This article was originally published in The Scotsman on 3rd August 2013.
SOUTHCLIFFE
Sunday
and Monday, Channel 4, 9pm
STEVE
COOGAN: STAND UP DOWN UNDER
Tuesday
and Wednesday, Sky Atlantic, 9pm
Paul
Whitelaw
A senile old woman clutches to her
chest a purse containing her own faeces. Her son, a damaged war
veteran, is hunted through the woods and urinated on. The following
morning, their sleepy market town is devastated by a random spate of
shootings. Welcome to sunny SOUTHCLIFFE, a monumentally grim
yet utterly engrossing and – dare I say it? - profound drama from
Warp Films (This Is England) and writer Tony Grisoni (Red
Riding).
Directed by US indie filmmaker Sean
Durkin, it's an atmospheric piece wrapped in an overcast pall and
characterised by static, locked-off shots, queasy slow zooms and a
distinct lack of incidental score. Although part one burns rather too
slowly for its own good – Durkin's stylistic approach initially
feels cold and distancing – it subsequently exerts a powerful grip,
as we find ourselves trapped within the tragic lives of these
characters.
With obvious echoes of the Raoul Moat
case, Southcliffe unfolds in a town with a strong Armed Forces
presence, where machismo rules and emotions are suppressed. Grisoni
explores the debilitating effects of war via Sean Harris' dead-eyed
loner (an admittedly rather stereotypical character) and a conflicted
young soldier (Joe Dempsie) just back from Afghanistan.
Reporting on the aftermath of the
shootings, Rory Kinnear's cynical, embittered journalist – is there
any other kind? - returns to his childhood home to confront, not only
the grief, trauma and Little Englander hypocrisies of the locals, but
his own unhappy past. He's also seeking neat explanations for an
inexplicable event. Why, Grisoni asks, do these things happen? How do
you make sense of the senseless?
His dialogue is spare, natural and
convincing, and despite the harrowing subject matter, the violence
isn't gratuitous: Durkin always places the killings off camera. Given
that one of Grisoni's themes is media sensationalism of such
tragedies, it's a wise and sensitive move.
The non-linear structure, in which
the action frequently flashes back to show events from different
perspectives, provides a sense of these characters being trapped in a
vicious cycle. The daily reliability and innate Britishness of the
shipping forecast is a recurring, gently sinister, motif. From the
tortured couple played by Eddie Marsan and Shirley Henderson, to the
self-destructive landlord played by Anatol Yusef, Grisoni tackles
head on the various ways human beings deal with grief. The cast is
uniformly outstanding, never once overplaying their roles.
If this all sounds unbearably sad,
believe you me it is. But it never feels heavy-handed or worthy. This
isn't a piece of pointless misery porn. It's
a commendably sincere and sympathetic attempt to confront the
unimaginable, while offering acute comment on the uglier side of
British society. It's easy to be cynical and dismiss dramas of this
nature as mere BAFTA bait. But Southcliffe is a major work,
and quite easily the best British TV drama of the year so far.
Laughter time! In STEVE COOGAN:
STAND UP DOWN UNDER, the comedian takes his one-man show through
Australia and New Zealand, while grumbling backstage about faulty
microphones and the tedium of touring. And that's about it. While
it's certainly interesting witnessing Coogan as himself – as
expected, he comes across as a neurotic and occasionally truculent
perfectionist, but essentially likeable – the repetitive nature of
this self-produced documentary tends to wear thin.
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