This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 10 December 2016.
IN PLAIN SIGHT: Wednesday, STV
THIS IS US: Tuesday, Channel 4
What
with Reg Christie on BBC One and Peter Manuel on ITV, we’re spoiled for choice
when it comes to post-war serial killers this Christmas. Nothing encapsulates
the spirit of the season more than murderous psychopaths.
Spread
over three episodes, IN PLAIN SIGHT
stars Martin Compston as Lanarkshire-based Manuel, who was convicted of
murdering seven people between 1956 and his final arrest in 1958. His toll
accounted for almost a third of the people murdered in Scotland during that
time.
It
also stars Douglas Henshall as Detective William Muncie, the unsung hero who
doggedly pursued Manuel. As the body-count rose following Manuel’s release,
Muncie had no doubts about the killer’s identity. And yet Manuel, through
sheer, brazen cunning, repeatedly eluded capture.
They
first met in 1946, when Muncie arrested Manuel, then only nineteen, for a
string of burglaries and sexual assaults.
According
to the screenplay by Nick Stevens, Manuel never forgave Muncie for sending him
to prison for nine years, hence why he took such perverse pleasure in openly
taunting the policeman during his subsequent killing spree.
Although
there’s no such thing as a typical psychopath, Manuel embodied the
grandiloquent delusions of genius and untouchability we commonly associate with
serial killers. Of course, that’s because the likes of Manuel have influenced
generations of crime fiction authors.
It’s
therefore tempting to suspect that Stevens has packaged a real-life case into a
straightforward tale of good versus evil. Or is it that we’re so used to
fictional narratives along these lines, we’ve forgotten that such
black-and-white cases do actually exist? To paraphrase a cliché, sometimes
truth is more horrifying than fiction.
Stevens
has apparently done his research, and – bearing in mind that relatives of
Manuel’s victims are still alive - he should be commended for leaving those
murders to the imagination. They’re alluded to, but never shown. The scene in
which he terrorised a young girl for three hours before releasing her was all
we needed to fear his unhinged cruelty.
This
particular case, during which Manuel successfully defended himself in court,
illustrated the era’s disgraceful attitudes towards female victims of assault.
Via Manuel’s manipulations, the girl was dismissed as a harlot.
Compston,
to his immense credit, is authentically detestable as Manuel. No scenery was
chewed in the making of this programme. His cocky smirk and sleazy facsimile of
wide-boy charm are monstrous enough.
Henshall
is equally understated as Muncie. Despite contending with “You’re too close to
this case!” clichés, he’s thoroughly convincing as a decent man who, through
thwarted experience, has sorrowfully accepted that criminally insane killers
are a rare yet unknowable fact of life.
Billed
as a Thirtysomething for the 21st
century, THIS IS US is a risibly
earnest and sentimental US drama about a group of navel-gazing 36-year-olds who
happen to share the same birthday. Mired in Hallmark schmaltz, it strains
towards profundity like a constipated poet.
Our
cardboard archetypes are a hunky sitcom actor suffering a crisis of integrity,
his overweight sister embarking on a relationship with a nice man from her
Weightwatchers class, a successful businessman meeting his biological father
for the first time, and – in an admittedly unexpected twist – a couple whose
storyline takes place in 1980, thus providing the glue that melds these
characters together.
God
knows we need some uplift in these dark and depressing times, but This Is Us will only provide comfort to
viewers with an unquestioning tolerance for banal, cookie-cutter wisdom.
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