Staring out into a near-eternity of ocean, County Cork is an evocative setting for any drama. It has that sense of presence, of being its own character in proceedings, that few places can sustain. In Holding, a Kathy Burke–directed adaptation of Graham Norton’s darkly comic mystery novel, the southern coast of Ireland juts into both the Celtic Sea and this tightly spun narrative.
When a body is accidentally unearthed in the small village of Duneen, memories (and ill feeling) from 20 years earlier rise to the surface. Caught in the middle of this cold case is PJ Collins (a Garda sergeant played by Game of Thrones’s Conleth Hill), a carb-addicted copper who has little interest in becoming embroiled in a murder enquiry. But that he must, as the residents of Duneen lurch back into the past, raking over coals that have been left smouldering for decades.
