Criminal Record review: Capaldi at his most unsettling
Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo go head to head over an old murder conviction in Apple TV’s London crime drama. It’s slow, serious and very well acted. Is it worth your evenings?
Reviewed, edited and approved by Editor-in-chief Daniel Sköld · Updated 25 October 2026
Contents
There’s a particular kind of British actor who can make you nervous just by putting the kettle on. Peter Capaldi has been that actor since Malcolm Tucker, and in Criminal Record he swaps the swearing for something quieter and more worrying: a veteran detective who is very polite and very hard to read.
Opposite him is Cush Jumbo, and the two of them spend most of the series circling each other like a pair of tired heavyweights. It’s not the snappiest crime drama Apple TV has made. It might be the best acted.
Premiere2024-01-10
GenreCrime, Drama
CastPeter Capaldi, Cush Jumbo, Shaun Dooley, Stephen Campbell Moore
Created byPaul Rutman
Seasons2 seasons · 16 episodes
ChannelApple TV
Rated15
Watch onApple TV
65%
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A phone call that reopens an old wound
The set-up is simple. One night an anonymous, frightened young woman calls the emergency services from a phone box. She says her partner is violent and has confessed to killing his ex. The next morning the tape lands on the desk of Detective Sergeant June Lenker, who reluctantly starts digging and finds a man already in prison for that murder: Errol Mathis, who pleaded guilty years ago.
The officer who got that plea was Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Hegarty, who is well connected, well liked and keen that nobody pokes at his old cases. June wants to know whether the wrong man is behind bars, and Hegarty wants to protect his reputation. The rest of the series is a slow-burning tug of war between those two aims, and between two ideas of what the Metropolitan Police is for. That’s all I’ll say about the plot. The pleasure is in how it unfolds.
Capaldi, Jumbo and a very good supporting cast
Paul Rutman created the series, and its biggest strength is its leads. Capaldi plays Hegarty as a man who seems cold and slightly menacing at work, even when he’s moonlighting as a chauffeur, but the show slowly reveals a private life that complicates that. You never quite decide whether he’s a villain, a dinosaur or just a tired copper who has made his peace with shortcuts. Jumbo matches him scene for scene. June is ambitious and stubborn and has no illusions about the force she works for, and she worries about how her own son will be treated by her colleagues.
Around them there’s a strong bench: Shaun Dooley, Stephen Campbell Moore as June’s husband Leo, Tom Moutchi as Errol, and later Luther Ford and Dustin Demri-Burns. It’s a properly British cast, and it shows. Nobody overplays it.
Criminal Record isn’t really asking who did it. It’s asking who gets believed, and who decides.
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What works, and what drags
When it works, it’s because the series takes the institution seriously. Institutional racism, old loyalties, favours owed and the quiet ways a police force protects its own are not window dressing here. They are the engine of the story, and for anyone who has followed the Met’s headlines over the past few decades they’ll feel uncomfortably familiar. The scenes where Capaldi and Jumbo face off across a table are the best thing in it, and better than anything on mainstream telly this side of Line of Duty’s glory years.
What doesn’t work is the pace. Early episodes show a lot of real police work: listening to tapes, running database searches, highlighting printouts. That’s admirably honest, and it’s also occasionally like watching someone do their tax return. The series also tries to cover a lot of issues, and some subplots feel more like a list being ticked off than a story. If you want a thriller that grabs you by the collar from minute one, this isn’t it.
What the critics said
The first season was well received overall. It holds 90% on Rotten Tomatoes from 49 critics’ reviews, and the site’s consensus praises the formidable pairing of Jumbo and Capaldi. Audiences were cooler, with a 64% audience score. Variety was the most enthusiastic, calling it a brilliantly twisted crime drama and singling out Capaldi’s performance as fascinating. The Hollywood Reporter was less impressed, praising the leads but summing it up as expensive-looking but narratively lackluster, with languid pacing and too little payoff. RogerEbert.com went further, calling it an exercise in mediocrity despite captivating performances from both stars.
The second season, which shifts towards more recent political anxieties in Britain, got a three-star review from The People’s Movies. It found the show bigger and louder but still carried by its two leads.
Where to watch Criminal Record in the UK
Both seasons of Criminal Record are on Apple TV, which is the only place to watch it in the UK. It isn’t on BBC iPlayer or any of the free channels. The first season premiered on 10 January 2024, and the second arrived in April. There are 16 episodes in total across the two seasons. It’s rated 15, which fits the violence and the strong language. If you’re already paying for Apple TV for Slow Horses, this is the obvious next thing to watch.
Verdict
Criminal Record is a serious, adult police drama that trusts its audience and two superb leads, even if it sometimes trusts us a bit too much with its pace. Capaldi is at his most quietly unsettling, and Jumbo is every bit his equal. It’s for anyone who misses grown-up British crime drama about institutions rather than serial killers. Give it two episodes before you judge it, and keep the remote out of reach. Four stars out of five.
Ashley Isaacs picks what's worth your evening – film, TV, streaming, music and books for men 45 and over with limited evenings and too many subscriptions. Reviews of what's new on Netflix, Prime Video, BBC iPlayer and the rest, crime dramas worth a weekend, and classics worth a second look. What's worth watching, what isn't, and where to find it in the UK.
One of Midcent's writers. Spotted something? Write to ashley@midcent.uk.
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