TV Review: CHASING SHADOWS and EDUCATING THE EAST END

A version of this article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 6th September 2014.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/lifestyle

Chasing Shadows: Thursday, STV

Educating the East End: Thursday, Channel 4

Paul Whitelaw

I often worry about the fear-caked world of ITV drama, where murderers and sex offenders are only an episodic crime spree away from being apprehended by miserable anti-heroes. Whenever it isn't wallowing in the wake of scaremongering tabloid headlines, it's paying forelock-tugging tribute to the past via Downton Abbey. That can't be healthy.

Its latest carnival of horror is Chasing Shadows, a crime thriller so generic it seems to have taken Charlie Brooker's gloriously silly A Touch of Cloth at face value.

Seriously in danger of being banged up by the cliché squad, it's a woefully derivative bore in which Reece Shearsmith plays our tired old friend, the maverick cop who gets results through unorthodox means. Writer Rob Williams should be awarded some kind of medal for devising a character so utterly lacking in originality.

All the boxes are dutifully ticked: he's eccentric, (literally) buttoned-up, maddeningly antisocial, yet utterly devoted to solving the case with his computer-like genius. It's as if Williams sat down at his desk and thought, “To hell with it, I'll just rip off House and Sherlock. No one will notice or care.”

That staggering lack of imagination courses through Chasing Shadows like a virus. Assigned to a Missing Persons unit, Shearsmith's DS Stone butts heads with his new colleagues – Alex Kingston's mumsy Hattersley and Noel Clarke's bloke in a suit - while racing in pursuit of a serial killer. In case we hadn't quite got to grips with this complex creation, Clarke's character actually described him as someone who “marches to the beat of his own drum.”

It's a sorry state of affairs when the only unexpected wrinkle in this character's make-up is the presence of his supportive, loving partner. Williams clearly thinks he's being exceptionally clever here. "He's not lonely after all! Didn't expect that, did you?!" Well, no. I also don't expect to be killed by a falling piano tomorrow, and nor do I welcome the prospect.

Meanwhile, fans of laboured visual metaphors will have enjoyed the running conceit of the mismatched Stone and Hattersley literally travelling side-by-side in separate vehicles. I'm not entirely convinced that Williams wrote Chasing Shadows in the conventional sense. It feels more like the result of feeding basic information through an automated software package.

It's disappointing, as the justly lauded Shearsmith usually displays more discernment than this. His recent turn in true-life crime drama The Widower suggested that one of our finest comic actors was broadening his palette in an interesting way. And while he does what he can with the role – his darting, uptight little walk is a nice touch – there's little he can do with such lacklustre material.

Financial rewards aside, I can only assume he accepted this hopeless gig by letting his real-life fascination with serial killers cloud his judgement.

London's Frederick Bremer School is the setting for Educating the East End, which has the unenviable task of following the all-conquering Educating Yorkshire. Can it capture our hearts in quite the same way?

Episode one suggested that, with this talented production team in charge, you could place cameras in any secondary school in the UK and find an absorbing mass of drama, humour and pathos.

Its latest star is English teacher Mr Bispham, who struggled to imbue his boisterous pupils with the wonders of Shakespeare while on a stressful two-year placement. Avuncular yet sensitive, his lack of teacher training caused some toe-curling gaffes. It was a textbook example of romantic idealism versus the practical realities of teaching. But in a twist typical of this heart-warming series, he eventually triumphed with the touching support of his pupils.

Granted, like all documentaries of this nature, these real-life narratives are condensed into neat little arcs with convenient happy endings. The lives of some of the pupils at Frederick Bremer are obviously far more complicated than 60 minutes of populist entertainment will allow. But I can forgive the Educating franchise its contrivances.

The welcome antithesis of the cynical point-and-laugh exploitation that blights so much of Channel 4's factual output, it's clear that everyone involved in the project is fundamentally benign in their intentions. With the education system continually under fire, this exemplary series is, quite heroically, a compassionate political statement on its battered behalf.