His status as a bona fide National Treasure means Bob Mortimer’s debut, an amiable crime thriller, comes with a fair amount of goodwill. Happily, he imbues his quirky characters and even stranger situations – the unwilling hero of The Satsuma Complex has regular conversations with a squirrel – with all the surreal charm that has marked out Mortimer’s comedy since his Big Night Out days with Vic Reeves.
Gary Thorn is a completely unremarkable legal assistant who gets himself embroiled in a murder case after his workmate is reported dead following their night out in a pub. A night where he also has a flirtatious episode with a strange but endearing woman who may or may not be involved in the mystery. There’s an encrypted USB stick which holds the key to the case, police corruption, and loads of identity-swapping plot twists before the big set piece conclusion.
As an actual thriller, it’s admittedly lightweight stuff. But because Mortimer has such affection for his characters and appetite for regular flights of fancy, it’s a genuinely enjoyable debut. You can almost hear Mortimer narrating it with a little knowing chuckle. And that’s a good thing.
