THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS

Pulp Fiction star Christopher Walken joins an all-British line-up in The Outlaws

He’s the mesmerising Oscar-winner who’s dazzled audiences in The Deer Hunter, Annie Hall and Pulp Fiction, and even played a Bond villain. But now Christopher Walken makes his most surprising career choice yet – crossing the Atlantic to join Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark), Darren Boyd (Killing Eve) and Richard E. Grant for a new comedy-drama series created by Stephen Merchant (The Office).

Seven criminals from very different walks of life must carry out 100 hours’ community service together, cleaning up a derelict community building. There’s fraudster Frank (Walken), whose family have had enough of a ‘selfish old b*****d who can never be trusted’. Drink-driver Lady Gabriella Penrose-Howe (Tomlinson) enjoys the trappings of fame as an ‘Insta-celebutante’ but is privately consumed with anguish over her love life. Indignant over the injustice of his sentence, John (Boyd) is the embodiment of middle-class entitlement and constantly bickering with black civil-rights activist Myrna (Clare Perkins), while bumbling lawyer Greg (Merchant) can always be depended on to say the wrong thing. With a scholarship place waiting at Oxford, 18-year-old

Rani (Rhianne Barreto) stands out, while the other youngster, Christian (Gamba Cole), is struggling to free himself from the hoodlums who rule his council estate. Disparate though they are, the ‘outlaws’ soon find their fates intertwined when they discover a fortune in cash – one for which a gang of dangerous criminals is willing to kill.

Switching between daftness, pathos and thrills, the six-part series delivers easy entertainment. Tomlinson is a revelation in a comic role far removed from the gothic drama of Poldark. Meanwhile, Walken lights up every scene he’s in with his brand of idiosyncratic charisma.

Also this week, detective thriller fans can see the latest series from author Ann Cleeves, creator of Vera and Shetland. Stripped across four nights from Monday (ITV, 9pm), The Long Call combines a finely crafted script with a Devon setting, and features a gay male detective as lead character for the first time on British primetime TV.

The discovery of a body on a beach becomes a personal case for DI Matthew Venn (Ben Aldridge) as he returns to the community where he was once ostracised and attempts to settle down with his husband. Juliet Stevenson, Martin Shaw and Pearl Mackie co-star.

PICK OF THE WEEK THE OUTLAWS Monday, BBC1, 9pm