Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Marc Warren, Maimie McCoy, Luke Allen-Gale, Elliot Barnes-Worrell, Darrell D’Silva, Emma Fielding, Frances Grey, Daniel Lapiane, Stephanie Leonidas, Vineeta Rishi, Frieda Barnhard, Kees Boot, Reinout Bussemaker, Malou Gorter, Hugo Haenen, Markoesa Hamer, Alex Hendrickx, Mike Libabon, Victor Low, Arian Nik, Ilse Ott, Peter van Heeringen, Hylke Sprundel, Danny Westerweel, Fruzsina Nagy, Nick Vorsselman.
A name is important, a name earned and one that implies trust, a certain expectation, dependence on a faith installed in a previous age, and is one that should not be revisited unless the situation is absolutely right for fear of tarnishing a memory, of destroying an image of what that name actually and irrevocably stood for.
The same name, a familiar-ish theme tune, hidden underneath a grittier edge more suited to the 21st Century and yet finding a way to be as different to the memory in which it was supposed to inhabit, a case of the ghost of Hamlet being usurped by a less than disciplined echo; that is the fate that which greets the viewer as Marc Warren steps into the shoes of Van der Valk, and proceeds to be a series with possibilities but which grates on the ear and on the memory to which its previous incarnation espoused.
The challenge with Love In Amsterdam, the first programme of the updated classic, is that the fundamental convictions that the show contained, one of controlled menace in the mind of the original policeman, played with elegance by the late Barry Foster, and the then surreal nature of Holland and Amsterdam being given prominence on British television, has been replaced by the accents of the characters, of arguably a lead that, and no matter how good an actor Marc Warren is, has changed beyond crucial recognition.
Without its name, Love In Amsterdam could have been quite easily launched as a new detective series, one that without its association, could be seen as gritty, as demanding and as resourceful a watch as any that have come to television in the last couple of decades. However, that name is what drives the expectation, the dependence on the viewer’s loyalty and in end, no matter how intimate and intriguing the issues raised are, they still find a way to lead the viewer down a path of slightly misplaced affection.
It is to the culture of the show, that sense of being immersed in a Dutch mindset which is missing, and one in which the familiar and much loved tune which has been edged to the side lines, is the least of concerns for an audience which would have relished a return to the complexity of European policing.
Ian D. Hall