Maelstrom

1 9 8 5 (UK)
6 x 50 minute episodes

This six-part BBC thriller (written by Michael J Bird) follows a 28-year-old British woman named Catherine Durrell (Tusse Silberg) who received an inheritance from recently drowned Norwegian industrialist and millionaire Hjalmar Jordahl.

Jordahl is unknown to Catherine and although her mother was Norwegian and she herself was born there, she has lived in England since early childhood.

In order to claim her inheritance and to learn more about her mysterious benefactor, Catherine travels to Norway.

En route, she meets Arne Albrigsten (Trevor Baxter), the Jordahl family physician, and has her first encounter with a strange girl in 1960s-style clothes who is to haunt her through her subsequent adventures.

When she arrives in Aalesund, Catherine meets the other people whose lives are to become so closely involved with her own. She stays with Jordahl’s highly-strung youngest daughter, Ingrid (Edita Brychta) and her husband, Lars Nilsen (Christopher Scoular).

She also meets Anna Marie (Susan Gilmore), the older unmarried daughter – a successful furniture designer and seemingly the more welcoming and friendly of the two sisters.

They are also unable to explain Jordahl’s legacy, but Catherine discovers she has inherited a farmhouse, a fish factory, and an island in Aalesund with a solitary house on it – one of the bedrooms of which is filled with plastic and porcelain dolls.

Catherine also encounters Anders Bjornson (David Beames), a journalist investigating the circumstances surrounding Jordahl’s death. It is his opinion that the man was murdered.

While unravelling the mysteries surrounding Jordahl’s death and bequest, Catherine and Bjornson uncover several family skeletons.

In the local community, Catherine is considered Jordahl’s illegitimate daughter and further scandal attaches to the family, for the industrialist’s wife, Freya (Marisa Campbell), was confined to the island house across the fjord from the farmhouse because of madness.

It was here – surrounded by her collection of dolls and paintings – that she died – apparently by her own hand.

Some of her paintings, which are executed in a style showing signs of psychosis, are still in the house. Ingrid once painted in a similar manner to her mother but has unaccountably stopped doing so and has since destroyed the bulk of her work.

Catherine subsequently meets Astrid Linderman (Ann Todd), Freya’s aunt, who cared for the sick woman during her illness and who was also headmistress of the school Catherine’s mother attended as a child. But, like the others, Astrid cannot explain the legacy – or so she claims.

As Catherine decides what to do about her sudden and unexpected inheritance, she becomes caught up in a strange sequence of events.

She is menaced by the girl in the 1960s clothes (who looks like a young Freya), disturbed by occurrences at the island house, and almost killed when an unlit motor cruiser deliberately capsizes the dinghy she is using to travel between the farmhouse and the island.

Events come to a head and – as romance develops between Catherine and Anders Bjornson – the Freya lookalike is unmasked. Catherine’s true parentage and relationship to the Jordahl family is revealed, as are the real causes of Freya’s madness and death.

Astrid Linderman’s role in events is made clear, the island house is dramatically burned to the ground, and the mysteries surrounding the Jordahl family are finally explained.

The gripping climax, as the festival of Midsummer’s Eve is celebrated against a background of the glorious scenery of the Norwegian fjords, sees Catherine become aware of her heritage and the course her future life will take.

Catherine Durrell
Tusse Silberg
Anders Bjornson
David Beames
Ingrid Nilsen
Edita Brychta
Lars Nilsen
Christopher Scoular
Anna Marie Jordahl
Susan Gilmore
Astrid Linderman
Ann Todd
Dr Arne Albrigtsen
Trevor Baxter
Freya Jordahl
Marisa Campbell
Gerda
Shelagh Wilcocks
Professor Solberg
Alan MacNaughtan
Olav Tunheim
John Abineri