Whitechapel could, and perhaps should, be subtitled: What Adam From Spooks Did Next (notwithstanding Burn Up). Fans of Rupert Penry-Jones are manifold, so this three-part cop thriller – which fuses together the ever-popular jack The Ripper case with a new copycat murder investigation – should make them very happy indeed. But don’t expect an Action man-style character from him; he’s quite different in this. And he smiles too, which – if you’re a Spooks fan – you’ll understand when I say that’s weird.

Related: Our Spooks news and reviews *** Burn Up review, episodes one and two

But first a mention of the venue ITV chose to hold the screening and interview session in. It was called Wilton’s Music Hall, and is the capital’s oldest surviving music hall. It was amazing. Faded, battered and in an incredible state of disrepair, but amazing. If you ever get the chance to visit it, I really recommend it – you can almost feel the ghosts of entertainers past swirling around the narrow auditorium. Here’s a link to its site (click here).

But back to Whitechapel. It stars Phil Davis as an experienced cop, and Penry-Jones as a fast-tracked posh boy shoe-horned into a grisly murder investigation. There’s obvious friction here – the young posh boy clashing against the weathered cop – and this dynamic is plundered for all it’s worth. In fact there’s a touch of the Gene Hunts and Sam Tylers about their relationship. Phil Davis, who is uniformly excellent in pretty much everything he does – offers up his best scowl time and time again.

As I mentioned earlier, Penry-Jones’ character is a fast-tracker, but there are few interesting character traits that are completely the opposite from Adam in Spooks. He’s a fish out of water, he hasn’t got the answers and he’s a bit of nervous wreck.

There’s also The League Of Gentleman’s Steve Pemberton, who plays an eccentric Ripperologist, who is asked to come in – against the wishes of Phil Davis’ character – to help with the case. Sure enough, it soon turns out that there’s a new Ripper in town.

It was pretty good, I have to say – really beautifully shot and framed (with the edges of the frame blurred like an old photographed), nourish lighting and featuring some bits of forgotten, east end London (cobbled streets, alley ways etc). The story was strong and moved along at a cracking pace and, while the murders were grisly and gory, they didn’t show too much blood and guts. The full effects of the murders were heightened in clever ways – Steve Pemberton in voiceover mode, describing The Ripper’s original murders, and lots of flash, stobe-style flashes of torso rather than long lingering shots.

All the three main players gave interview afterwards, so I’ll post them up nearer to transmission, which should be in January. Definitely worth a watch if you like the whole serial killer oeuvre.