Dalziel and Pascoe (TV Series) A Clubbable Woman (1996) User Reviews

Paradise lost.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 20 November 2020]

It's a very gritty, Earthy opening to the fondly remembered series, very much a Northern storyline, with a Welsh rugby flavour running through the middle.

It's a solid mystery to begin with, I would say the stories would become a little more dynamic with time, but this one's as rugged and gritty as the characters. A few questions will keep you guessing as you watch, did he do it, was it someone else, did he do it knowingly, or did he do it as a result of a blow to the head.

Whether you watch Series one or series ten, the two lead actors are very much the same, they don't change or deviate, both are great in my opinion, Andy is gruff, uncouth, rude, he's the epitomy of a single, lonely Policeman. Peter by contrast, fresh, enthusiastic and keen, Colin Buchanan is so very, very handsome here.

Good characters, The Evans duo are both very charismatic and perhaps the most interesting, although Bernard's Welsh accent is perhaps a little questionable.

Enjoyable, 8/10.

A Clubbable Woman

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 14 December 2022]

I once knew someone in college who was mad keen to be a policeman. Our lecturer kept telling him to go to university, get a degree and then join the police force. It was the only way to get far in the force with proper promotion. This was in the mid 1980s.

So it was odd to see Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel (Warren Clarke) keep bringing up the university education status of Detective Inspector Peter Pascoe (Colin Buchanan) in a crime drama shown in the mid 1990s. By this time most high ranking police officers would have a degree.

A Clubbable Woman was a 1970 crime novel by Reginald Hill, where a policeman with a university degree would had been unusual. Not so in the 1990s and the reliable writer Alan Plater had not or unable to update it.

This also explains why the ending of the crime drama was odd. The victim who remains unseen until she is a corpse was by all regards a horrible older woman married to Sam Connon. He was once a promising rugby player now working as a personnel manager.

Coming home with concussion after a rugby game. His wife remains impassive, just watches television while he throws up and goes to bed. When Connon wakes up, he finds his wife dead, her head bashed in.

The first episode of Dalziel and Pascoe is the adaptation of the first book. Set in a yorkshire town, Dalziel is a blunt man who is rough around the edges. Pascoe is more calmer and polite.

Dalziel knows Connon from rugby circles. Among the possible suspects is a Welsh rugby fan with an attractive wife, a neighbour who dislikes Connon and a keen jogger who is always running about in the evening.

When a small boy goes missing, it leads to several important clues regarding the murder.

The ending was weird but that might reflect more on the way Hill wrote his novels, such as writing in non chronological order. There is also no going away from the hint of misogyny about the whole thing which might reflect the era the novel was written in. Then again even the modern police still has its share of misogyny.

Shameless misogyny

[babstoyfish · 2/10 · 22 April 2022]

What a toxic pig nightmare! Grunting, trashy men, all horned up and being gross. Even the title: A Clubbable Woman? Good lord. Spoiler: A guy kills another guy's wife and the widower is glad to be rid of her and they're all pals at the end. Bros before hoes I guess. I'm glad the misogynistic hellworld depicted here is slowly becoming a thing of the past.

Awful

[depaysement · 3/10 · 18 July 2020]

I'm surprised I bothered watching more after this. The misogyny was rampant. Victim was not a Nice Woman, therefore we should feel sorry for her Poor Henpecked Husband who so understandably beat her head in. Acting was good, story horrible. I didn't much like Ellie at the time - she was written to be unsympathetic - but the more one learns about police, in the UK or anywhere else (cough *USA* cough), the more one sees she was absolutely right about them.

Confusing, too many fish in the barrel, needs some good acting

[clotblaster · 1/10 · 9 April 2010]

Very disappointing since I have been waiting patiently for this series to come to the US, but, well, this episode, the clubbable woman, makes little sense and is mushed together without any care for logic, character development, plot, atmosphere and the outrageous characterizations of the two main characters. Rushed at the end, fatuous in the beginning and flaky in the middle, this film has little to offer a viewer who has a right to expect something to work in 90 minutes of story telling. There is, however, nothing that works. Too little of the main characters and flaky presentation of the actual mystery is most disturbing. Daziel seems to be vulgar and anti-elitist, but wears top-drawer clothes and knows a lot about every facet of life. The subplot is a snippet at the end. And Ellie is moderately repulsive, but Pascoe is the worst--pretty boy to the max. P.C at work when homoerotic implications are rampant in this truly awful show.