--- title: "A Touch of Frost" year: 1992 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/a-touch-of-frost" fi1m_id: "a-touch-of-frost" imdb_id: "tt0108967" tmdb_id: 2474 wikidata_id: "Q462650" fi1m_score: 76 critics_reviews: 1 published: "2026-10-07T12:16:22.162126+00:00" updated: "2026-10-07T12:16:42.002080+00:00" region: "SE" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # A Touch of Frost (1992) Created by Roger Bamford, Paul Harrison, Don Leaver, Roy Battersby, David Reynolds, Adrian Shergold, Robert Knights, Sandy Johnson, Ross Devenish, Herbert Wise, Paul Seed, Anthony Simmons, Alan Dossor, John Glenister, Graham Theakston, Peter Smith · Drama, Crime, Mystery ## Identity A Touch of Frost - **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/a-touch-of-frost - **Type:** Series - **Fi1m ID:** a-touch-of-frost - **IMDb ID:** tt0108967 - **TMDB ID:** 2474 - **Wikidata ID:** Q462650 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108967/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/2474, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q462650 **Fi1m score: 76** · Critics: 1 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* A raincoat, a hospital ward, a missing child, and the funniest man on television refusing to be funny for once > David Jason plays a grieving, insubordinate, badly dressed detective in a police drama that never looks like much and ran for eighteen years because of him. The cases are ordinary. The man working them is not, and that is enough. ## Synopsis Denton, an English town, 1992. Detective Inspector Jack Frost (David Jason) is scruffy, chain-smoking, rude to his superiors and good at his job, and his wife is dying in hospital. Superintendent Norman Mullett (Bruce Alexander) would like him to shave, file his reports and stay out of trouble. DS George Toolan (John Lyons) does the legwork, Sgt Wells (Paul Moriarty) minds the front desk, and Dr David McKenzie (David McKail) is called out when a body turns up. A schoolgirl goes missing on her way home from school and Frost is handed the case, along with a new partner he has no use for. He splits his days between the hospital ward and the incident room, and nobody at the station quite knows how to talk to him about either. ## Review David Jason was, when this began, best known as Del Boy in [*Only Fools and Horses*](https://film.one/tv/only-fools-and-horses), and the idea of him as a police detective sounded like a stunt. The first episode went out on 5 December 1992 and the fifteenth and last series in 2010, and somewhere in those eighteen years the stunt turned into one of the more durable things British television has made. Richard Harris and a long list of other writers adapted R. D. Wingfield’s novels about DI Jack Frost, a scruffy, chain-smoking detective who solves cases mostly by being too tired to go home. Jason is the reason it lasted, and he is the reason to watch it now. The first episode puts Frost’s wife in a hospital bed and sends him out to find a missing child, and it is in the gap between those two things that Jason makes the character. He goes from the ward to the incident room and back without changing his face. There is no speech about grief and no music telling us how to feel. We expected a sitcom star doing a serious turn and got something quieter and more painful: a man who is better at other people’s trouble than his own, and knows it. It moved us more than a police procedural has any business doing. Around him the series builds the station it will live in for the rest of the run. Bruce Alexander’s Superintendent Norman Mullett is the boss every copper has had, a man more worried about the chief constable’s dinner than the body on the slab, and the two of them keep up a running argument about paperwork that is the most reliable comedy in the thing. We laughed every time Mullett straightened his tie. John Lyons’s DS George Toolan gets the jokes a beat late and does the legwork. Paul Moriarty’s Sgt Wells minds the desk, and David McKail’s Dr David McKenzie turns up at the bodies. None of them is given much to do, and all of them play it as if they were. It never looks like much, and that is a decision rather than an accident. Peter Jackson, the cinematographer, and not the New Zealander, shoots the town in flat grey weather, car parks and corridors and front rooms, and does not light Jason to look like a star. David Aspinall cuts at walking pace, which suits a detective who gets there by asking the same question three times. Sixteen directors are credited across the run, Don Leaver and David Reynolds among them, both of whom also produced, and you cannot tell their episodes apart. The cases are the weakness. The scripts run two or three strands at once, so an episode will have a missing child, a burglary and a body, and the strands come together with a tidiness that wears thinner the longer you watch. Later series shrink to one or two episodes apiece, and the mysteries shrink with them. The guest parts are often the liveliest thing on screen, and the run is a roll-call of faces who went on elsewhere: Danny Dyer turns up as a lad called Shaun Everett, Jake Wood as a private soldier, Derren Litten as a constable. Spot them and feel old. Against [*Inspector Morse*](https://film.one/tv/inspector-morse), which had the better scenery, Frost looks cheap, and it is. It is also warmer. Morse was a man you admired from across a quad; Frost is one you would lend a tenner to and not expect back. Jason never cleans him up, never lets him win an argument with Mullett he should lose, and never asks us to find the mess charming. We do anyway, which is the trick. It is a 15 certificate. Take it one episode at a time; three in a row and the raincoat starts to smell. *Fi1m score 76, published 7 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is A Touch of Frost worth watching?** *A Touch of Frost* is worth watching for anyone who likes a British police drama built on a performance rather than a plot, and we scored it 76. David Jason plays a grieving, scruffy, insubordinate detective with no speeches and no music telling you how to feel, and he carries all eighteen years of it. The cases themselves are tidy and ordinary, so take it one episode at a time. **Where can I watch A Touch of Frost in Sweden?** *A Touch of Frost* is not on any streaming or rental service in Sweden at the moment. It is available in 3 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How violent or frightening is A Touch of Frost, and is it suitable for children?** *A Touch of Frost* is a 15 certificate in the UK, and that is a fair guide: a missing schoolgirl, bodies on the slab and a dying wife in hospital, played plainly rather than for shock. It is not frightening and the violence is not dwelt on, but the subject matter is adult and the mood is grey and sad. It suits teenagers and up; younger children would be bored before they were upset. **How does A Touch of Frost compare to Inspector Morse?** *A Touch of Frost* is the cheaper, warmer cousin of [*Inspector Morse*](https://film.one/tv/inspector-morse), which has the Oxford scenery, the opera and the better manners. Morse is a detective you admire from across a quad; Frost is one you would lend a tenner to and not get back. Morse is the handsomer series and its mysteries are more involved; Frost has the better running joke, in the paperwork feud between Jason and Bruce Alexander's Superintendent Mullett. **Is A Touch of Frost based on a true story or a book?** *A Touch of Frost* is based on R. D. Wingfield's novels about DI Jack Frost, adapted by Richard Harris and a long list of other writers across fifteen series. It is fiction, not a true story. You do not need to have read the books: the series lives on David Jason's performance and the station around him rather than on the plots, and the cases it borrows are the least of it. **What should I watch after A Touch of Frost?** After *A Touch of Frost*, try [*Inspector Morse*](https://film.one/tv/inspector-morse) (1987, Fi1m 84): The dressier cousin: Oxford, opera and a detective who drinks with better manners. Then [*Prime Suspect*](https://film.one/tv/prime-suspect) (1991, Fi1m 88): Helen Mirren’s Tennison fights the same station politics with far higher stakes; and [*Cracker*](https://film.one/tv/cracker) (1993, Fi1m 85): Robbie Coltrane as a wreck who is good at his job; Frost with the lid off. ### Reviews we read (1) - **The Guardian**, Nancy Banks-Smith (85/100, inferred): The critic praises David Jason’s portrayal of Frost and worries the finale may end poignantly. She singles out his exceptional performance as a copper he was never naturally suited to play. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2010/apr/05/doctor-who-touch-of-frost) ## Details - **Created by:** Roger Bamford, Paul Harrison, Don Leaver, Roy Battersby, David Reynolds, Adrian Shergold, Robert Knights, Sandy Johnson, Ross Devenish, Herbert Wise, Paul Seed, Anthony Simmons, Alan Dossor, John Glenister, Graham Theakston, Peter Smith - **Director:** Roger Bamford, Paul Harrison, Don Leaver, Roy Battersby, David Reynolds, Adrian Shergold, Robert Knights, Sandy Johnson, Ross Devenish, Herbert Wise, Paul Seed, Anthony Simmons, Alan Dossor, John Glenister, Graham Theakston, Peter Smith - **Screenplay:** Michael Russell, David Gilman, Christopher Russell, Richard Harris, Malcolm Bradbury, Christopher Blake, Tony Charles, Alma Cullen, Thomas Ellice, Sian Orrells, Robert Smith, Russel Gascoigne - **Writer:** Richard Harris, Christopher Blake, Anthony Simmons, Christopher Russell - **Novel:** R. D. Wingfield, R. D. Wingfield - **Cinematography:** Peter Jackson - **Editor:** David Aspinall - **Producer:** Martyn Auty, Don Leaver, David Reynolds - **Cast:** David Jason as DI Jack Frost; Bruce Alexander as Superintendent Norman Mullett; John Lyons as DS George Toolan; David McKail as Dr David McKenzie; David Gooderson as Derek Simpkins; Caroline Harker as Hazel Wallace; Lindy Whiteford as Shirley Fisher; Paul Moriarty as Sgt Wells - **Release (Sweden):** 6 December 1992 - **Genres:** Drama, Crime, Mystery ## Where to watch in Sweden Not streaming, renting or buying in Sweden at the last check. Also available in: CA, GB, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Inspector Morse* (1987), Fi1m 84: The dressier cousin: Oxford, opera and a detective who drinks with better manners. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/inspector-morse.md) - *Prime Suspect* (1991), Fi1m 88: Helen Mirren’s Tennison fights the same station politics with far higher stakes. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/prime-suspect.md) - *Cracker* (1993), Fi1m 85: Robbie Coltrane as a wreck who is good at his job; Frost with the lid off. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/cracker.md) - *Columbo* (1971): The original scruffy detective in a bad coat, written off by every suspect he questions. - *Wallander* (2005): Sweden’s tired, decent copper, grey skies included; Frost with subtitles and worse sleep. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/a-touch-of-frost