“Criminal Record,” the London-set contemporary detective series on AppleTV+ with Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi, happened simply because the two stars were eager to work together again.
“Peter and I wanted to do something in the crime world,” Jumbo, 38, explained in a Zoom interview from London prior to an evening stage performance as Lady Macbeth. “Because we were able to pitch the idea from the very beginning, we got to know the characters so well by the time we got to set. Which was awesome.”
Jumbo’s Detective Sergeant June Lenker is juggling many plates with work, an aging, mother descending into dementia and a shifty rival on the force.
“She is unlike any copper I’ve ever played before. Somebody like Bethany in ‘Vera’ was right at the beginning of her police career and a bit naive.
“June has been in a domestic violence unit for quite a few years. She’s got a 12-year-old son and is in a long-term relationship. But she’s just beginning her career as a detective.
“She’s at a bit of a crossroads and comes into contact with (Capaldi’s) Hegarty because of an anonymous emergency call. There’s just something about him that doesn’t smell right. That sends her on this crazy trajectory, chasing after the truth about a guy that she thinks has been locked up for the wrong reasons for too long — and she thinks Hegarty’s behind it.
“So what begins as a bit of a chance piece of information turns into something that essentially is like a fight for life for her. And the quest of what the truth is and what good policing really means.”
Is “Criminal Record” really about a bigger picture — that Scotland Yard is reportedly a misogynistic, homophobic, corrupt organization that’s resisted change?
“What’s interesting,” she answered, “we shot in the summer of ‘22. When we were writing these scripts, those reports hadn’t come out yet, even though they were being investigated.
“It’s amazing when these things we want to talk about, that this zeitgeist is in the air. It’s one of the reasons people love police dramas and crime series. Also, Hegarty is almost about to retire and it’s just generationally so different to June.
“He has been chasing the truth in what he feels like is the right way. But the way he’s been doing it is not how she now does things. They would have trained in completely different ways; the world would have been completely different.
“Now we’re having to assume as an audience whether that makes him bad? Or just somebody having to process the way he felt like he had to process?
“So it is a way of looking at the UK justice system. But also all the visible and invisible people that have to deal with it.”
“Criminal Record” is streaming on AppleTV+