In 2002 Kenneth Branagh gave possibly the finest ever TV performance by a British actor, as SS General Reinhard Heydrich in Conspiracy. Centring on the meeting at a villa on the outskirts of Berlin at which The Final Solution was agreed, the drama gave a sense of reality to the stuff of nightmare.
Without tearing up the carpet or resorting to pantomime villainy, Kenneth Branagh helped us to see how a seemingly charming, urbane, cultured man could be capable of unimaginable evil. One critic at the time described the performance as “shimmering”, which struck me as the perfect adjective.
Now, the actor who plays Henning Mankell’s weary, aging, troubled detective, Kurt Wallander on the BBC has produced a performance as impressive as Branagh’s Heydrich. Kenny was back as the depressive Swede last night on BBC 1. But he’s not the actor I’m talking about: Krister Henriksson has been playing the role on Swedish TV since 2005, and it began airing on BBC 4 in 2008.
And he is giving Kenny an acting lesson.
This is probably the best depiction of a fictional detective I have ever seen on TV. Helen Mirren as Jane Tennyson in Prime Suspect, John Thaw as jack Regan in The Sweeney, Philip Glenister as Gene Hunt in Life On Mars/Ashes To Ashes, David Suchet in Poirot , Dominic West as Jimmy McNulty in The Wire were all brilliant in very diverse ways – but they’ve all been eclipsed by a pudgy 63 year old Swede so quiet and laid back he barely appears to be acting at all.
After years of Fast Show-style trails – “John Actor is Monkfish” – we’ve found an actor of whom we can genuinely say, “Krister Henriksson is Wallander”.
Now, I caught some of Kenny’s latest outing last night, and it’s just wrong. He looks too young and fit: this man evidently watches his diet, and drinks loads of mineral water. He sports designer stubble, for God’s sake! Does that begin to sound even remotely like the character Mankell created? Branagh wouldn’t have a hope in hell of developing Type 2 diabetes – he looks like the kind of bloke who might just about manage an intolerance to gluten or lactose: something trendy. If Ken turned up at my door to investigate a crime, I’d probably ask him to leave on the grounds that I was probably feeling depressed enough already.
He doesn’t look, sound or act like any detective in history. He looks, sounds and acts like a distinguished stage actor playing a detective.
Everything about the chronically tasteful UK version is overdone – the camerawork is far too artistic and mannered, the Swedish countryside is too beautifully stark, apartments are too sparse and designery. Worst of all, the central character’s Scandinavian-style gloominess is dwelt on far too lovingly: this Wallander is a caricature of a Nordic glumster, all bleak staring into the middle distance through bleak blue eyes through a bleak light in a bleak flat. I mean,enough with the bleakness already! This is gloominess and inner pain on a scale that would have had Ingmar Bergman wondering if he might need to insert a few slapstick routines before the whole audience tops itself.
Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting Wallander should be played as a sort of Swedish Bertie Wooster, but this is all too much.
Scandinavians can appear a bit down in the dumps on occasion. Well, most of the time, actually. Maybe it’s the weather or decades of Socialism. They’ve produced Edvard Munch, Knut Hamsun and August Strinberg. They usually to be found near the top of any international suicide league. They’re much quieter than Brits. They don’t feel the need to fill in silences with talk. Their manners can seem a trifle brusque. They are generally very kind and hospitable people, but they express themselves bluntly most of the time. They drink as much, if not more, than Brits.
But they don’t tend to walk around advertising their despair. They just don’t. I’m sure they’d find Kenny’s Wallander a self-obsessed pain in the neck.
The Swedish Wallander is made by Swedes for Swedes. I imagine the way Swedes are represented is accurate. I recognize Scandinavians I know – members of my family, friends, colleagues – in the performance of Krister Henriksson and the rest of a superb cast. In Branagh’s performance I recognize an actor doing actorly stuff, but failing to find any inner truth this time round.
Branagh said he had deliberately not watch the Swedish version of Wallander. But if you want to see great, subtle, truthful, utterly convincing, “shimmering” acting, catch it. That goes for you too, Kenny.
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