There has surely been no writer more prolific than Georges Simenon. In a career lasting more than 60 years, he produced hundreds of novels and stories. But his best-known works are the “Maigret” books, a regular subject of television adaptation.

Some will recall the 1992 version starring Michael Gambon. Stepping into those shoes this week, in Maigret Sets a Trap (28 March), was Rowan Atkinson. In this, he was struggling against the weight of expectation. Atkinson is known, after all, for comedy; here was a serial-killer plot with not one ounce of humour.

The play – the first of two, with the second to be broadcast later in the year – began with Chief Inspector Maigret already under siege; four young women had been murdered in Montmartre. Then, almost before we had been introduced to the detective, another was killed. Maigret, as is his wont, attempted to explore the psychology of the murderer, but he was under pressure from the top. Already famous, he was also under attack from Paris’s excitable and uncontrollable press.