‘Nocturne’ review: Stephen Graham’s sadistic serial killer is the key piece in a very complex puzzle

Though he’s locked beneath six feet of concrete in a high-security psychiatric hospital, serial killer Jurek Walter (Stephen Graham) doesn’t seem constrained. In the opening scene of this 10-episode crime thriller, we see him persuading a fellow patient to take his own life – no mean feat given that the two men can only communicate through the pipes linking the basins in their respective cells. Graham’s deeply creepy, admirably restrained performance will keep you intrigued as Nocturne slowly rolls out its intricate narrative. READ MORE: The best TV shows of 2026… so far! Adapted from a Nordic noir novel by “Lars Kepler” – actually a pseudonym for Swedish husband-and-wife duo Alexander Ahndoril and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril – Nocturne is nimble, knotty and not entirely original. It’s easy to imagine that the elevator pitch was basically “Mare Of Easttown meets Silence Of The Lambs with shades of Prison Break” – because naturally, a character as smart and Machiavellian as Walter has to be plotting his escape. Creator Rowan Joffé, who directed the 2010 film adaptation of Brighton Rock, has even relocated the story from Stockholm to small-town Pennsylvania – the same neck of the woods...