15 June '11

“Every now and then, Luther goes off to flirt with Alice Morgan, the psychopath who has a bit of a thing for him and expresses her insanity by talking very slowly through a suggestive half-smile. It’s all very silly, but fairness compels me to add that they’d come up with a very effective last-minute shock.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“Luther is pure, escapist TV drama. And a very superior one. It’s not trying to enlighten you about the human condition, nor baffle you with its complexity; it exists purely as both suspense and suspension of disbelief.”
John Crace, The Guardian

“It turns murder into a performance art, the taking of life into an intriguing puzzle while suggesting that murderers and particularly serial-killers might be geniuses who have freed themselves of the rules that bind the rest of us.”
Matt Baylis, The Express

“The writer Neil Cross channels The Silence of the Lambs and Whitechapel. That Luther is stylishly even classily done somehow makes it worse.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“Channel 4’s film addressed a crime of omission as well – the failure of the international community to effectively protest against the treatment of civilians in the closing stages of the civil war.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“Much of the footage, which documented the summary executions, rape, torture and bombing – all apparently sanctioned by the Sri Lankan government – of tens of thousands of Tamils in the last days of the civil war after the UN pulled out of the country in September 2008, was shocking.”
John Crace, The Guardian

“Three cheers for Channel 4, which has also kept on top of the story in its news coverage. Yet the phrase “too little, too late” also occurs.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“You saw.. how a person shrinks when all they receive is knock backs and how swiftly they can blossom if someone takes the time to encourage them.”
Matt Baylis, The Express