Litvinenko, ITVX review — David Tennant stars as the poisoned dissident

A man is the key witness to his own murder in a new ITV crime series. He has been poisoned, his death an inevitability. With just days to live, he summons the police to compel them to launch a homicide investigation — one in which nobody has yet died.

It’s a premise that might seem contrived were it not the grisly true story of the assassination of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko. In 2006, the former FSB officer turned vocal Kremlin critic was slowly killed by a radioactive substance which had been dropped in his tea at a Mayfair hotel. A decade later, a UK inquiry confirmed what Litvinenko had suspected: there could be little doubt the perpetrators were acting on behalf of the Russian state.

The four-part drama Litvinenko draws on the 18 hours of testimony that he gave from his deathbed, as well as the contributions of his widow, Marina, and others involved in the case. The incident has already been forensically explored in numerous documentaries, but here the aim is to supplement facts with feelings — to present Litvinenko not just as a political martyr, but as a family man with deeply held regrets.

He’s played by an unrecognisable David Tennant, who lends corporeality to that indelible photograph of Litvinenko in hospital. While his performance is mostly restricted to heavily accented mumblings, there’s something impactful about seeing someone attempt to control what happens after their death as their life ebbs away.

Yet despite several references to the unprecedented nature of this murder, the series frustratingly plays out like any other pedestrian procedural. Once Litvinenko dies in the first episode, we’re left following a team of generic Scotland Yard cops (led by Mark Bonnar’s DS Timmons) as they search for clues, interrogate suspects, don hazmat suits and talk earnestly about “duty”.

This kind of sensitive real-life drama is hard to pull off — to entertain is to risk trivialising and embroidering. But the way in which Litvinenko squanders its timeliness and largely loses sight of its title makes this limited series feel, well, limited.

★★☆☆☆

Streaming on ITVX now

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