Radio Times: Review by:; Alison Graham

I am lost in admiration for the makers of Endeavour, who have exercised restraint in not calling this two-hour drama Young Morse. Or What Morse Did Before He Became Really Famous on the Telly.

Fresh-faced Shaun Evans is Endeavour Morse, a rookie detective in 1965 Oxford, in this two-hour “prequel” written by Lewis creator Russell Lewis. All the clues to the nature of the man we came to love when he was played by John Thaw are evident: Madam Butterfly on his record player; his squeamishness about blood; his love of crosswords; the Jaguar; the eye for a complicated, vulnerable woman. All there.

Morse isn’t like other detectives, something noted by his boss (the sublime Roger Allam) who gives him a career-making opportunity to investigate the murder of a 15-year-old girl. Along the way Morse falls for the charms of an opera singer and encounters inverse snobbery from his oikish colleagues. And there’s some throat-tightening nostalgia, too.

About this programme

Shaun Evans steps into the shoes of John Thaw in this 1965-set prequel to Inspector Morse, playing a younger version of the cerebral detective involved in the hunt for a missing schoolgirl. Soon deep in a full-blown murder investigation, Endeavour is sidelined, discredited and at a dead end - so he risks all to begin his own quest for justice. Roger Allam and Charlie Creed-Miles co-star in the mystery - which is being shown 25 years after the start of the original series - with an appearance by Abigail Thaw, daughter of John.