TV Review: ORPHAN BLACK and EDUCATING YORKSHIRE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 21st September 2013.

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

Orphan Black: Friday, BBC3

Educating Yorkshire: Thursday, Channel 4

Paul Whitelaw

It's a question I'm sure we've all wrestled with: what would you do if you discovered you were just one of several identical clones? Would you be driven insane by the sheer existential horror of the discovery? Or would you, like Sarah, star of Anglo-Canadian sci-fi thriller Orphan Black, exploit it for your own ends?

Returning to her adopted New York, this insouciant English bohemian immediately bumped into her double, Beth, on a subway platform. The shock was compounded by Beth's subsequent suicide beneath an oncoming train. Spying a chance to literally begin a new life with her estranged daughter, Sarah wasted no time in stealing Beth's belongings and adopting her identity.

Naturally, the subterfuge didn't run smoothly. Beth, it transpired, was a rookie detective facing indictment for the accidental murder of a civilian. Fortunately, her partner, a permanently scowling cynic straight out of cop cliché central, was on hand to coach her replacement through the details of the case.

The scenes in which Sarah attempts to pass herself off as Beth are, while suspenseful, basically played for laughs. That Orphan Black has a knowing sense of its own absurdity is one of its saving graces. Slick and propulsive, it milks an intriguing central mystery – why do these clones exist, and who's responsible for bumping them off? - with helter skelter brio. But in chasing a self-consciously cool, cocky, sexy tone, it sacrifices emotional depth. It also suffers from some clunky dialogue and brazen exposition: thanks, Sarah, but you really don't need to read aloud from every piece of evidence you find.

Canadian actress Tatiana Maslaney copes admirably with a demanding multiple role, imbuing each clone – including snooty 'soccer mom' and hippy-geek versions of herself – with markedly different body language. Unfortunately, her English accent is shaky, and her brief yet ridiculous turn as a German clone, replete with red wig and 'Allo 'Allo overacting, comically undermined an ostensibly dramatic twist. 

It also doesn't help that Sarah's gay foster brother, who figures heavily as her partner in crime, is monumentally irritating. A haughty torrent of snide quippery, he comes across as a dislikeable bore, rather than the colourful catty funster he's presumably supposed to be.

Nevertheless, so far Orphan Black succeeds as an addictive slice of superficial hokum.

By treating its subjects with dignity and respect, the wholly benign Educating Yorkshire feels like a rare manifestation of modern-day Channel 4's deeply hidden conscience. A documentary observing life in an ordinary secondary school, it's a funny and poignant, but never saccharine, portrait of pupils and staff struggling against the odds.

The latest episode focused on two disruptive boys, whose exasperating behaviour threatened their future at the school. Typically, the programme sympathised with both sides, showing the vulnerability behind the troublemakers' noisy façades, as well as their teachers' determined efforts to help them as much as possible. Their fear of failing the children placed in their charge was palpable in its sincerity.

When teenage Tom's stepbrother died, his numbed grief quickly gave way to aggressive rebellion. Watching his collapse was troubling and sad. And yet despite dealing in such a sensitive area, the camera's gaze never felt prurient or intrusive. Educating Yorkshire is observational documentary-making at its best: life in the raw, captured with honesty, humour and compassion.

PREVIEWS

A Very British Murder

Monday, BBC4, 9pm

Playfully enthusiastic historian Lucy Worsley presents this new series examining Britain's fascination with murder. Skulking through the shadows of history, she tells the colourful and gruesome story of how newspapers began printing sensationalised murder reports in the early 19^th century, much to the delight of a ravenous public.

The Wrong Mans

Tuesday, BBC2, 9pm

James Corden and Horrible Histories' Mathew Baynton write and star in this entertaining comedy thriller about a hapless duo unwittingly involved in a violent kidnapping plot. Their avowed goal of delivering a sitcom infused with twist-laden 24/Homeland-style drama seems to have paid off.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Friday, Channel 4, 8pm

This drama from Joss Whedon (Buffy The Vampire Slayer; Avengers Assemble) arrives in the UK on a wave of hype. Whether it delivers remains to be seen. It begins with the formation of a global law-enforcement agency in a world still coming to terms with the existence of aliens and superheroes.

The IT Crowd: The Last Byte

Friday, Channel 4, 9pm

Graham Linehan's patchy sitcom bids farewell with a fitfully amusing special, in which Roy and Jen become internet hate figures following an incident with a tramp and a diminutive barista. Moss, meanwhile, discovers the benefits of confidence-boosting trousers.

TV Review: PEAKY BLINDERS/THE WIPERS TIMES

This article was originally published in The Courier on 14th September 2013.

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

Peaky Blinders: BBC2, Thursday

The Wipers Times: BBC2, Wednesday

Paul Whitelaw

Having enjoyed episodes two and three of gangster drama Peaky Blinders, I can assure the unconvinced that episode one was little more than an extended trailer for the main feature. So self-conscious was it in its desire to establish an over-stylised aesthetic – essentially an hallucinogenic, rock 'n' roll vision of industrial Birmingham in 1919 – that it forgot to introduce the actual story and characters in a compelling fashion.

Curiously undramatic for something that went out of its way to grab viewers by the throat, it was all flash and no trousers.

The deliberately anachronistic use on the soundtrack of The White Stripes and Nick Cave, whose doom-clanging Red Right Hand functions as a recurring leitmotif, did at least succeed in establishing the desired gangster gothic mood. Set in what looks like the furnace of hell itself, the soot-laden art direction also deserves credit.

But the episode struggled to settle on a comfortable tone, feeling at once like a determined effort to differentiate itself from US dramas such as Deadwood and Boardwalk Empire, to which it's inevitably been compared, and an inferior British cousin of those very shows.

The glacier-eyed Cillian Murphy plays Tommy, a damaged war veteran and leader of a local gang whose silly sobriquet derives from the gleaming razorblades sewn into their caps. After they came into possession of an arsenal of weapons, a barnstorming Belfast copper (Sam Neill) was tasked with recovering them under the orders of Churchill himself.

Chewing his lines like Van Morrison in a particularly foul mood, Neill effortlessly stole his scenes with a hammy performance perfectly in tune with Peaky Blinders' heightened atmosphere. Originally of Irish stock, his Belfast brogue, for which – I kid you not - he received tutelage from Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt, is flawless.

Murphy, meanwhile, is the charismatic calm in the eye of the storm, although his character doesn't really come alive until later. A disappointingly weak link is the usually reliable Helen McCrory as the gang's matriarch. Her terrible accent, which takes a wild tour around the regions every time she opens her gob, is so distracting it's hard to focus on her performance.

While it's refreshing to see a British period drama hurling itself into broad, bold and violent territory, I fear this muddled episode may have put people off. But when it settles down this week, it finally combines its surface sense of the ridiculous with an involving narrative. It's worth sticking with.

Set just a few years earlier, The Wipers Times told the potentially fascinating true story of a satirical magazine written by British soldiers and distributed throughout the trenches during World War One.

Co-written, appropriately enough, by Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, it adopted a wry, witty tone befitting the subject matter. Quipping like a pair of benevolent Blackadders, the frightfully posh officers and mag editors played by Ben Chaplin and Julian Rhind-Tutt were an engaging duo. But the story itself, despite initial promise, petered out long before closing time.

The repetitive encounters between the Wipers team, who printed anonymously for obvious reasons, and an antagonistic officer were a leaden attempt to inject more drama into proceedings. While an effective way of illustrating the magazine's contents, the cutaway sketches used throughout also felt like padding.

Nevertheless, it was a partially effective attempt at blending a 'war is hell' message with an affectionate celebration of an irreverent crew of forgotten morale-boosters.

ONE TO MISS

Father Figure

Wednesday, BBC1, 10:35pm

Written by and starring Irish comedian Jason Byrne, this aggravating family sitcom makes its obvious US antecedent, Home Improvement, look like a challenging piece of avant-garde theatre. Byrne leaves no cliché unturned: the hapless dad; the long-suffering wife; the interfering mother; the slobby best mate; the irritatingly over-confident moppet brats; the straight-laced Christian neighbours dutifully on hand to look aghast whenever Byrne falls over/breaks something. An awkward and predictable marriage of cartoon slapstick, tawdry sight-gags and cosy blandness, it finds itself buried in a graveyard slot for good reason.

TV Review: THE GUILTY/PAT & CABBAGE/THROUGH THE KEYHOLE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 7 September 2013.

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

The Guilty: Thursday, STV

Pat & Cabbage: Thursday, STV

Through The Keyhole: Saturday, STV

Paul Whitelaw

An ITV thriller so leaden and generic they may as well have called it 'A Crime Done Happened', The Guilty is remarkable only in that it takes an emotive subject – the abduction and murder of a child – and reduces it to nothing. What should've been a powerful drama exploring thought-provoking themes of guilt, deception and parental responsibility is instead just another corny, forgettable cop show.

Tamsin Greig plays the detective in charge of the investigation, although she spends most of her time looking distracted and confused, as though she's just wandered into shot by mistake. But I doubt any actor could breathe life into such a bland, uninteresting role.

Set in middle-class suburbia, it takes a hoary old theme – what darkness lurks behind the veneer of seemingly civilised society? - and does nothing new with it. It also suffers in comparison to recent dramas such as Broadchurch and Top Of The Lake, which covered similar territory in a far more effective fashion. But it does at least provide, however inadvertently, a useful tip for aspiring crime writers: if you're going to employ a recurring flashback device, do make sure that it adds to, rather than detracts from, the central mystery. A schoolboy error.

ITV scored another misfire with Pat & Cabbage, a terminally mild sitcom in which Barbara Flynn, channelling her inner Terry Scott, looks permanently aghast at the “irrepressible” antics of Cherie Lunghi.

They're best friends looking for love, which naturally leads them into a tired series of inconsequential japes. Pat (Flynn) is sensible, Cabbage (Lunghi) isn't. Peter Davison plays A Nice Man. Cabbage, the scamp, encourages Pat to stalk the Nice Man. A nation wonders why Pat would put up with such an irritating presence in her life. And what kind of a nickname is 'Cabbage' anyway? Episode one yielded no explanation. They're probably saving that comic bombshell for a later episode.

Like every barely remembered pre-watershed 1980s sitcom rolled into one soporific bundle, Pat & Cabbage is clumsily contrived and completely uninspired.

The sad news of David Frost's death was compounded last week by the horrifying revival of his fondly remembered parlour game, Through The Keyhole. Not so much updated as grievously assaulted, it's now yet another inexcusable vehicle for the charmless Keith Lemon, alias comedian Leigh Francis, whose continuing success is one of the most baffling mysteries of our age.

A uniquely talentless chancer who's milked a career from attaching himself to celebrities and occasionally dropping his trousers, Francis brings to Through The Keyhole all of the witlessness for which he's renowned. Although the format is essentially unchanged – a panel of celebrities try to guess the identity of a fellow celeb by being shown around their home – its most glaring alteration is that, in lieu of Lloyd Grossman, Francis doubles as host and snooper. This cruel bid to maximise his screen time results in him rummaging through wardrobes and trying on clothes. It's truly desperate stuff.

Back in the studio, Francis engaged in drivelling banter with celebrated humorists Eamonn Holmes, Martine McCutcheon and someone by the name of Dave Berry. I've absolutely no idea who this man is, but ITV evidently regard him as a major talent, since he's been installed as a regular panellist.

Oh, ITV. What hast thou wrought?

ONE TO MISS

Boom Town

Wednesday, BBC3, 10pm

Truly one of the direst, cheapest, most depressing sketch shows I've ever had the misfortune to witness, Boom Town is populated by useless non-professional actors whose various “quirks” - a hapless rapper, a boring trainspotter, a male witch – are paraded before our eyes as if they're funny in and of themselves. Staggering in its lack of effort and inspiration, this execrable dud is an insult, not only to viewers, but also to professional comedy writers and performers. You have been warned.

TV Review: WHAT REMAINS; WENTWORTH PRISON

This article was originally published in The Courier on 31st August 2013.

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

WHAT REMAINS

Sunday, BBC1

WENTWORTH PRISON

Wednesday, Five

Paul Whitelaw

Seemingly inspired by the sad case of Joyce Vincent, a young woman whose decomposing corpse lay undiscovered in her flat for over two years – which in turn formed the basis of the documentary Dreams Of A Life – WHAT REMAINS continues TV's current vogue for spreading misery over Sunday nights. Not that I'm complaining: Tony Basgallop's four-part drama is admirably restrained and wholly compelling.

Blessed with a winningly oppressive atmosphere – the action rarely leaves the confines of a shabby block of London flats – it's a skilfully constructed whodunit in which a shady group of neighbours are each considered suspects in the apparent murder of a fellow tenant.

While our introduction to the victim, Melissa, smacked of cliché – a lonely, overweight woman eating chocolate solemnly is dubious dramatic shorthand – the otherwise effective opening sequence, in which she climbed into her attic after being disturbed by creaking floorboards, climaxed with the shocking discovery, some years later, of her remains.

Enter David Threlfall as Len, a dry-witted detective mere hours from retirement. Resembling a crushed cigarette, this lonely widower looks like he hasn't had a good night's sleep in 40 years. He's the sort of character who, in clumsier hands, could easily come across as hackneyed. But Basgallop and Threlfall – a fine actor, happily now free of the dismal Shameless – imbue him with subtlety and charm.

Central to the overriding theme of loneliness in an uncaring society, Len recognises a kindred spirit in Melissa, who was apparently barely acknowledged by her neighbours. Even in an age when we're supposedly more connected than ever, it's still possible for people to fall through the cracks. By depicting the police as disinterested in Melissa's case, Basgallop makes us root for Len, who's essentially a sympathetic civilian struggling to bring dignity to a stranger's tragic end. This underlying compassion lends What Remains a depth uncommon to your average murder mystery.

It's also elegantly directed by Coky Giedroyc (sister of Mel, fact fans), who builds suspense by shooting the house as though it's a cracked, gloomy prison, where danger lurks around every corner.

Which brings us, in a not-at-all-contrived fashion, to WENTWORTH PRISON, the enjoyably melodramatic reboot of Australian soap, Prisoner: Cell Block H. Although self-consciously in-your-face and over-stylised, it wisely retains the camp appeal of the original.

Introduced through the terrified eyes of first-time prisoner Bea – who suffers from a serious case of flashback-itis - Wentworth is home to the usual parade of female prison clichés: the stern governess, the kindly guard, the lesbian 'top dog' etc. But seeing as the original series partially fashioned those archetypes in the first place, that's forgiveable.

And at least it's never boring. The propulsive opener found time for a botched drug smuggling scam, an aggressive cell search, a violent confrontation between rival top dogs, and a bloody – in both literal and colloquial terms - climax in which Bea was wrongly implicated in the murder of a guard.

Of course, piling so much trauma on poor Bea over such a short space of time is very funny. That the makers obviously realise this themselves is why Wentworth Prison might be worth sticking with. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but nor does it feel like a smug post-modern spoof. It's fun.

ONE TO MISS

THE INSIDER

Monday, BBC3, 9pm

This monumentally tedious reality show finds a group of young applicants battling it out for their dream job. The twist, such as it is, is that one of them is secretly employed by the company in question, and therefore able to report back to their bosses. It suffers from a fatal lack of tension, coming across instead as a comedy-free Apprentice clone. The manufactured conflict, upon which such shows thrive, fails to materialise between the applicants – an Essex Boy, a scatty Oxford graduate, a rampant egomaniac, a self-confessed manipulator, and a normal person – so, frankly, what's the point?

TV Review: TOP OF THE LAKE/THE MILL/SOUTHCLIFFE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 24th August 2013.

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

TOP OF THE LAKE

Saturday, BBC2

THE MILL

Sunday, Channel 4

SOUTHCLIFFE

Sunday, Channel 4

Paul Whitelaw

Over a month of gruelling misery came to a close last weekend, with the climactic instalments of three cheer-shy TV dramas. The first to disappear was TOP OF THE LAKE, writer/director Jane Campion's uneven journey into the blackened heart of a remote New Zealand community.

Anyone hoping for surprises would've been disappointed by its underwhelming conclusion. Admittedly more of a psychological thriller than a conventional whodunnit, it still felt inevitable that sleazy police chief Al was orchestrating a subterranean paedophile ring, and therefore the cause of Tui's pregnancy and disappearance. Horrifying subject matter, obviously. But Campion undermined the impact by playing her hand too early.

As the series progressed it became gradually more apparent that Tui's monstrous father, played by a rivet-gargling Peter Mullan, was a psychotic red herring. And anyone paying attention would've already sussed that he was Detective Robin's real father. Likewise, Al's undisguised corruption, children's scholarship scheme, immigrant-staffed café, and desperate need for Robin to “redeem” him, made it all too obvious who the culprit was.

Meanwhile, the sub-plot involving the commune for abused women went nowhere. Yes, that was the point – you won't find easy answers by escaping to paradise, especially when Hell is on your doorstep – but it felt too insubstantial to allow such ambiguities.

Instead, Campion's overriding theme of violent female exploitation found its most potent voice in Robin, played impeccably – wandering accent and all - by Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss. Alas, this often implausible and lethargic drama, as atmospheric though it undoubtedly was, rarely equalled Moss's intelligent, powerful, nuanced performance.

Also impressive in a similarly demanding role was Kerrie Hayes as Esther, the serially victimised cotton worker in THE MILL. Having been torn through, well, the mill during this engrossing series, the indomitable rebel finally found her vital sense of identity in a poignant, rabble-rousing climax.

Everything BBC1's terminally dull The Village should've been, this factually-inspired period piece may have flirted with melodrama and borderline comedy-bleakness, but it ultimately succeeded as a compassionate and convincing evisceration of British slave labour during the Industrial Revolution. Writer John Fay hopes to follow the inhabitants of Quarry Bank Mill through subsequent generations. Come on, Channel 4, you know what to do.

Finally, fleetingly, SOUTHCLIFFE, the best British TV drama of 2013. If you missed it, I urge you to immerse yourself in this sensitive and devastating account of the aftermath of

a spree killing in a fictional English market town. Miserable as sin? Yes. Gratuitously so? No. It's haunting, it lingers. I promise we'll have more fun next week.

ONE TO MISS

CHICKENS

Thursday, Sky1, 9:30pm

Not even the usually welcome presence of Barry Humphries can save this uninspired sitcom from erstwhile Inbetweeners Simon Bird and Joe Thomas. Together with co-writer/star Jonny Sweet, they play young men avoiding service, for various reasons, during the First World War. Apart from its dearth of decent jokes, it suffers from Bird and Thomas' fatal lack of range. Even if they were cast as flamboyant Colombian assassins, they'd still deliver the same student-sarcasm performance. Watching the Inbetweeners bicker witlessly in an Edwardian setting is about as enticing as a poisoned egg. 

Welcome To The View From My Television

This article was originally published in The Courier on 23rd August 2013.

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

WELCOME TO THE VIEW FROM MY TELEVISION

Paul Whitelaw

Whenever I tell people what I do for a living, their usual response is, “That must be fun!” followed quickly by, “But you must have to watch an awful lot of rubbish.” To which the dual-pronged answer is: “Yes. And no, not really.”

Despite what people who don't actually watch TV may tell you, its wealth and variety mean it's very easy to avoid drivel if you keep your eyes peeled.

Granted, one of the most glaring side-effects of our multi-channel age is there are more repeats on TV than ever before. But if this increase allows the dedicated channel-hopper swift access to old episodes of Bob's Full House, Cheers and The Sweeney, then it's hardly the crime of the century. If you love TV, then you'll always find the good stuff.

There's a downside, of course. Channel 4 and its pointless offshoots E4 and More4 – imagine two Andrew Ridgeleys flanking a past-his-prime George Michael – are now a knackered flotilla steered by endless repeats of Come Dine With Me. The tragic decline of C4 is a nagging bugbear of mine. If you also find yourself staring aghast at what it's become over the last decade, then I'm sure we'll get on famously.

I promised myself I'd remain positive during this article, but let's take a moment to clarify why C4, that former bastion of innovative and experimental television, currently represents everything that's wrong with British culture. Its recent glut of nasty, reactionary, benefits-bashing documentaries are little more than sneering government propaganda. In this time of deep recession and life-destroying cuts, they're howlingly irresponsible.

But they're indicative of a general malaise at C4, where leering 'body-shock' documentaries and point-and-laugh shows about travellers are deemed perfectly legitimate. It's only a matter of time before it abandons programming altogether, in favour of rolling 24-hour coverage of benefits claimants and gypsies being pelted with spoons.

And yet despite its otherwise tawdry demeanour, C4 still has one saving grace: drama. Recent highlights such as Complicit, The Mill, Southcliffe and mesmerising French import The Returned are among the best TV of 2013. The latter may have been a blatant attempt by C4 to jump on BBC4's European drama bandwagon, but who cares when the rewards were so gratifying? Wouldn't you rather it devoted more time to programmes of such quality and distinction, rather than yet another dismal Gordon Ramsay vehicle in which he pretends to care about the fortunes of a Dingwall tearoom? I know I would.

Meanwhile, ITV should be cautiously applauded for its efforts to rescue its tarnished reputation. It may still be home to the inexplicable Paddy McGuinness, but at least it's trying to improve its drama slate with the likes of Broadchurch. And regardless of what you thought of them, Vicious and The Job Lot signalled an encouraging new commitment to prime-time sitcom.

But what of the BBC? Although it increasingly resembles a desperate academic struggling to keep control of an endangered department, dear old BBC4 is still a reliable source of pleasure. Aside from showing the acclaimed likes of The Killing and The Bridge, it continues its noble pursuit of producing documentaries on absolutely any subject, no matter how arcane. BBC4 has always been secure in the knowledge that someone, somewhere will be interested in watching programmes about Jacobean armchairs, Lieutenant Pigeon, and Jonathan Meades declaiming adjectives in car parks.

Sadly, this relatively niche channel has been battered by budget cuts. As part of the government-induced Delivering Quality First cost-saving strategy – dwell on that irony all you like - BBC4 recently axed its successful sideline of showbiz biopics, although at least it bowed out with Burton and Taylor, one of its better efforts.

It's also unlikely that BBC4 has enough petty cash to produce more underrated gems such as quietly scathing NHS comedy Getting On. Big mainstream hitters such as Mrs Brown's Boys and Miranda are all very well (I suppose), but I hope the smaller, more distinctive shows don't fall through the the cracks.

As an unabashed comedy nerd, I'll doubtless be peppering these pages with deranged attacks on ubiquitous bête noires such as Jimmy Carr, Noel Fielding, Keith Lemon and practically every failed effort coughed up by BBC3. Please accept my apologies in advance. But I'll also be celebrating the superior likes of Peep Show, Fresh Meat, Outnumbered, Would I Lie To You?, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, It's Kevin, The Graham Norton Show, Parks and Recreation, and My Mad Fat Diary.

Attacking a dreadful piece of TV can be cathartic. A perverse pleasure is gained from casting an appalled eye over the likes of bewildering Saturday night game show I Love My Country, which provides a terrifying glimpse of what a totalitarian regime governed by Micky Flanagan might look like. But every Saturday in the Courier I'll always find time to highlight stuff you might enjoy. Life's tough enough without dwelling on the dregs.

Highlights over the next few months include the Doctor Who 50^th anniversary special, in which the outgoing Matt Smith is joined by John Hurt and previous incumbent David Tennant, and also Mark Gatiss' keenly anticipated drama about the origins of the show, An Adventure In Space In Time. Oh, and some Scottish-Italian bloke is taking Smith's place at Christmas, apparently.

Also coming soon are BBC1's Saturday evening family adventure Atlantis, BBC2's European acquisition Generation War, which has been described as a German Band Of Brothers, and, on dear old Channel 4, Shane Meadows' This Is England '90. They may not all succeed, but they'll all deserve scrutiny. TV is an eternally maddening, enriching and fascinating medium. Let's have at it.  

TV Preview: TOP BOY

This article was originally published in The Scotsman on 17th August 2013.

http://www.scotsman.com/what-s-on/tv-radio/tv-preview-top-boy-1-3050106

TOP BOY

Tuesday, Channel 4, 9pm

Paul Whitelaw

Channel 4 is a frustrating beast. With its halcyon days at the vanguard of experimental, alternative, socially inclusive television long gone, it now spends most of its time sneering at the poor and gawping at misshapen testicles: the TV equivalent of a particularly objectionable Daily Mail columnist.

And yet as everything crumbles around it, C4's drama slate continues to impress. With the recent likes of Southcliffe, The Mill and, now, the second series of TOP BOY, it's the last bastion of quality in an otherwise devastated field. But even that has its downside: it makes virtually everything else on the channel look even worse by comparison.

In any case, Top Boy, an unflinching crime drama set on a fictional estate in Hackney, east London, is one of British TV's most distinctive dramas. While series one attracted inevitable comparisons with The Wire – both provide rounded portraits of street-level drug dealers in deprived urban areas – Top Boy deserves to be judged on its own merits.

Written by Hackney resident Ronan Bennett (The Hamburg Cell; Hidden), it's drawn from research into the lives of locals, which lends the characterisation, setting and slang-heavy dialogue a ring of authenticity. Plus, the performances from the predominantly young black cast are entirely free of affectation.

Now, I'm a white arts critic from Fife, so I've obviously no idea if Top Boy actually delivers an accurate portrayal of east London crime culture. But I'm convinced by the wealth of little side details – kids rapping awkwardly on an overpass, banter in the hair salon, the boy who mystifyingly talks with his hand covering his mouth – which feel like observations based on experience.

Ashley Walters stars as Dushane, whose goal of becoming 'Top Boy' – i.e. the drug dealing king of his estate – was grasped at the end of series one. However, his affluent lifestyle is threatened by a police investigation into the murder of a rival. Meanwhile, property developers are forcing local businesses from the area, as Dushane's gang set their sights on a cartel of Albanian criminals.

Charming, bright and quietly charismatic, Dushane's likeability masks an inner ruthlessness: like Tony Soprano, he's a screen 'villain' whose dichotomous personality deliberately wrong-foots the viewer and shakes them from complacency. Bennett makes us care about his plight, but never attempts to excuse his behaviour.

Preoccupied with themes of family loyalty, vulnerable children trapped in a violent environment, and the debilitating effects of greed on both a corporate and street level, Top Boy gets its points across without recourse to heavy-handed moralising. The political dimension is implicit, rather than confronted directly. And despite its brutal surface, it also benefits from a welcome jolt of humour: the banal reality of crime is often more ridiculous than scaremongering media reports would have you believe.

Refreshingly devoid of glamour, Top Boy is a tense, kinetic, utterly engrossing drama, fluidly directed by Jonathan van Tulleken and, as he skilfully weaves together several characters and storylines, impressively realised by Bennett. It's richly human drama.

And that, dear reader, is it. After over six years of watching TV and scribbling shapes for yer Scotsman, I've decided to move on to pastures new. But it's been a hoot and/or optional holler. Please don't talk about me when I'm gone.