off moneys that his brother, a priest, has control over. This is a first episode, so we are introduced to some of the characters in the town. I will watch a few episodes, but one thing I hope is that the old busybodies don't play too great a role. That they are simply used as background for the little village. I never read any of the Chesterton works that Father Brown is part of.

I just started watching the series from the beginning. I don't miss Mrs m. She was petty annoying, and thought she was better than others. I know a lot of people say that's how was back then. She gossiped all the time, smiling in people's faces, then talked behind their backs. I loved when she was in trouble, but then, she'd go back to being herself. Always acting holy, but never said anything about lady Felicia sleeping around with different men all the time. I loved bunty and sid and Felicia,. But Mrs Devine and the new girl are a breath of fresh air. Also glad they got rid of Mallory, he was an ass. Disrespectful and rude.

Oh, the hideousness... The Father Brown stories of G.K. Chesterton are tricky to adapt, but it's hard to imagine them being done much worse than in this new series. The opening credits merely credit Chesterton with "characters" - worrying, but not without honesty, for this opener bears very little resemblance indeed to the actual story, whilst subsequent episodes are new plots with no Chestertonian original at all. Now, the episodes are all set in a never-never-land 1950s, a decade Chesterton never knew (he died in 1936), set the good father down in a tiny English village of infinite picturesqueness (just like Miss Marple's St. Mary Mead) and give him an assortment of sidekicks, including a stage-Irish cook (a role which wastes the brilliant Sorcha Cusack). He also has a nemesis in a strikingly obtuse police inspector named Valentine, this show's version of Lestrade or Japp. Movie buffs will recall an "Inspector Valentine" in the 1954 movie starring Alec Guinness (it was "Valentin", a Frenchman, in two of the stories), and that film updated the period, too, but it had wit, ingenuity and humanity aplenty and knew what Chesterton was writing about. Here, the father's faith is merely a kind of gimmick - Columbo had his raincoat and cigars, Poirot has his absurd moustaches, Banacek kept citing Polish proverbs and Father Brown has God. It's a travesty and an appalling one, amazingly insensitive - and there's no compensation in the way of dialogue or inventiveness. Mark Williams is a good enough actor to have made a fine Father Brown. What a pity he's trapped in this dross.